Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex
William D. Hartung
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1568584202
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
As a full-service weapons maker, Lockheed Martin receives over $25 billion per year in Pentagon contracts. From aircraft and munitions, to the abysmal Star Wars missile defense program, to the spy satellites that the NSA has used to monitor Americans’ phone calls without their knowledge, Lockheed Martin’s reaches into all areas of US defense and American life. William Hartung’s meticulously researched history follows the company’s meteoric growth and explains how this arms industry giant has shaped US foreign policy for decades.
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Hundreds of “bomblets” that can have an explosive impact on an area the size of three football fields, spreading shrapnel along the way. Although it is important to note that Hezbollah forces also fired missiles into northern Israel, including one hundred or more Chinese-made rockets packed with cluster munitions, the issue has been the extent to which Israel’s attack was disproportionate, and whether it put civilians at risk unnecessarily. The attacks were devastating and indiscriminate enough.
Specialized in military transports, and it was running out of work on that front. The practice of doling out contracts according to the financial needs of the arms makers rather than the merits of a particular weapons design is a long-standing practice in the military-industrial complex, where the investments needed to keep factories at the ready to build modern armaments can run into the billions of dollars. As a result, a symbiotic relationship has developed between the Pentagon and its top.
Only part of the story. After all, as the plane’s proponents had argued, what’s a billion dollars or two extra when you’re building something that is absolutely essential for national security? The “need” for the plane hinged in large part on whether one thought the United States needed to have the power to intervene anywhere in the world on short notice. Lockheed and the Air Force viewed this capability as a plus, while critics like Senator Fulbright saw it as a dangerous tool that could embroil.
Benefit of a government rescue plan. He noted that not only had 37 Oklahoma firms declared bankruptcy in the first five months of 1971, but over 4,700 companies had done so nationwide over the same time period. He further noted that “the total economic impact of these closings would exceed the effect of the end of the L-1011 project.”31 Maverick Connecticut Republican Lowell Weicker joined the charge against the loan guarantee bill by questioning the veracity of Lockheed’s figures on the.
Placed “considerable responsibility” on the shoulders of the U.S. government to help a company that had heeded “a call to arms to help equip the nation for national defense”; and that the U.S. government could suffer a loss of tax revenues of up to $500 million if the L-1011 went down, twice the level of the loan guarantees being sought. Cranston’s closing argument cited the symbiotic relationship between the Pentagon and mega-contractors like Lockheed, suggesting that these firms were in essence.