Military-industrial complexes

Their economic importance: in N. America, Europe, East Asia, third-world countries with large industrial bases like India and Brazil. Political influence. Vs. university-industrial complexes.

The US military-industrial complex is very weird, in many ways, not the least of which is that it's hardly capitalist — or rather it exhibits very clearly the split between the interests of business and those of the market system. It uses market mechanisms, but largely to mobilize resources from outside; there is essentially no competition within the system, and extraordinarily little risk. (Large military contractors not only don't go broke, they hardly ever become small contractors.) The political economy here is something I do wish I understood better.

While we're on the subject, has anyone looked at the role of the US military-industrial complex in sparking the shift to the Sunbelt?

Stephen G. Brooks, Producing Security: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculus of Conflict [Blurb, ch. 1]
Jacques S. Gansler, Defense Conversion: Transforming the Arsenal of Democracy
Ann Markusen, Peter Hall, Scott Campbell and Sabina Deitrick, The Rise of the Gunbalt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America [per Brad Plumer's recommendation]
Melman
- Pentagon Capitalism
- The Permanent War Economy
Kevin Narizny, "Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament", American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 203--220
Vernon W. Ruttan, Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technological Development [Review in the Journal of Economic History indicates theat the sub-title is the real subject, and the title just one step above a throw-away line.]
Todd Sandler and Keith Hartley, The Economics of Defense

Notebooks

Military-industrial complexes