The military disease

FAMOUSLY, US president Dwight D Eisenhower said in his 1961 farewell address: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Leaving aside the fact that Dwight could have done with saying that a few years earlier, quite frankly, nobody can doubt that he was right. We are living in the era of his warning, with the US military-industrial complex running riot at home and abroad. However, where historian-journalist Nick Turse seeks to enlighten us is to the extent of its dominion.

His diligently-researched book aims at one clear point - that the influence of the Pentagon floods almost every aspect of life for millions of US citizens and millions more around the world.

Weapons contracts and euphemistically-named arms programmes we all know about, but Turse likens the modern-day beast to the virtual reality tyranny of The Matrix, as it is all around us unseen, in everything from iPods to computer games, from the World Wrestling Federation to Starbucks coffee.

It embarks on bizarre missions to create militarised moths and remote-controlled rats, it makes friends with children on MySpace and it has two goals, money and power. In a nutshell, it makes the entity referred to by Eisenhower look small and friendly.

Turse is very big on facts. He opens the book by listing and documenting all the branded names in the US - many recognisable over here, naturally - which are military contractors. It's most of them.

He shows the inventive ways that the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the "culture of cool" by making "friends" on MySpace. Charts and lists are provided and, while they can be a little dry, their sheer size is shocking.

He also has facts that make you stop and wonder just what is happening to the world, by revealing such gems as the $300 million gifted to Harvard University. Harvard had recently given in to pressure to allow military recruitment among its law school students.

When it comes to home entertainment, it's also not just about the money. Just take a look at the successful video game Full Spectrum Warrior, where you control an extremely realistic US army squad around something extremely "Eye-Racky" and get to kill lots of sinister men of an Arab persuasion.

Other facts merely expose howling waste and stupidity, such as the $1.2 million spent on doughnuts in Kuwait.

While there are plenty on the US right who will regard this book as nothing more than perverted commie liberal treason simply for pointing all this out, in truth, the weakness of this book lies in the absence of any meaningful analysis. He sets out the facts in great depth and breadth and then just sits there.

It's not too hard to assume what he's getting at - overmilitarisation is baaaad - but he could have done a bit more in explaining where such subjugation of the state to the corporate military can lead, as a Palast or a Pilger would have done.

However, The Complex is a very useful book for people who are already aware of the implications of a multi-billion dollar military recruiter in every home - it is a mine of accredited information - but, for people who need to know why it falls short. Buy it if you need a book of reference rather than a polemical work.