The War State: The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963
Audible Logo Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $19.95
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

The War State: The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963 Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Michael Swanson (Author), Larry Wayne (Narrator), Listen and Think Audio (Publisher)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 558 ratings
See all formats and editions

Today when you factor in the interest on the national debt from past wars and total defense expenditures the United States spends almost 40% of its federal budget on the military. It accounts for over 46% of total world arms spending.

Before World War II it spent almost nothing on defense and hardly anyone paid any income taxes. You can't have big wars without big government. Such big expenditures are now threatening to harm the national economy. How did this situation come to be?

In this book you'll learn how in the critical 20 years after World War II the United States changed from being a continental democratic republic to a global imperial superpower. Since then nothing has ever been the same again. In this book you will discover this secret history of the United States that formed the basis of the world we live in today.

By buying this book you will discover:

  • How the end of European colonialism created a power vacuum that the United States used to create a new type of world empire backed by the most powerful military force in human history.
  • Why the Central Intelligence Agency was created and used to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations when the United States Constitution had no mechanism for such imperial activities.
  • How national security bureaucrats got President Harry Truman to approve of a new wild budget busting arms race after World War II that is still going on to this day.
  • Why President Eisenhower really gave his famous warning against the "military-industrial complex."
  • Why during the Kennedy administration the nuclear arms race almost led to the end of the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • How President Kennedy tried to deal with what had grown into a "permanent government" of power elite national security bureaucrats in the executive branch of the federal government that had become more powerful than the individual president himself.

In this audiobook you will discover this secret history of the United States that formed the basis of the world we live in today.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    8 hours and 37 minutes
  2. Author
    Michael Swanson
  3. Narrator
    Larry Wayne
  4. Audible release date
    March 21, 2014
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Listen and Think Audio
  7. ASIN
    B00J5PLN20
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next page

Read & Listen

Switch back and forth between reading the Kindle book and listening to Audible audiobook.
Add the audiobook for a reduced price of $7.49 after you get the Kindle book as part of your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Product details

Listening Length 8 hours and 37 minutes
Author Michael Swanson
Narrator Larry Wayne
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date March 21, 2014
Publisher Listen and Think Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B00J5PLN20
Best Sellers Rank #47,518 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#35 in National & International Security (Audible Books & Originals)
#149 in National & International Security (Books)
#789 in United States History (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
558 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

John Ellis
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read and a great resource, well written
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
Hard to put down, Swanson's account, well referenced, of the enormous and persistent military buildup since WW2 boggles the mind. It shows how we have simply swallowed the propaganda and how even presidents have been forced to follow suit, given the enormous profits and far reaching influence the armaments industry has had on Congress and on public opinion. Swanson first points out Eisenhower's stark warnings and how despite them, the buildup never ceased. Fighters as the F-22 Raptor with no clear combat mission costing over 120 million a copy are very hard to explain on any other grounds than profits. Truly, if the US ran out of enemies, it would have to invent them. Not so strange, as every organization from the Polio Foundation on has had to take on new causes to keep existing. Not that is bad per se, but when it so severely distorts our economy and leads ultimately to either hyperinflation or collapse, is this such a huge concern. We are seeing it again in the horrendous cost of health care (my own book, Full Moon Saturday Night, dwells on both subjects as well), but when these two forces combine, they pose severe limits on our ability to survive. We are undergoing shocking threats to liberty we are already seeing by this militarization, even of our police forces, that have resulted from a constant war footing, the establishment and constant encroachment by Homeland Security and the paranoia that accompanies it. All of us can cite examples of this if we but wander out the least onto our crumbling highways and bridges. My wife and I were recently blocked in and detained for half an hour and my camera seized and the memory card erased on the side of a public highway for doing nothing more than stopping (as required) to reset our GPS a short way from Reidsville Prison in Georgia by thuggish guards obviously aching to use tasers or to bludgeon us to death, with no apologies whatever for their behavior that fully qualified as assault and illegal detention. Tourists have been forbidden, totally in error, to not take pictures of public buildings and monuments in Washington, DC, and such abuses are now rampant, with little done to reverse what are ominous, trends. Local jurisdictions freely admit they are forced to using their police departments as cash cows, ticketing passing motorists for the most inane of infractions, not for safety, but for revenue, as Federal and local sources of money dry up. Swanson notes how the ability to keep money seized in stops for drug trafficking has resulted in corruption, planted evidence and phony arrests to justify the ends and how the ill fated drug war has created more self-serving monstrous bureaucracies and private prison companies increasingly desperate to perpetuate their own existence. I was an Air Force Flight surgeon on nuke-armed B-52's during the Cold War and I saw much of coming this head on. This huge nuclear fleet, continuously airborne, was to be a WW3 deterrent on the cheap, helping to avoid having to maintain a huge standing army with its enormous costs, but the armaments industry, as Swanson points out, could not tolerate such a state. Swanson's knowledge of history and his gift of writing elevates him to the level of George Orwell (1984 and Animal Farm) and Phillip Roth (Fahrenheit 451) in describing our devastating ruinous course, with a destiny of joining the historical wrecks of past democracies similarly destroyed by dystopian forces. We fail to read and heed this important, fully Pulitzer Prize quality work at our peril.
18 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Joseph G. Wick
5.0 out of 5 stars A Clear Explanation and Analysis of Where We Are
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2014
Verified Purchase
Mike Swanson is a former hedge fund operator and currently a stock market guru. Surprisingly, his degrees are not in business, but History. He has written a very interesting, clear, and complete history of America as a "War State" from WWII to the present.

