The military-industrial complex is out in the open now

Amid displays of firepower, warfare has economic incentives that are no longer hidden

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

The United States, the very country whose former president and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned against the rise of a "military-industrial complex," has since become its most active architect, user, and beneficiary. This complex has matured into a diffused but dominant global operating system. Its power is not exercised through the use of combat aircraft and missiles alone, but through procurement cycles, legislative influence, job guarantees, and an expanding web of strategic dependencies that now tie national security to economic continuity.

In West Asia, US strikes on Iran's nuclear infrastructure mark a dramatic escalation, with American forces joining what had been a bilateral Iran-Israel conflict. The US has entered a volatile theater at a moment when restraint might have offered it greater leverage. The move could widen the conflict zone and deepen Washington's entanglement in a dynamic where deterrence, diplomacy, and industrial interests have become indistinguishable. The US made a spectacular display in Iran of its most advanced bombers and bunker buster bombs, but Iran's response of missiles fired at Israel would suggest that Israeli demand for interceptor ammunition to defend itself is unlikely to flag. Costly hostilities mean that this is not only about geopolitics but economics, with the US ready to keep its key ally in West Asia well supplied with military hardware.