Ghost of a flea

The military-consumer complex

Having belatedly ginned up a clever play on Eisenhower, the Economist follows its recent article on military applications for consumer products and video-gaming technology with another on much the same topic.

It was my honour to be part of a discussion where much the same case was made to a naval architect whose job it would be to implement said case (this was more than ten years ago). I paraphrase his reply to the effect that, yes, consumer alternatives to military spec hardware offered potential savings to a military procurement program. The difficulty, he explained, is whether said consumer alternatives to military spec hardware would still work after they have been attacked with an anti-ship missile.

In some cases, one might reply, the consumer alternative could fair better on performance as well as price. Nevertheless, we should all take his point.

But it is no minor snark that leads me to point to an Economist article written, perhaps cynically, to promote a new catch phrase ("Military-consumer complex", please, any hack could do better. What about the "military-pornography complex" [which I just made up]?). It is, rather, the generalized banality of analysis of a once great magazine newspaper.* In a benighted pre-internet age, I used to treasure each issue of the Economist as a precious source of news and analysis of those parts of the world ignored by the Globe and Mail or the CBC. One article every two or three weeks about the exotic politics of Bangladesh or Bolivia gave me the impression of being a participant - or at the very least an observer - of a much larger scene than that afforded by the suburbs of Ottawa.

These days there is no corner of the Earth down to the smallest town with a local newspaper and a website which cannot be discovered and explored on-line. But before the internet the Economist and the BBC World Service on shortwave were my only life lines to the rest of the world. New technology has dropped both into a background of my beloved British tabloids and broadsheets and much the same from anywhere, everywhere else.

Still, it would be nice to look back on the Economist with affection. I just can't. Much as with the BBC, I now look back and wonder at the technocratic leftist cant I once took as my marching orders. They coin a buzz term like "military-consumer complex" and the best they can think to do with it is to suggest Obama look into commercially available green technologies with military applications and - with a heavy heart - I know there is every likelihood Obama will think it is a great idea.

Meanwhile, the crazies sharpen their knives.

* Don't ask me. This is how they used to describe themselves.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at December 22, 2009 08:24 AM