New Revelations Underscore Need to Curb Defense Revolving Door

The revolving door between the Pentagon, Congress and the weapons industry – and its potentially corrupting influence over major policy and procurement decisions – is nothing new. It was a concern as early as the late 1950s, when the House of Representatives came within one vote of passing an amendment that would have prohibited the awarding of contracts to companies that hired retired military officials.

A new report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) shows that the practice of senior policymakers passing through the revolving door from government to industry is alive and well. It documents “ 672 cases in 2022 in which the top 20 defense contractors had former government officials, military officers, Members of Congress, and senior legislative staff working for them as lobbyists, board members, or senior executives.” And while defenders of this practice argue that it is useful to keep the expertise of government experts in defense policy and practices in this area – and that it can improve defense industry performance – the Warren analysis suggests otherwise. In a full 91 per cent of the cases they identified, the former government officials went to work as lobbyists for one of the top 20 Pentagon contractors. In short, the employment of former government employees is based on who they know, not what they know. And their job is to help boost the revenues of these companies, not improve their operations.

The concentration of the arm sector since the merger boom of the 1990s exacerbates the potential for the kind of “unwarranted influence” by the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his farewell address over 60 years ago — influence that he argued could “endanger our liberties or democratic processes” if left unchecked. As Warren notes, the U.S. has gone from over 50 major arms contractors to just five – Lockheed Martin
LMT
, Boeing
BA
, Raytheon, General Dynamics,
GD
and Northrop Grumman
NOC
. This consolidation gives the Pentagon few choices of where to go for the production of major weapons systems, raising the risk of price hikes and unaccountable behavior when it comes to delivering weapons that can perform as advertised.

Major weapons firms have prospered in this environment, racking up hefty profits while spending billions on stock buybacks designed to boost their stock values. This benefits industry executives and shareholders, but does nothing to improve their performance or increase our security.

Not surprisingly, the largest number of revolving door hires are made by major contractors like Boeing (85 in 2022), Raytheon (64), General Electric
GE
(60), and General Dynamics (57). These figures don’t take into account other ways that former government officials go to work for industry, including as “policy advisers, strategic consultants, trade association chiefs, corporate government relations executives, [and] affiliates of agenda-driven research institutes,” as noted in a piece in Politico. Sen. Warren has introduced legislation that would close this loophole by expanding the definition of a lobbyist to cover anyone who is paid to influence the government.

The underlying question, of course, is “why is the revolving door a problem?” The answer is fairly straightforward. Former government officials working for the arms industry can utilize their contacts with former colleagues and knowledge of arcane procurement processes to give their corporate employers a leg up in influencing government policy that is not available to smaller firms or members of the public. This unfair advantage can tilt Pentagon spending and policy in favor of special interests over the national interest.

The examples of major officials moving from government to industry are legion, but a few examples underscore the point. Former Trump administration Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis (retired) is on the board of General Dynamics. Retired Admiral Gary Roughead, former U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations, serves on the board of Northrop Grumman; and General Electric benefits from the lobbying services of Jim Dyer, who held senior positions at the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of State, and the White House under both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

To address the issues outlined above, Senator Warren has introduced the Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-corruption Act. This bill would impose a four year ban on arms contractors from hiring DoD officials and prevent them from employinf former DoD employees who managed their contracts. The Act would also require defense contractors to provide detailed information to the Pentagon on former senior DoD officials who they have hired, among other provisions.

It is well past time to rein in the revolving door, which is a primary expression of the potentially corrupting influence of the military-industrial complex. Doing so could make it easier to craft defense policies and practices based on what’s best for defending the country, not what’s best for arms mega-firms.