The general theme is that the "military-industrial complex" has hijacked the government for decades and has sabotaged our economy whether intentionally or through carefree greed. Swanson, as befitting a former graduate student in History, has done an immense amount of research. He reveals some amazing facts regarding the "cold war" and the Complex's ability to diminish the Presidency while increasing the power of the Permanent Bureaucracy. It has managed to change the way America thinks of itself to a model unthinkable to the Founding Fathers. Along the way in this narrative you can see many similarities to the extinct empires of old.

While Truman and Eisenhower were aware of the risk, they had little power to combat the big money flowing from the defense establishment into Congress and general elections. As a result, although Eisenhower warned of the risks, they did little about it. If there is a hero in this book, it is JFK. Having been misled by the military and CIA regarding Cuba, he went around them to come up with a diplomatic solution which years later led to detente. Shortly thereafter, he was assassinated. It makes you think when you see whom he aggravated.

His military advisers and those connected with the Complex mostly wanted to nuke Cuba and seemed oblivious to our losses. (Of course this is true of all our wars where the old seem little concerned by the young being taken off the board). Swanson's research into the recently opened Russian archives provides fascinating material on Kruschev and how the Russians perceived their threat from the U.S. Meanwhile, the Complex diligently pursued homeland propaganda to keep Americans in a heightened fear of Russia. Sort of tragically, we hear of the call to close a non-existent "missile gap" and calls for an absurd number of nuclear weapons - it's doubtful we needed tens of thousands of H-Bombs.

All in all, this is a terrific book.

Nevertheless, I have a few quibbles. First, I think the Complex, including DuPont and the Rockefeller and Morgan interests existed before WWII and were highly instrumental in getting us into WWI and the small wars between WWI and WWII.

Second, as shown by Russia's own problems controlling the military complex there, it appears that an economy needs a huge defense complex to ensure full employment. In Russia's case, they went over the tipping point and dissolved (and, as Swanson points out, we might be next).

Third, aside from saying the current state of affairs is disastrous; there is no proposal to solve the problem except to vote for change. We know how well that works when you have a propagandized and fearful populace. Also, with such a huge bureaucracy, and Complex, how do you handle it's shrinkage without sinking the economy? They need to be re-tasked, but that is easier said than done and Swanson makes no suggestions.

Fourth, the book essentially ends with Kennedy and gives short or no shrift to Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and even Obama - all of whom, despite their varying rhetoric, appear to be in the Complex's pocket. In fact Johnson pioneered a new stage of war finance. He believed in a war with no obvious costs to the people. For instance, unlike in WWI, WWII, and Korea, there was no increased taxation of the rich, or excess profits taxes on those benefitting from the war. You can guess what this did for our deficit, but it made permanent war more acceptable to the people. The costs are there, but hidden.

Fifth, perhaps because of his own participation in the world of finance, Swanson says almost nothing about the complicity of big finance in the problem, except to mention the huge participation of investment bankers, and Yale "bonesmen" on the more problematic side of the corridors of power.

