Pentagon Capitalism

How the Cold War US Military Modeled Itself on Private Business
Pentagon Capitalism traces the Cold War evolution of the US military into something resembling a for-profit corporation. Seeking to manage an increasingly unwieldy military bureaucracy, defense leaders sought lessons from business consultants, imposed Taylorist discipline, turned officers into managers, and privatized ever more security functions.

A pioneering study of the Cold War military-industrial complex shows how defense leaders reorganized the US armed forces in the image of commercial enterprise.

The strategic landscape of the Cold War generated political support for a permanent US military force of unprecedented scale. Faced with the problem of managing this behemoth, leaders of the defense bureaucracy looked to private industry for inspiration: since the military now resembled a huge industrial conglomerate, they reasoned, it should be run