DOCSLIB.ORG

Industrial Complex, Power Elite, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Industrial Complex, Power Elite, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 6-2021 The Political Economy of American Militarism: The Military- Industrial Complex, Power Elite, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq Randy S. La Prairie Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons Recommended Citation La Prairie, Randy S., "The Political Economy of American Militarism: The Military- Industrial Complex, Power Elite, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq" (2021). Dissertations. 3733. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/3733 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AMERICAN MILITARISM: THE MILITARY- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, POWER ELITE, AND THE 2003 INVASION OF IRAQ by Randy S. La Prairie A dissertation submitted to the Graduate College in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Western Michigan University June 2021 Doctoral Committee Ronald Kramer, Ph.D., Chair Barry Goetz, Ph.D. Gregory Howard, Ph.D. Paul Clements, Ph.D. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AMERICAN MILITARISM: THE MILITARY- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, POWER ELITE, AND THE 2003 INVASION OF IRAQ Randy S. La Prairie, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2021 Sociologists have paid little attention to the structural causes of American participation in wars. Consequently, the discipline offers few theoretical perspectives on American war making. Sociological theories that do exist fall under two headings: state-centric and Marxist theories. Both lack prima facie plausibility. In this dissertation, I advance a unique, alternative theoretical framework that I argue offers a more tenable theory of American militarism in the post-World War II period. The elite model of war mobilization, as I refer to it, consists of five interrelated structural causes of American participation in wars: (1) state-capitalist imperialism; (2) elite control of public policy; (3) imperial ideology; (4) elite control of the mass media; and (5) elite influence on academia. The foundations of the theory are a military-industrial complex theory and a power elite model of politics and culture. Most recent theoretical work on the causes of American militarism focuses on the 2003 Iraq War. In this study, then, I present a process tracing analysis of the invasion of Iraq that demonstrates that an elite model of war mobilization provides a fuller, more historically accurate explanation of the Iraq War than either state-centric or Marxist theories. The elite model suggests that two pressures for war emerge from the military-industrial complex: a drive for concentrated decision-making power in the executive branch, and profit-making opportunities for private defense firms. A major finding of this study is that the Bush administration’s internal reasons for invading Iraq correspond to these two imperatives. In turn, the power elite social status of key administration officials largely explains why they accepted and acted on these imperatives. A virulent form of imperial ideology also contributed to their decision to invade Iraq. As also predicted by the model, the Bush administration controlled the mass media marketing of their war campaign, successfully mobilizing public support for the war. And though the war was not widely accepted among academics, many prominent academics supported the war on the basis of neo-Wilsonian assumptions that were popular in the academy in the 1990s and which also informed the administration’s worldview and Iraq policy. © 2021 Randy S. La Prairie ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my dissertation committee for their patience and guidance as I carried out the research for this dissertation and wrote up the results. It was an ambitious and challenging project that required crossing disciplinary boundaries and employing unconventional methods for a sociologist. So, thank you to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Ronald Kramer, to Dr. Barry Goetz and Dr. Gregory Howard, and to Dr. Paul Clements, who, for an outside committee member, played an especially large role in shaping this dissertation. I must also recognize and thank my partner, Jessica, for her tremendous support and affection while I wrote this dissertation. It would not have turned out as well as it did without her. Randy S. La Prairie ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... ii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................. vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: THEORETICAL SOCIOLOGY OF WAR AND THE INVASION OF IRAQ ...........................................................................................................................1 The Argument ............................................................................................................ 4 Significance of the Research ...................................................................................... 9 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Research Design ................................................. 13 A Note on the Author’s Background and Assumptions .......................................... 14 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................16 State-Centric Theories of War ................................................................................. 17 Marxist Theories of Militarism and Imperialism ..................................................... 20 The American Anti-War Scholarly Tradition .......................................................... 26 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 36 3. MILITARISM, IMPERIALISM, AND THE AMERICAN SOCIAL SYSTEM: A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF WAR ...............................................................39 State-Capitalist Imperialism .................................................................................... 42 iii Table of Contents—Continued CHAPTER Power Elite Control of Public Policy ....................................................................... 