Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy

In this video, Christopher A. Preble explains the rise of the military-​industrial complex in historical context and examines its effects on U.S. foreign policy today.

Christopher A. Preble

Christopher Preble is senior fellow and director of the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. He is the author of Peace, War, and Liberty (2019) and co-​author, with John Glaser and A. Trevor Thrall, of Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America’s Broken Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Recover) (2019). Preble was formerly the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, and he holds a PhD in history from Temple University.

In his farewell address, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the nation’s relatively new “permanent armaments industry of vast proportions” could prove a dire threat to either “our liberties or democratic processes” or both. “In the councils of government,” he said, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-​industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

What is the military-​industrial complex? How did it arise? And how does it influence American politics today? In this video, Christopher A. Preble answers these questions and more.