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Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex by [Hartung, William D.]

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William D. Hartung

Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex Kindle Edition

by William D. Hartung (Author)

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Enthralling and explosive, Prophets of War is an exposé of America's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his famous warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex, he never would have dreamed that a company could accumulate the kind of power and influence now wielded by this behemoth company.

As a full-service weapons maker, Lockheed Martin receives over 25 billion per year in Pentagon contracts. From aircraft and munitions, to the abysmal Star Wars missile defense program, to the spy satellites that the NSA has used to monitor Americans' phone calls without their knowledge, Lockheed Martin's reaches into all areas of US defense and American life. William Hartung's meticulously researched history follows the company's meteoric growth and explains how this arms industry giant has shaped US foreign policy for decades.

Length: 306 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Product details

File Size: 1004 KB
Print Length: 306 pages
Publisher: Nation Books; 1 edition (December 28, 2010)
Publication Date: December 28, 2010
Language: English
ASIN: B0047T86BA
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Not Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,297 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #94 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Political Freedom
- #290 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Political Freedom
- #537 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Security

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Ed Gehead

Government corrupts.

September 5, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Just finished "Prophets". Hartung is definitely an accomplished writer in the journalistic style. 250 pages of text literally flowed from start to finish. Furthermore, Hartung is an expert who has made a career of specializing in the "military industrial complex". He obviously has an agenda but he clearly knows his facts and I (as a libertarian on guard for propaganda) sensed no attempt to distort or fabricate. The reviews are divided along ideological lines with the liberals praising the work because it fully exposes the corruption of a huge corporation and the conservatives (unfairly) giving the work 1 star because they think that the corporation has been unfairly vilified. I give the work 4 stars because, while accurate and well written, "Prophet", in the end, omits an insightful analysis of the underlying problem. What is the root of the corruption problem and what can be done to correct and avoid it??? Concluding that the answer is political and that we citizens must be informed and stay vigilant is simplistic nonsense. I think most citizens already know that there is a high level of corruption in virtually all government contracting. It simply is greater in the defense industry because that industry is the biggest. Today we are all too familiar with "too big to fail." My point is that we cannot stop "corruption" and we certainly cannot stop corruption on the scale exposed in "Prophets" This is because of the principle that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The left misconstrues this principle as applying only to corporations when in fact it applies with far more force to government.The real source of our problem is that we have reached the state where our government, over the years, has ignored constitutional limitations and gradually assumed absolute power. Although there is a growing popular movement to reign in government to the limits envisioned by our constitution, it is too little and too late because that the battle has been irretrievably lost over the years. We are simply going to have to reluctantly accept growing corruption until the people are so fed up that they develop the will to revolt in an attempt to reestablish a truly limited government. All of this was foreseen by our founding fathers who were well familiar with the historical tendencies of governments to abuse power. They also foresaw that the limits they had attempted to incorporate in the constitution, in the end, would not work. They were spectacularly prescient.

8 people found this helpful

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Steven Roberts

Excellent expose of the leading contractor for DOD and US Govt.

February 9, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book details the amazing ability of the largest contractor of military and space hardware the US has ever hired to deliver absolutely dangerous and defectively designed aircraft, ships, and missiles way over budget and with no accountability for fleecing the citizens of Billions of dollars. Lockheed Martin continues to be the largest violator of laws and regulations against lobbying, and outright fraudulent contractual activity. This book is very readable and disturbing at the same time. It will cause you to look into the continued fraud and waste in our DOD which since 1990's has not been able to pass an audit. You will learn about the revolving door policy of top military men who are in bed with the contractors and are given lucrative jobs on retirement in return for not rocking the boat. You will learn of whistleblowers who are run out of their jobs for bringing up the subject. Scarier is the fact the this conglomerate corporation is now in the full war services business including providing contract employees to perform military functions much like Blackwater, now XE and KBR/Haliburton. Every time they are caught cheating the system and are fined, we the taxpayer pay the bills. This was truly one of the first companies that was deemed "Too big to fail" and bailed out by the US Taxpayer at every step along the way. Eye opening and scary.

3 people found this helpful

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Retired Reader

The Military-Industrial Complex in Action

January 9, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is built around two intertwined themes: a minor theme on the corporate history of the Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company (LM); and a major theme on the workings of what President Eisenhower famously referred to as the "military-industrial complex." This book is not an attack on LM, but uses the aerospace giant as the center piece of an exposition on the inter-action of the Department of Defense (DOD), the Congress, and private contractors in the design and acquisition of defense systems.

Actually the corporate history of LM is interesting enough that one wished Hartung had gone into more detail. In any event it provides enough of a sketchy history to follow how small scale airplane manufacturing effort begun by the Loughead brothers (who latter changed the spelling to Lockheed to avoid having people mispronounce their name) was gradually transformed into the aero-space giant that it is today.

The bulk of the book really is concerned with showing why what should be a fairly straight forward process of a military service buying a weapon system has become such a convoluted and complicated business. Since before its merger with Martin Marietta, LM was primarily an aircraft manufacturer, Hartung provides a lot of examples of USAF procurement practices with the unwritten assumption they are representative of DOD as a whole.

First there is the universal practice of low bidding. That is a contractor will purposely try to win a contractor by offering to produce a system at a much lower cost than what it will actually cost to produce. Once the contract is awarded the cost then can be adjusted upward in collusion with the client. Then there is the matter of `requirements creep' once a contract is awarded the client has no qualms about changing or adding to the original requirements. Engineering new requirements into a system can be very costly. Finally there is congress and the matter of protecting jobs in states and congressional districts. Cost overruns are supported by congress to keep plants open and job growth going in key districts.

Although LM is used to exemplify this process throughout this book, it is the DOD procurement system and pork barrel politics that are actually at fault here. There are no villains here, but a lot of short sighted fools.

51 people found this helpful

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Peter Loeb

Five Stars

June 12, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book provides the best update on what the defense industry
ios like today. Many thanks to W.D. Hartung.

2 people found this helpful

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jem

Eye Opening

January 9, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Eye opening and packed with very interesting information regarding the workings of our country's defense industry and their political connections, lobbying successes and all around fleecing of citizens of this country.

One person found this helpful

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