49 Imperial Ideology ..................................................................................................... 58 The Doctrinal System: The Media ........................................................................... 62 The Doctrinal System: Academia ............................................................................ 66 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 71 4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ...........................................................................72 Adequate Causation and Process Tracing ................................................................ 72 Necessary and Facilitating Conditions Established by the Elite Model of War Mobilization ............................................................................................................. 75 Research Design ...................................................................................................... 76 Best Practices for Process Tracing ........................................................................... 78 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Research Design ......................................... 80 5. THE 2003 US INVASION OF IRAQ: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND PRECIPITATING EVENTS ............................................................................................82 Historical Background: US-Iraq Relations, 1954-2001 ........................................... 82 The Buildup to the Invasion: January 2001-March 19, 2003 .................................. 93 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 110 6. STATE-CAPITALIST IMPERIALISM AND THE IRAQ WAR ....................................112 State-Capitalist Imperialism and the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq ................. 112 iv Table of Contents—Continued CHAPTER Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 126 7. ELITE CONTROL OF POLITICS AND THE IRAQ WAR ............................................128 Social, Political, and Corporate Backgrounds of the Key Architects .................... 129 The Bush Administration’s Think Tank-Corporate Interlocks .............................. 145 Summary: Power Elite Control of the Executive Branch ...................................... 146 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 149 8. IMPERIALIST IDEOLOGY AND THE IRAQ WAR .....................................................151 Bush’s Hardline Unilateralism: History and Characteristics ................................. 152 The 1992 Defense Planning Guidance ..................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Building a Movement in the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
    Building A Movement In The Non-Profit Industrial Complex Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Michelle Oyakawa Graduate Program in Sociology The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee: Korie Edwards, Advisor Andrew Martin Steve Lopez Copyrighted by Michelle Mariko Oyakawa 2017 Abstract Today, democracy in the United States is facing a major challenge: Wealthy elites have immense power to influence election outcomes and policy decisions, while the political participation of low-income people and racial minorities remains relatively low. In this context, non-profit social movement organizations are one of the key vehicles through which ordinary people can exercise influence in our political system and pressure elite decision-makers to take action on matters of concern to ordinary citizens. A crucial fact about social movement organizations is that they often receive significant financial support from elites through philanthropic foundations. However, there is no research that details exactly how non-profit social movement organizations gain resources from elites or that analyzes how relationships with elite donors impact grassroots organizations’ efforts to mobilize people to fight for racial and economic justice. My dissertation aims to fill that gap. It is an ethnographic case study of a multiracial statewide organization called the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) that coordinates progressive social movement organizations in Ohio. Member organizations work on a variety of issues, including ending mass incarceration, environmental justice, improving access to early childhood education, and raising the minimum wage. In 2016, the OOC registered over 155,000 people to vote in Ohio.
    [Show full text]
  • Jones (Stephen) Oklahoma City Bombing Archive, 1798 – 2003 (Bulk 1995 – 1997)
    JONES (STEPHEN) OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING ARCHIVE, 1798 ± 2003 (BULK 1995 ± 1997). See TARO record at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/03493/cah-03493.html (Approximately 620 linear feet) This collection is open for research use. Portions are restricted due to privacy concerns. See Archivist's Note for more details. Use of DAT and Beta tapes by appointment only; please contact repository for more information. This collection is stored remotely. Advance notice required for retrieval. Contact repository for retrieval. Cite as: Stephen Jones Oklahoma City Bombing Archive, 1798 ± 2003 (Bulk 1995 ± 1997), Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. [AR 98-395; 2003-055; 2005-161] ______________________________________________________________________________ BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Stephen Jones (born 1940) was appointed in May 1995 by the United States District Court in Oklahoma City to serve as the lead defense attorney for Timothy McVeigh in the criminal court case of United States of America v. Timothy James McVeigh and Terry Lynn Nichols. On April 19, 1995, two years to the day after the infamous Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, a homemade bomb delivered inside of a Ryder rental truck was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Timothy McVeigh, as well as his accomplice Terry Nichols, were accused of and, in 1997, found guilty of the crime, and McVeigh was executed in 2001. Terry Nichols is still serving his sentence of 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole in the ADX Florence super maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado.
