The Political Culture of the Metropolitan-Military Complex

Like many modern historians’ concepts, the notion of political culture comes to us from the social sciences, especially anthropology and political science. One assumes that political culture is a term familiar to most readers. The term metropolitan-military complex may require some explanation. I coined the phrase some years ago when undertaking a study of San Francisco politics. At the time, the inquiry was fairly conventional. Yet as I worked through the struggles over municipal services, labor and management problems, political structure, mass transit, minorities, parties, reformers, bosses, and so forth, the role of the military loomed ever larger. The longer the military was investigated, the more important that role appeared to be. Eventually, I changed the focus of my study from politics, conventionally defined, to the relationship between cities and the military. President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the term military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address to describe an alliance among technicians, congressmen, bureaucrats, military men, and businessmen. He did not define his words rigorously, but he left the definite impression that the military-industrial complex (MIC) was national in scope and something close to a conspiracy on behalf of greater defense spending. The president also implied that the MIC had only recently appeared. Subsequent commentators on the subject have largely followed this approach, stressing the importance of conspiracy, militarism, Washington bureaucrats, big business, and big congressmen. They have also accepted the World War II or cold war origins of the alliance as well as its national scope.