Military, Anti-Terrorism, Foreign Aid, Immigration, and Climate Industrial Complexes

Debaters are unusual and among the few engaged in public policy debates not guided or influenced by special interests. America’s founders used the term factions, and argued that when government meddles in the economy it excites factions. Factions are interest groups helped or hurt by government subsidies and regulations, and are therefore energized to lobby government to advance or defend their various enterprises. Farmers wanted government-funded roads and canals, shipping firms wanted government-funded ports and lighthouses. Plantation owners in the south wanted government to find, arrest, and return runaway slaves.

Special interests play major roles in driving the politics of three current national debate topics: immigration, anti-terrorism, and foreign aid [plus a fourth: US military commitments]. Many who research, write, and speak on these topics are getting paid for advocating more or less immigration, foreign aid, or international military/anti-terrorism spending. The billions spent each year on military programs, including anti-terrorism projects circulate through military contractors and consultants, to lobbying firms and trade associations, and from there in donations to politicians and advocacy research organizations. 

The foreign aid “iron triangle” connects Congressional staffers, USAID, and aid NGOs. This 2013 article looks at food aid: Food Fight: Why is the agricultural lobby so mad at Obama? (Foreign Policy, May 14, 2013):

We can spend a lot of time (and I do) on the politics of the defense budget and the Iron Triangle that binds the Pentagon, the defense industry, and key members of Congress, making reform in the defense world difficult to execute. But there are a lot of other triangles that close around pieces of the federal budget. One of them comes up this week as the Senate marks up the Farm Bill and addresses the administration’s proposed reform of the U.S. food aid program.

Budget discipline notwithstanding, elected officials have strong incentives to support wasteful or unnecessary spending as long as it takes place in their states and districts. Beneficiaries out in the private sector thrive off the proceeds. And federal agencies fiercely defend the turf around their programs. This phenomenon gives birth to the kind of casual budgetary hypocrisy that gives members of Congress a bad name. So it is with food aid.

Food Fight: Why is the agricultural lobby so mad at Obama? (Foreign Policy, May 14, 2013)

Critics claim the foreign aid “industry” and anti-terrorism “industry” have too much influence on ongoing policy, as they highlight dangers and advocate for more spending. The “industrial-complex” language draws from President Eisenhower’s farewell address, warning of the “Military-Industrial Complex.” Here is a video clip of President Eisenhower’s address (from the documentary Why We Fight).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=r99iHelKAFc

In addition to influence from overall military spending, funding for anti-terrorism, foreign aid, and even immigration policy involves the livelihood of thousands of companies, tens of thousands of employees, and hundreds of millions in government research and program grants. These companies and government agencies and departments, employ thousands of consultants, lobbyists, and fund research centers and institutes, to crank out policy papers and offer “free” policy expertise at conferences, cable news shows, and classrooms. 

That doesn’t make them bad people, of course. But just as debaters come to identify with their long-researched and advocated affirmative cases, employees in military, anti-terrorism, foreign aid, immigration, and environmental positions, identify with the views and policy positions that help pay their salaries. 

Just as people and companies in agriculture and transportation lobby for more funding for agriculture and transportation, concentrated groups working in foreign aid, antiterrorism, and immigration benefit from new spending. The costs for such spending, however, are disbursed and paid for by taxpayers.

 In his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country against an emerging “military-industrial complex” in which the allocation of government grants and contracts from the federal government to the private sector would create an undue influence over national defense policy and the agenda of scientific research. 

The Green-Industrial Complex: Big Government + Big Business = Big Environmentalism

Economist Richard Stroup in his article Political Behavior, explains the challenges and contrasts between economic and political worlds:

People can accomplish many things in politics that they could not accomplish in the private sector. Some of these are vital to the broader community’s welfare, such as control of health-threatening air pollution from myriad sources affecting millions of individuals or the provision of national defense. Other public-sector actions, such as subsidies to farmers and restrictions on the number of taxicabs in a city, provide narrow benefits that fall far short of their costs.

Political Behavior, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Anti-terrorism programs, including foreign aid are defended as needed for national defense. A new steel wall on the U.S./Mexico border is advocated in the name of national defense. But how much should be spent, and on which programs? Everyday people have limited time to research all options and costly programs advocated for their defense.

Debaters have more time and motivation, plus youthful enthusiasm, but have limited knowledge, experience, and resources.