    [Show full text]
  • Dynamics of Financialization After the Crisis? How Finance (Still) Gets Its Way
    Dynamics of financialization after the crisis? How finance (still) gets its way Julie Froud Manchester Business School and Centre for Research in Socio‐Cultural Change (CRESC), UK Outline • Starting point: finance is not humbled, (despite current crisis, the resulting bailouts and large losses imposed in terms of foregone GDP and imposed austerity). But growing concerns about ‘imbalance’ • Explaining this as a story about power and elites, mainly about the UK (noting specificities of financialization), but with relevance elsewhere, by: a) looking back at C Wright Mills and b) moving forward with the finance and point value complex. • The aim is to highlight the pervasive, programmatic power of finance. To understand financialization, we have to understand many things. So, a contribution to a collective endeavour. (1) Finance unreformed The story so far… Unreformed finance a) investment banking • Half‐hearted reform in UK: limited structural change ‐> no major bank break‐up; ring fencing of investment banking, not separation; few constraints on long chain leveraged finance; (still) low capital requirements; bonuses survive (eg HSBC Feb 2014) and redundancies postponed • Scandals continue: Libor, exchange rate fixing (even after Libor) Collusion, manipulation of rates ‐> profit and bonus implications; Barclays Capital as ‘loose federation of money making franchises’ (not the ‘go‐to bank’). Finance Minister, George Osborne on Libor crisis: ‘we know what went wrong’…. No interest in learning. Unreformed finance b) retail banking • Half‐hearted reform in UK: more competition via ‘challenger banks’… (but not tackling business model, where RoE targets in mid‐teens drive mis‐selling eg Jenkins at Barclays: 15% RoE target in retail) • Scandals continue: ever more mis‐selling.
    [Show full text]
  • An Icon Denoting a Download Link Download Annual Report 2014
    annual report 2014 Change the picture. The answer is simple. an ANECDOTE. As part of our effort to get the word out, Academy Somebody needs to actually see them. To care. Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris joined To be there. Just as we are with our own children.” with us to tell our kids’ stories. Like Tres’Rionna’s. Turn the page to learn what Elaine and President After getting to know her, Errol remarked to Elaine Dan Cardinali have to say in response. And visit Wynn, Chair, CIS National Board, “It is the falling communitiesinschools.org/tresrionna to learn through the cracks that hurts these kids. And more about this exceptional student. One we the answer is so simple. We need to see them. proudly call ours. 03 THE CONTEXT “When it comes to unlocking each We couldn’t agree more with the sage words of our new friend and supporter Errol Morris: no child should fall through the cracks and remain unseen, their needs unmet. Indeed, seeing each and every child’s full potential, student as an individual and doing whatever it takes to help her or him succeed in both school and in life is the obsession of our organization. It has been so since our founding in 1977, and still we will never give up.” is. So we present to you our 2014 Annual Report, complete with a wealth of data covering the year. But first, here are four trends to help put the numbers in perspective: Our quality is improving. We continue to push consistent quality throughout the network, because every student in every community deserves our best.
    [Show full text]
  • Hustle and Flow: Prison Privatization Fueling the Prison Industrial Complex
    FULCHER FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 6/10/2012 2:43 PM Hustle and Flow: Prison Privatization Fueling the Prison Industrial Complex Patrice A. Fulcher* ABSTRACT The Prison Industrial Complex (“PIC”) is a profiteering system fueled by the economic interests of private corporations, federal and state correctional institutions, and politicians. The PIC grew from ground fertilized by an increase in the U.S. prison population united with an economically depressed market, stretched budgets, and the ineffective allocation of government resources. The role of the federal, state, and local governments in the PIC has been to allocate resources. This is the first of a series of articles exploring issues surrounding the PIC, including (1) prison privatization, (2) outsourcing the labor of prisoners for profit, and (3) constitutional misinterpretations. The U.S. prison population increased in the 1980s, in part, because of harsh drug and sentencing laws and the racial profiling of Blacks. When faced with the problem of managing additional inmates, U.S. correctional institutions looked to the promise of private prison companies to house and control inmates at reduced costs. The result was the privatization of prisons, private companies handling the management of federal and state inmates. This Article addresses how the privatization of prisons helped to grow the PIC and the two ways in which governments’ expenditure of funds to private prison companies amount to an inefficient allocation of resources: (1) it creates an incentive to increase the prison population, which led to a monopoly and manipulation of the market by Correction Corporation of America (“CCA”) and The GEO Group, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • UNITED STATES SECURITIES and EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C
    QuickLinks -- Click here to rapidly navigate through this document UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 FORM 10-K ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the fiscal year ended September 30, 2008 OR o TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 or 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 Commission File No. 1-06620 GRIFFON CORPORATION (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) Delaware 11-1893410 (State or other jurisdiction of (I.R.S. Employer incorporation or organization) Identification No.) 100 Jericho Quadrangle, Jericho, New York 11753 (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (zip code) (516) 938-5544 Registrant's telephone number, including area code: Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: Name of each exchange on Title of each class which registered Common Stock, $.25 par value New York Stock Exchange Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes o No Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.