Quibbles aside, I love this book and recommend it to anyone who seeks to understand what has really moved America over the last 70 years. The notes and bibliography are also excellent. This is a job well done by a good historian outside the mainstream.
45 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
James S. Doyle
4.0 out of 5 stars well-written, fair and comprehensive.
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2014
Verified Purchase
This book is worth your time. The one trouble with self-published books (I have one of my own in the works) is that your local library isn't going to have it to lend. I bought this because I'm leading a discussion of "The Brothers" this fall--the outstanding book on the public lives of John Foster and Allen Dulles. In searching for additional material for discussion I came across this book (the only one I haven't read) and sent for it. It's quite fair and uses its many references to other books conscientiously. He's not a historian-scholar but he's done his homework and his conclusions, while a bit oversimplified, are very much on target. He's footnoted his sources which provides you a wide look at some of the best available readings on the subject. I'm looking forward to his next book. As a caution, you may want to read John Olive's one-star review on Amazon. It's slightly overwrought but a pretty good critique of Michael Swanson's book.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

annie
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Canada on August 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
Great analysis of the growth of the military industrial complex from Truman through to 2012 focusing on Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy
Report
Rachael Payne
5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and educational guide
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book examines the origins of the cold war, the history of the CIA and looks at political figures and how they responded to the crises they faced through the years 1945 -1963.
It is a well written and interesting historical text that is well referenced to back up theories proposed by the author.
I particularly enjoyed reading about the history of the CIA, how it was run and how it deteriorated into an organisation that acted on its own initiative.
It is insightful. I was surprised to learn about the amount of US Government spending on defence budgets over the twentieth century and what they are still spending now. The author does well to highlight the change from the threat of the cold war, to the threat of terrorism in why the Government explains the need to spend so much.
I find this book to be a very useful and educational guide to American history and politics over the course of the cold war.
5 people found this helpful
 Report
JimmyT
5.0 out of 5 stars Great historical look at the cold war
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is a very informative book outlining the dangerous times we lived in. Written from the perspectives of presidents of the USA and theSoviet leaders, showing the nearness to annihilation that we were lucky to survive in that time of lies and utter stupidity of both superpowers
One person found this helpful
 Report
A m a z o n Customer Ian
4.0 out of 5 stars How a non-democratic individuals captured the US government.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2021
Verified Purchase
16JUL2013 pp.430 24.6mm NO Index pbk printed by Amazon.

Ford, Carter and Obama did little to obstruct them while Roosevelt II, Kennedy and Nixon worked to obstruct them.

Truman authorised the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) in 1950 stating that "even if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problem of the society...order, security...[and]...freedom". It compromised the constitution by authorising assassinations, coups, sabotage,subversion and false-flag operations.

Eisenhower authorised the CIA and MI 6 to overthrow the Iranian government to seize the oil fields
There was a plan for a nuclear attack in 1954 to roll over communism by attacking Eastern Europe, Russia and China. 25 to 50 million would have died alone in the USA. They claimed bomber then missile gaps to justify by building large bomber then missile fleets.
After he resigned he warned of the Military Industrial Complex.

Kennedy wanted to smash the CIA buit they got to him first. He stopped the invasion and occupation of Cuba to put the mafia back in control of a lot of the economy. He wanted to pull out of Vietnam and end the Cold War.
The Warren Commision contained many future presidents: Johnson, Ford, Carter and Bush Sr. Ten days after they killed Kennedy, President Diem of the Republic of Vietnam was assassinated presumably by the same gang.

Nixon was framed in the Watergate affair as he was going off script.

Reagan survived being assassinated by a controlled agent. And these are only the US presidents.

Swanson is not a professional historian though he does a good job.

Supporting books are:  Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945 , Gabriel Kolko, Confrontiong the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980  and  James William Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam .
3 people found this helpful
 Report
Akaash Rishi
4.0 out of 5 stars Classy read in this time of gibberish and cowards running from old school warfare
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
This reminds me of the Politburo and the KGB and when JFK knew the FBI and before Osama Bin Laden and Sadaam Hussein took the fall for Bollywood and those salary contracts in Hollywood for those Bachchans. There was nothing wrong with the Military Industrial Complex and we have gotten lost in a search for history in the future that is spelling Fake News and making our present nonsensical to World Leaders looking for a help with narrative and meaning. This text speaks to authenticity and memory and echoes the past well to scare the reader into real time for what he could miss tomorrow if he is lost in the Maya or the illusion of Shiva.
2 people found this helpful
 Report