Cinema's Military Industrial Complex

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
World War ◽  
Film Exhibition ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Military

Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas I. Faith
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

This book documents the institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the U.S. Army organization responsible for chemical warfare, from its origins in 1917 through Amos A. Fries's departure as CWS chief in 1929. It examines the U.S. chemical warfare program as it developed before the nation began sending soldiers to fight in France during World War I; the American Expeditionary Force's experiences with poison gas on the Western Front; the CWS's struggle to continue its chemical weapons program in a hostile political environment after the war; and CWS efforts to improve its public image as well as its reputation in the military in the first half of the 1920s. The book concludes with an assessment of the CWS's successes and failures in the second half of the 1920s. Through the story of the CWS, the book shows how the autonomy of the military-industrial complex can be limited when policymakers are confronted with pervasive, hostile public opinion.

The War Against the New Deal: World War II and American Democracy By Brian Waddell. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. 236p. $39.00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 650-631
Author(s):  
Donald R. Brand
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Trade Association ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
World War ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Military ◽  
The New Deal

This book argues that the transition from the New Deal to a mobilized wartime economy during World War II restored corporate hegemony in collaboration with a state apparatus dominated by military elites. The purported losers in this transition were New Deal reformers committed to a planned economy and an extensive social welfare state, and groups like labor and small business whose interests were represented by reform elites. Organized chronologically, Waddell's account traces the development of the military-industrial complex from the War Industries Board in World War I to what Waddell asserts is a neocorporatist pattern of governance that had become established by the late 1940s and early 1950s. For the intervening years, he devotes attention to the trade association movement of the 1920s, the National Recovery Administration in the early 1930s, the New Deal turn to Keynesian economics, Harry Truman and the Marshall Plan, and the National Security Act of 1947; but the book focuses on the three periods associated with mobilization for World War II. These three periods are prewar mobilization from September, 1939 to December, 1941; the institutionalization of wartime mobilization from early 1942 through early 1943; and the battles over postwar reconversion that began in 1943 and continued into the immediate postwar era.

The Political Economy of the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Baack ◽  
Edward Ray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Military

Despite the attention given by scholars to the military-industrial complex few studies have attempted to pinpoint and explain its origin. In this paper we argue that the coalescing of business, military, and political interest groups in support of a military build-up in the United States during peacetime occurred in the years between the Civil War and World War I. It was during this period that we observe the roots of institutional arrangements between the military and industry for the purpose of large-scale weapons acquisitions.

An Organizational Perspective on the Military-Industrial Complex

1978 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Cuff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
World War ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Military ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Relationship

Is there a “military-industrial complex” in the United States? What is the relationship between business, government, and the military with its needs for vast quantities of goods and services? How has organization for war and defense changed since the demands of World War I first made such questions important? How much do we know about what actually happened between World War I and Vietnam to change the relationship between private and public organizations? Professor Cuff discusses the complexities involved in trying to answer such historical questions, and prescribes a professional historian's regimen for future work on this subject.

The Truman Administration and the Enlistment of the Aviation Industry in Postwar Defense

1974 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Mrozek
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
National Defense ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
The Military

At the end of World War II, by far the most significant pressure for integrating the aviation industry into national defense planning came neither from the major aircraft firms nor from the military. Instead, the Truman administration played the leading role in forging an important link in what later came to be called the “military-industrial complex.” Smaller businessmen and local politicians proved constant and eager supporters of that policy.

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