David Hackworth on the Military-Industrial Complex

And the conclusions to be drawn 30 years later

This post is part of a series I will be publishing over the following week or two about David Hackworth’s books “About Face” and “Steel my Soldiers Hearts”, and where they stand 20-30 years later. This particular essay only relates to concerns about the Military Industrial Complex.

I will begin this essay with a long-form quote from the epilogue of “About Face”:

“Today’s soldier (and, in turn, the country’s defense) are being placed in great jeopardy by the weapons and equipment now being issued from on high. Given the scandals and the resulting publicity that have rocked the Pentagon in recent times, it is not difficult to see why: the U.S. military’s procurement system is out of control. Still, the bottom line of the whole business is this: the United States buys too many weapons it doesn’t need, pays too much for what it gets, what it does get does not do the right job where it counts—on the battlefield—and men’s lives are being risked unnecessarily.

The military-industrial complex has a great deal to answer for. Since my retirement, this “organization” has exploded. Between 1975 and 1985 the number of military officials hired by defense contractors increased almost 500 percent, with ex-military men trading off their many contacts still in the service for huge salaries, and active-duty high-ranking officers singing the praises of (at times) hopelessly defective products to ensure that they, too, have lucrative jobs when they retire. The country’s coffers are being milked dry by these individuals for whom Duty, Honor, and Country are vague recollections or ideals of yesteryear: while these ex-military people receive huge salaries from defense contractors, who get much of their money from the government, they also continue to receive retirement pensions from their services, which, at the four-start level, are in the vicinity of fifty-five thousand dollars per year.” (Hackworth was writing in 1989)

“And what are we getting for all this money and all this apparent expertise of military men in and on the edge of the defense industry? What we’re not getting is rugged, reliable, easy-to-produce-and-maintain gear that has undergone tough, realistic tests under simulated battle conditions to make sure it works before putting it into mass production. Instead, we’re getting rigged weapons tests. Instead, we’re getting enthusiastic, glowing reports on second-rate weapons written in full knowledge of the rigged tests, from a Pentagon office that was set up by congress specifically to ensure that all weapons testing was honest and the reporting accurate. In the Army, at least, we’re getting items such as the Abrams tank and Bradley “fighting vehicle,” both designed for war against the Soviets in Europe, the least likely war the United States will ever fight.

At $2.2 million a copy, the M-1 Abrams was pushed into production in 1982 well before all its bugs were ironed out, and, not unlike the M-16 rifle, whose shoddy performance was responsible for the deaths of many of our own men in Vietnam, was deployed in the field with serious teething problems. Modifications were made, but the newer model M1-A1 is still battle-ready far less frequently and costs as much as three times more to repair than the M60 tank it was designed to replace. It is also already outgunned by the Soviet T-80 tank. The M-1 can travel, on average, only forty-eight miles before requiring essential service maintenance (a not insignificant percentage of which must be done by civilians), and being an 8.6-gallon-per-mile (as opposed to mile per gallon) gas guzzler, has a max operational range of just fifty-six miles per fill-up. On average, the tank needs twenty-one dollars worth of replacement parts for every mile it travels, yet according to one 1983 CBS News report, in 1981 the Department of Defense budgeted for only 13 percent of the $3 billion in spare parts the M-1 would need to fight a sixty-day war, and had no intention, even over the next ten years, of building a stockpile of same. The reason? The CBS report cited one senior Army official who said the Army was gambling that there wouldn’t be a war, so “would rather commit its resources elsewhere” It’s a far cry from the days of the old reliable Sherman: back in the tank company we’d go days and weeks without a breakdown, and when we had one, Chief Ventura could fix the damn thing himself. We got pretty good gas mileage, too, a decided plus when you consider the vulnerability of a fleet of gas tankers on the modern battlefield, let alone when they’re following formations of tanks. Meanwhile, as of this writing, with close to $2 trillion injected into American defense over the least eight years, the Army is quietly pulling every M-1 tank it has out of Europe, and even the M1-A 1’s that will replace them have to be given new armor first (in light of the now-known capabilities of the far superior Soviet T-80) at a cost of almost $1 billion. Concurrently, in an effort to save money, the tank drivers at Fort Riley, Kansas, train to drive their Abrams tanks in golf carts—a $15,000 to $20,000 tank maneuver costs only $289 in golf carts on the Custer Hill Golf Course. At the old saying goes, you get what you pay for, and we are paying for self-delusion and incompetence. Generals Abrams and Patton must be rolling in their graves.