    [Show full text]
  • Austrian Theorizing: Recalling the Foundations
    AUSTRIAN THEORIZING: RECALLING THE FOUNDATIONS WALTER BLOCK t is a pleasure to reply to Caplan’s (1999) critique of Austrian economics. Unlike other such recent reactions1 this one shows evidence of great familiarity with the IAustrian (praxeological) literature, and a deep interest in its analytical foundations. Thus, Caplan correctly identifies the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard as the core of what sets Austrian economics apart from the neoclassical mainstream. And he insightfully relegates the writings of F.A. Hayek and Israel M. Kirzner to an intermediate position between the praxeological and neoclassical approaches.2 We shall defend this core of Austrian economics against Caplan’s criticisms, and show that, just as in the case of these others, his arrows fall wide of their mark. It is nevertheless instructive to highlight his errors. The benefits are a better understanding of the Austrian School, and greater insight into neoclassical short- comings. This article follows the outline of Caplan (1999) and is divided into the same four sections as his: first an introduction, second, consumer theory, third, welfare economics, and fourth, a conclusion. WALTER BLOCK is economics department chairman and professor at the University of Cen- tral Arkansas, Conway. The author would like to thank Guido Hülsmann and Michael Levin for helpful comments to an earlier draft of this paper. He would also like to thank an anony- mous referee who made no fewer than seven suggestions, all of which were incorporated into this paper, much to its improvement. All remaining errors are, of course, my responsibil- ity. 1See in this regard Rosen (1997), Tullock (1998), Timberlake (1987), Demsetz (1997), Yeager (1987) and Krugman (1998).
    [Show full text]
  • Democratic Citizenship in the Heart of Empire Dissertation Presented In
    POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION: Democratic Citizenship in the Heart of Empire Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University Thomas Michael Falk B.A., M.A. Graduate Program in Education The Ohio State University Summer, 2012 Committee Members: Bryan Warnick (Chair), Phil Smith, Ann Allen Copyright by Thomas Michael Falk 2012 ABSTRACT Chief among the goals of American education is the cultivation of democratic citizens. Contrary to State catechism delivered through our schools, America was not born a democracy; rather it emerged as a republic with a distinct bias against democracy. Nonetheless we inherit a great demotic heritage. Abolition, the labor struggle, women’s suffrage, and Civil Rights, for example, struck mighty blows against the established political and economic power of the State. State political economies, whether capitalist, socialist, or communist, each express characteristics of a slave society. All feature oppression, exploitation, starvation, and destitution as constitutive elements. In order to survive in our capitalist society, the average person must sell the contents of her life in exchange for a wage. Fundamentally, I challenge the equation of State schooling with public and/or democratic education. Our schools have not historically belonged to a democratic public. Rather, they have been created, funded, and managed by an elite class wielding local, state, and federal government as its executive arms. Schools are economic institutions, serving a division of labor in the reproduction of the larger economy. Rather than the school, our workplaces are the chief educational institutions of our lives.
    [Show full text]
  • Military-Industrial Complex: Eisenhower's Unsolved Problem
    MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: EISENHOWER'S UNSOLVED PROBLEM by )/lrS THOMAS JENKINS BADGER Bo A., George Washington University., 1949 A MASTER'S THESIS submitted fn pa 1 ful 111b nt of the .'_-. -.- ... — -\-C MASTER OF ARTS Department of Political Science KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 1965 Approved by: ~ Major Professor XOOl 1105 6<3 ACKHQWLEOGEMENT TO: Dr. Louis Douglas for suggesting the subject, offering continuous encouragement and valuable advice, and insisting upon a measure of scholar- ship. Or. Robin Higham for reading the manuscript, professional advice and suggestions. Dr. Joseph Hajda, who as the Major Professor, was responsible for the thesis and who tirelessly read and reread drafts, and who patiently pointed out weaknesses needing amplification, correction, or deletion. It Is not Intended to Indicate that these gentlemen concur with the entire thesis. They don't. The errors and misconceptions In the thesis are mine as well as the conclusions but without their assistance the thesis would be unacceptable as a scholarly work. If I could have followed their advice more Intelligently the thesis would be considerably Improved, but whatever merit this work may have the credit belongs to them. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION of the United One hundred and sixty-eight years ago, the first President had served so States presented his farewell address to the country which he from a divided well and which he, as much as any other person, had changed Washington's group of self-oriented states Into a cohesive nation. George permanent alliances principal advice to this young nation was to stay clear of west to settle} with foreign nations.
