The Siren Triangle

The government, the media, and the defense industry

Elliott Ash

Abstract

The Pentagon's military analyst program is just the latest and most barefaced example of the poorly understood iron triangle comprising government agencies, defense contractors, and media conglomerates. This note traces the mutualistic coevolution of the defense industry and the mass media. Statutes and decisions on propaganda, fraud, false advertising, defense spending, and state secrets are explicated and applied to the industries; conduct. The reciprocal relationships between defense and media laws and the behavior of the defense and media industries are examined. Possible avenues for breaking the triangle are discussed, including greater transparency in defense matters and preservation of competition in media markets.

Body

Introduction

• The corruption linking the government to the media to the defense industry is an intertwined mess of tendrils. Flagitious defense spending is doxa, unquestioned and encouraged by the media.
• Give account of military analyst program.
• How did this happen? Why did it happen? This paper will try to explain.

_Decide whether to organize these sections by line or by point_

The Siren Triangle

• Interlocking histories: A chronicle of the autocatalytic coevolution of the modern media and modern military.
• We spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined. We also spend more on the media industry.

Media and Government

• Telecommunications Act of 1996
• 2009 military budget is the highest since world war 2. By contrast, Germany reduced its defense spending in 2004 to $33 billion.
• Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman.
• Does the media benefit from war?

Government and Defense Contractors

• Evidence indicates quid pro quo between government and more influential contractors. (Fleisher 1993; Karpoff 1999)
• Retroactive immunity given to telecommunications corporations in 2008.
• Break-down of defense spending. Return on expensive programs.

Defense Contractors and Media

• Defense-industry R&D funding facilitated growth and consolidation of media industry (Cypher 2002)
• General Electric owns defense-industry assets

The Pentagon's Military Analyst Program

• A metaphorical nexus and corrupt offspring of the Siren Triangle

Solutions

Legal Solutions

• Existing laws
• Needed changes

Other solutions

Quotations

Media and Government

Government and Defense Contractors

"The results once again confirm the powerful effects of ideology on defense voting but also indicate that PAC contributions exert a statistically significant (though marginal) impact even when ideological predisposition is controlled. In addition, the results support the argument that those members with weaker ideological predispositions are more responsive to the effects of PAC money. Finally, the results indicate that, even at the margins, PAC contributions from defense contractors can influence the outcome of legislative deliberations, especially when the vote margin is not very large." (Fleisher 1993) "Unranked contractors are penalized heavily for procurement frauds, experiencing both a decline in market value and a subsequent loss in government-derived revenues… Influential contractors, in contrast, are penalized lightly, experiencing negligible changes in share value and government contract revenue." (Karpoff 1999).

Defense Contractors and Media

"Defense spending on research and development has sparked much innovation. Microchips, radar, lasers, satellite communications, cell phones, GPS, and the Internet all came out of Defense Dept. funding for basic research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and national laboratories. There were breakthroughs at IBM and Bell Laboratories, and all were commercialized by Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., and other corporations. The same is true of artificial intelligence, supercomputers, high-speed fiber optics, and many other breakthroughs. The bulk of information technologies, in fact, were developed through massive R&D investments in military technology." (Cypher 2002)

Bibiliography