[There] exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.

— Senator Daniel K Inouye

In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex.. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together

— President Eisenhower – January 1961

The above address by two-term Republican US President and five- star Army General Dwight Eisenhower was issued as a prescient warning when he left office in 1961. Many have wondered why such a conservative, pro-military president would issue such a warning. We now know why.

Since the end of the Second World War, the US military industrial complex has secretly sponsored at great public cost the R&D of new technologies for energy generation, air and outer space flight, futuristic weaponry and other mostly military ends, which have not been made available for the common good. Yet today’s environmental and economic emergencies dictate that the accumulated know-how be used for the benefit of mankind in its peaceful applications.