    [Show full text]
  • Healthcare in the Usa: Understanding the Medical-Industrial Complex
    B3 | HEALTHCARE IN THE USA: UNDERSTANDING THE MEDICAL-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Introduction In the mid-1960s a group of progressively-minded New York activists came together to found the Health Policy Advisory Center or Health/PAC as it came to be called It was a time of intense activism in New York as poor communi- ties took to the streets demanding improved services and were emboldened to actually take over Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx (known locally as ‘the butcher shop’) 1 Following a 1967 ‘exposé-analysis’ written by one of the authors of this chapter (Robb Burlage), Health/PAC began publishing a monthly bulletin offering a ‘New Left’ perspective on health Three years later in 1970, John and Barbara Ehrenreich published a book-length critique of US healthcare based on the Health/PAC article, titled The American Health Empire. The medical–industrial complex In November 1969, Health/PAC first used the phrase ‘medical–industrial complex’ (MIC) as a way of characterizing the US health system The term was a spin-off from President Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961, during which he discussed the dangers of the “military–industrial complex” Health/PAC’s use of the term ‘MIC’ incorporated the perception that healthcare was moving away from a system built on individual doctors and small community hospitals; healthcare was becoming more and more the ‘business’ of large academic centres that Health/PAC characterized as medical empires These medical empires were constructed around a central (private, academic) hospital and outlying satellite
    [Show full text]
  • The Place of the Prison in the New Government of Poverty Loïc
    The Place of the Prison in the New Government of Poverty Loïc Wacquant * More than the specifics of statistical figures and trends, it is the deep-seated logic of this swing from the social to the penal that one must grasp here. Far from contradicting the neoliberal project of deregulation and decay of the public sector, the irresistible rise of the U.S. penal state constitutes, as it were, its negative — in the sense of obverse but also of revelator — since it manifests the implementation of a policy of criminalization of poverty that is the indispensable complement to the imposition of precarious and underpaid wage labor as civic obligation for those locked at the bottom of the class and caste structure, as well as the redeployment of social- welfare programs in a restrictive and punitive sense that is concomitant with it. At the time of its institutionalization in the United States of the mid-nineteenth century, “imprisonment was above all a method aiming at the control of deviant and dependent populations,” and inmates were mainly poor people and European immigrants recently arrived in the New World.1 Nowadays, the carceral apparatus of the United States fills an analogous role with respect to those groups rendered superfluous or incongruous by the twofold restructuring of the wage labor relation and state charity: the declining fractions of the working class and poor blacks at the core of formerly industrial cities. In so doing, it has regained a central place in the system of the instruments for the government of poverty, at the crossroads of the deskilled labor market, the collapsing urban ghetto, and social-welfare services “reformed” with a view to buttressing the discipline of desocialized wage work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Party-State in China's Military-Industrial Complex: Implications for US National Security
    Testimony before the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on "U.S. Investment in China's Capital Markets and Military-Industrial Complex" The Party-State in China’s Military-Industrial Complex: Implications for U.S. National Security Jason Arterburn Program Director, the Center for Advanced Defense Studies Friday, March 19, 2021 [Type here] US-China Economic Security Review Testimony Introduction China’s domestic political economy exposes the United States to national security risks that our regulatory systems are not well equipped to address. China’s commercial system blurs public and private distinctions, which have become even less meaningful under General Secretary Xi Jinping as the party-state has become resurgent in the commercial sector. While the U.S. policymaking community has largely acknowledged the risks of U.S. exposure to China’s military- industrial base, our regulatory community still faces challenges in how to identify and mitigate risks. This is largely because “the analytical frameworks that many of us are using to understand China’s economy are stuck in past paradigms” that do not reflect the “entirely new political- economic order” that China’s system has produced as both an emergent and intentional phenomenon.1 Experts like James Mulvenon, Anna Puglisi, William Hannas, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, and others have previously produced extensive analyses of China’s technology acquisition ambitions and military-civil fusion system, which have provided the policymaking community with a comprehensive overview of China’s technology acquisition system and its changes over the last decade. In this testimony, I seek to complement their work by contextualizing China’s military-industrial base against the backdrop of recent changes in China’s political economy, with the goal of developing a framework that policymakers and the business community can use to mitigate national security risk as General Secretary Xi Jinping continues to pursue illiberal governance reforms.
    [Show full text]