Lying behind the seemingly endless cycle of military interventions, massively distorted budget priorities, and the erosion of peaceful diplomacy in the postwar era is the permanent war economy and a group of warmaking institutions. In the permanent war economy the state’s military welfare and subsidy has helped make millions of people economically dependent on war. Most high-tech managers at military behemoths like Lockheed-Martin, like a great many American foot soldiers from the “working poor” trapped in Baghdad, see few options beyond military capital. The war-making institutions, led by the Pentagon and private military contractors, have come to promote military approaches to foreign policy between wars.
