The Sellout

Summary

President Eisenhower in his 1961 Presidential farewell speech to the nation warned about what he termed the defense industrial complex. In the years since this speech was given and throughout the Cold War era to the present, corporations solely dedicated to the production of the weapons of war have flourished. Gone were the days, such as those during WWII, where companies devoted to the production of consumer goods could be quickly shifted to a wartime footing.  The post WW II Cold War, on both sides of the Atlantic, spawned entire industries whose only purpose was and still is to produce weapons of war. With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early '90s, this very lucrative arms market faced the real possibility of becoming passe. But as President Eisenhower so presciently predicted, in 1961, the defense industrial complex was not about to allow this vast source of revenue to collapse; and the Middle East became the new player on a redecorated stage under the direction of the same two Cold War adversaries.

©2015 Frederick John Moll (P)2021 Frederick John Moll