The M-2 Bradley fighting vehicle, costing $1.5 million a copy, is produced by the Food Machinery Corporation (FMC). One of its champions in the Pentagon was Army Chief of Staff Edward Meyer, who, since his retirement, has been on FMC’s board of directors. One of the Bradley’s detractors was noted WWII tank commander General Bruce Clark, who said “most anything can blow a hole through it,” and in 1977, when Hank Emerson, then an outspoken lieutenant general and commander of the elite XVIII Airborne Corps, suggested that there was much more urgently needed equipment and the Army’s budget could be better spent for overall combat readiness, he was unceremoniously eased out (read fired) at the age of fifty-two.

Emerson was not the only casualty of the Bradley story, a story of a cross between a light tank and an armored personnel carrier that doesn’t function even marginally well as either. The Bradley was designed to swim and can’t; it was designed to carry a TOE infantry squad and doesn’t have the room. Its cannon tends to jam and/or missfeed, and just one missile or tank or RPG round could destroy the high-profile vehicle instantly, not to mention the soldiers buttoned-up inside. The Bradley is a high-tech vehicle and a maintenance man’s nightmare—too big, too complicated (“gold-plated” as one serving colonel describes the R&D people’s overall penchant for trying to make every item capable of doing everything, with the result that many can barely do anything well), with a long record of breakdowns and failures in many areas, including its transmission and electrical systems. And this is the same machine that the top brass of the Army vigorously maintains “With it we win, without it we’ll lose” the next war. It’s a strange thing, how systems proved to be second- or third- rate are defended so vigorously— even as a matter of our nation’s survival— by men who should no better. Where is their concern for the lives of their soldiers? Probably in about the same place as that of the Pentagon joker, who, in 1968 told me to stop fighting the M-16 rifle and buy stock in Colt Industries instead.”

Hackworth then discusses the failure of the “Sergeant York” Division Air Defense system, but I will be leaving this segment out as that system is no longer fielded and I believe the two examples above are adequate.

“This incestuous relationship between the military and industry has got to stop. While these ex-military guys go on making deals and personal fortunes, and the procurement of defense contracts goes on being an end in itself, the United States remains fundamentally underdefended. It cannot be denied that the politicians have quite a bit to answer for in this area, too (the defense contractors will go to bed with anyone, and individual politicians have found them no less seductive than military men on the verge of retirement, especially when the contractors pay for the privilege in the form of campaign contributions and jobs in home states), but even as it cleans up its own act, Congress must also pass a law forbidding any retired military man of field grade or above, or any Pentagon civilian, to go anywhere near the defense industry as a “second career”, or as a paid consultant or lobbyist. And if that proves impossible to achieve, then another law should be passed instead, allowing retired military men to do whatever they damn well please— but if they should take a job in any defense-related industry, they would no longer be entitled to their service pensions. Given that greed is a prime motivator for many people, I truly believe that such a law would substantially cut the numbers of ex-military personnel racing for the defense jobs: without a pension, a guy would have to work for a living again, rather than just throw his weight and ribbons around; he could get fired, just as normal people are, and not be able to shrug that it was all a game anyway, and retire to his home until some other defense contractor comes along to buy his influence.”

While Hackworth was writing in 1989, his words are just as relevant in 2024. The defense industry has grown even further and continues to produce just as much unnecessary garbage. Another, more modern example of this “wiz-gear”, as I call it, is the JLTV program, (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle), and its finished product the M-ATV designed by Oshkosh, which suffers from delamination of windows, which are non-repairable, causing them to regularly need replacing in humid and cold environments. It also suffers from common suspension and electrical issues. Virtually any electrical issue requires large armored panels to be removed before maintenance can even begin, and many of these issues are severe enough to prevent the vehicle from being used.

After the competition for the JLTV contract finished, Lockheed Martin and Navistar, (who had also submitted designs), both petitioned the Government Accountability Office, (GAO). Navistar protested the evaluation criteria, but shortly after withdrew its protest. Lockheed Martin’s protest regarded, “various aspects” of the Pentagon’s evaluation criteria, but was also withdrawn. Lockheed Martin initially requested that Oshkosh be barred from continuing work on its JLTV variant while the claim was evaluated, but this was denied. Embarrassingly, it has been revealed that Lockheed Martin’s JLTV prototype was only able to travel an average of a 7th of the distance of the Oshkosh prototype before needing repairs. To this day detailed engine repair must be done by civilian contract workers.

