Does ideology alone explain the Cold War, or was Ike warning of something else when he cautioned Americans about the undue influence of the Military-Industrial Complex? (In Ike's Farewell Address, he deleted reference to Congress among the influence peddlers only at the last minute.)
War is evil, but some industrialists and generals might like it because promotions are easy, influence is enormous, and profits are large in periods of conflict, so can there be any doubt that some in these professions, upon conquering one foe, might start casting about for another?
Author Derek Leebaert has some interesting insights in his excellent work on the Cold War, The Fifty-Yar Wound, including scathing criticism of the CIA, where he notes that agency analysts could be certified as fluent in French after a couple of hours over tea and biscuits with an elderly Frenchwoman, to cite merely one example of what the author claims was widespread incompetence and bureaucratic blundering at the spy shop. Highly recommended.
From Amazon's revues, selected quotes:
"For the United States, the price of victory goes far beyond the dollars spent on warheads, foreign aid, soldiers, propaganda, and intelligence. It includes, for instance, time wasted, talent misdirected, secrecy imposed, and confidence impaired. Particular costs were imposed on industry, science, and the universities. Trade was distorted and growth impeded."
"CIA world-order men whose intrigues more often than not started at the incompetent and went down from there, White House claims of 'national security' to conceal deceit, and the creation of huge special interests in archaic spending all too easily occurred because most Americans were not preoccupied with the struggle."
"Ultimately the cost of America's effort was felt as a waste of spirit."
The Fifty Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
A reviewer from Canada notes:
Regarding 9-11's use of hijacked airliners as weapons, Leebaert states that the President and Secretary of Defense, "...each told the nation that no one had imagined the prospect...," (p. 617). Yet the topic was known to the US intelligence community since at least January 1995 when Al-Qaeda's plans for Project Bojinka to implement "the prospect" were discovered by Philippine police. Again in February of that year FBI agents were told of such a plot by the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and at the individual's 1997 bombing trial the strategy was discussed, as documented in Ahmed's The War on Freedom.
Ike's warning was prescient; the insidious influence of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex insures that the United States of America will have the best enemies money can buy.
S