For further reading on aid, immigration, and antiterrorism “industrial complexes,” see:

• AID-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: I’ve worked in foreign aid for 50 years—Trump is right to end it, even if his reasons are wrong (Quartz, April 21, 2017

• Is There a Foreign Aid Industrial Complex?, (Medium, August 8, 2016)

“Country ownership,” “working ourselves out of a job,” these are sound notions. But when? Not any time soon, it would seem. Simply, it is not in the interest of the development industry (ca. $130 billion per annum) to act forcefully on these commitments. Money, channeled through a rising number of players (both for profit and non), and equally important, jobs — good ones at that — are at stake. In what follows, by following the money, the jobs, and the pipeline for new aid jobs, it should become clear that a self-serving aid-industrial complex now exists. And within that complex an underlying culture of mistrust and co-dependency has evolved that obviates against any real change in the near future.

•What Is The ‘Immigration Industrial Complex’? (Huffington Post, June 28, 2017)
[Among the problems with this article is the reality that American businesses would rather hire “cheap labor” with documents. Companies would be happy to do or pay for the paperwork for work visas. Companies would rather keep workers and pay higher wages as skills develop and productivity improves. Government and private prison guards, border guards, police, immigration lawyers, social workers and tens of thousands of others earn their living from the politics that limit work visas for farm laborers, construction workers, etc.]

• The Security-Industrial Complex, (Manhattan Institute, 2006) Valuable perspective from 13 years ago and from a conservative organization.

• The Long Shadow of 9/11: How Counterterrorism Warps U.S. Foreign Policy (Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2018)

But that only goes so far in explaining why Americans remain so concerned about terrorism even though other sources of danger pose much higher risks. The fact is that many U.S. political leaders, members of the media, consultants, and academics play a role in hyping the threat. Together, they form what might be described as a counterterrorism-industrial complex—one that, deliberately or not, and for a variety of reasons, fuels the cycle of fear and overreaction

A Climate Industrial Complex?
A “green” or climate industrial complex? Again, not bad people, just people and organizations focused in their agenda. Critics of the climate industry also note influence on immigration and foreign aid policies.  Environmentalists played a key role advocating restrictions on immigration (see Washington Post article below), as well as in shaping foreign aid toward green energy (wind and solar), and away from hydrocarbon energy (oil, gas, coal).

• The Green-Industrial Complex: Big Government + Big Business = Big Environmentalism (Capital Research Center, February 2, 2011)

Bjorn Lomborg has called the “Climate-Industrial Complex.” A web of players that includes corporations and environmental non-profits, business executives, lobbyists, and government officials, is promoting a renewable energy agenda and targeting coal producers and the oil industry as public enemy number one. We should ask, “Who benefits and who loses?” as green groups, companies and the government work together to create new energy and environmental policies.

• The Climate-Industrial Complex: Some businesses see nothing but profits in the green movement. (Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009)

• SCALING UP RENEWABLE ENERGY (USAID, June 15, 2018)

SURE will work in countries where achieving large-scale clean energy deployment is a priority for energy security and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Through SURE, USAID will foster policy development that allows for clean energy to be obtained at fair market prices.

• The shadowy network shaping Trump’s anti-immigration policies (Washington Post, September 27, 2018)

Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist, is the guiding force behind nearly all of America’s major anti-immigration groups. He launched the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1979. He was initially motivated by an alarmed reaction to Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 bestseller, “The Population Bomb,” which linked population growth to environmental destruction and a weakening of national security.

Tanton embraced population control. His ideas built on eugenicist thinking, with aims to limit the birthrate of people deemed undesirable. His innovation was to focus on stabilizing the American population by severely limiting immigration.

The shadowy network shaping Trump’s anti-immigration policies (Washington Post, September 27, 2018)

And, it is worth noting that the “industrial complex” applies as well to actual private sector industrial complexes like the auto industry, chemical and petroleum industries, and aerospace industry. All employ tens of thousands of people, involve hundreds or thousands of companies, have trade associations and lobbyists advocating policies that benefit their industries. For an interesting example of tax policies favoring the oil and gas industry, see The Golden Age of Hollywood Tax Avoidance (Bloomberg, January 29, 2019).

More on these topics in earlier Economic Thinking posts:
• Terrorism policy
• Foreign aid policy
• Immigration policy