The JLTV was designed for the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, but was only getting to most units in large numbers around the time those wars were winding down. The vehicle is designed to fit only four passengers, (it can be made to carry six if you really squeeze the boys in), and replaces the HMMWV which was created to replace the jeep, (though the original designs were only platforms for TOW systems). Widespread use of the HMMWV during GWOT lead to hundreds of unnecessary deaths and injuries from roadside bombs as the vehicles offered little protection from mines or explosives. The JLTV program was intended to solve this issue using technology instead of changes in tactics, which is a common trend with military equipment. The “best” part about all of this is that aside from providing a platform for heavy weapon systems (which can be mounted on other vehicles anyways), the JLTV has almost no practical use in a conventional conflict as despite the added protection from explosives, it is incredibly vulnerable on the modern conventional battlefield. Perhaps the best solution to the “problem” of easy troop transport would be a return to foot-movement, but to do so would only further highlight the military’s growing fitness problems. But that is an issue for another time…

In perhaps the most infamous example of M.I.C. corruption, the M-16 was intentionally issued without the proper ammunition during the Vietnam war, ensuring that it would jam regularly. Troops from rural parts of the country would often have rifles or shotguns mailed from home to use instead because of the M-16’s unreliability. The purpose of issuing the bad ammo was to get the M-16 recalled so that longtime defense contractor Springfield could come out with its own rifle to replace the M-14.

If you’re the kind of person who reads my articles, you probably already know all of this though. So why am I mentioning it here and now? As discussion about the election cycle continues, it is important to me that Americans understand that among the biggest issues facing our nation, (and therefore our world), the current state of the Pentagon is among the most important. For me, it stands at a close second to immigration. The military has always had a large role in American culture, and the fact that it can no longer be trusted with one of its most basic responsibilities: equipping troops for war, demonstrates a failure of leadership so catastrophic that it should make Americans everywhere question whether the current regime should be allowed to continue to both govern and represent us in any form at all.

Perhaps you think I’m being a bit dramatic. Sure, the M.I.C. is a real thing, and it is very corrupt. But is that really indicative of such systemic problems that the entire regime should be treated as responsible?

Think of it this way. The most crucial responsibilities of any state are security from foreign actors, a domestic monopoly on violence and the ability to maintain rule of law. Obviously these things depend on one-another; by failing to maintain border security the current regime has broken the rule of law in several regions, by failing to maintain rule of law in multiple urban centers the government has lost its monopoly on violence in them, etc. If we can agree that security from hostile foreign states is a responsibility of a functioning state, and ours has sacrificed key aspects of its combat readiness for a quick buck from domestic contractors, who is to say that its leaders won’t do the same for international actors. Or, perhaps even worse, who is to say that they won’t do the same for more dangerous domestic actors than defense contractors?

Even without mentioning worse scenarios than defense industry corruption, we have left vast holes in crucial areas of national defense by allowing these contractors to sell us faulty equipment at ridiculous prices. Between malfunctioning air defense systems and grounded aircraft, are we really ready for the wars we continually escalate and involve ourselves in worldwide? Do we care? Are we just operating one big smokescreen, gambling there won’t be a war as we push ourselves into one? Will Iran be our next Afghanistan or Iraq, just like Vietnam before them or Korea before that? Will the troops that fight the next war be given even more faulty gear that they are assured works fine if they maintain it correctly, will they still go to combat with old M249’s? Yes, yes they will. And we’ll “win the war militarily, but lose it politically” once again. We will once more post Forward Observations war edit videos to make sure another generation of white boys from the South join up. Yes, I still watch those CQB clips too, they’re well done. (tangent: if you google, “white men infantry”, or something related to that, one of the first links will be the Harlem Hellfighters, which I just think is neat)

As some of our writings and ideas start to reach public discourse, it’s important that we address real issues facing the nation, not just the stuff that’s popular or controversial. A lot of us enjoy being contrarians, simply opposing an issue because blue-haired dykes are angry about it. It’s fun to do that, don’t get me wrong. I can picture the pro-Raytheon Twitter threads now. But sometimes those issues are real, and the M.I.C. is one of them. Not only is it very real, it’s just as likely to get your son’s legs blown off as your daughter is to be raped by a migrant. Treat it with the same severity.