Military Money Flowed Away From Great Lakes States after WWII

We've had some debates about this in the past, so here's an article that cropped up today.

http://www.counterpunch.com/cox04222010.html

Stan Cox describes "the Gun Belt,"

"The Southern and Western states have long been favored as sites for military bases, and those states also form what University of Minnesota professor Ann Markusen once termed the nation’s 'Gun Belt' [2]. In that region, the value of prime defense contracts swelled by 70 to 100 percent in real terms from the 1950s to the 1980s, going into the Reagan military buildup. Meanwhile, military contracts in the once-dominant mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions fell off sharply, and those on the Pacific coast stayed level. The Sun Belt/Gunbelt went on to become the top supplier of both troops and armaments for the wars of the 1990s and 2000"

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

We've had some debates about this in the past, so here's an article that cropped up today.

http://www.counterpunch.com/cox04222010.html

Stan Cox describes "the Gun Belt,"

"The Southern and Western states have long been favored as sites for military bases, and those states also form what University of Minnesota professor Ann Markusen once termed the nation’s 'Gun Belt' [2]. In that region, the value of prime defense contracts swelled by 70 to 100 percent in real terms from the 1950s to the 1980s, going into the Reagan military buildup. Meanwhile, military contracts in the once-dominant mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions fell off sharply, and those on the Pacific coast stayed level. The Sun Belt/Gunbelt went on to become the top supplier of both troops and armaments for the wars of the 1990s and 2000"

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Two factors at work here.

The first is the location of army and air force training bases. After WWII, the services had a gigantic excess of bases. Given weather patterns, the services chose to utilize the bases which had the best climate [[to maximize training days) and the best facilities [[extensive ranges and training areas). The bases in the south had an advantage in both of these areas. Michigan had Ft Wayne [[in Detroit), Ft Brady [[at the Soo locks), and Fort Custer [[in Battle Creek). Ft Wayne and Ft Brady were small, cramped, defensive installations. Ft Custer could have been used as an on-going training site, but climate told against it.

The second is the location of equipment manufacturing facilities. Until the Stewart and Stevenson vehicle contracts, virtually all military trucks were procured in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. All tanks have been built in Michigan or Ohio. Other army tracked vehicles have been built in California and Pennsylvania.
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http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...304189971/1069#

Well, Tacom is going to be expanding big time in the next few years. There will be a lot of transfers from Rock Island and Alabama to Warren. I asked a pal who works at the Pentagon and he basically said the military wants to utilize SE Michigan's engineering and technical resources, which cannot be found in the Sunbelt. Makes you wonder why the South has had such trouble setting up brainpower in states like AL and TN. Sure, it is easy to roll out a bunch of incentives to build a factory, but when it comes time to build a tech center, they have yet to make a dent with the exception of a few token facilities.

I have an old college Political Science 101 book somewhere called "The Irony of Democracy", IIRC.... and it mentions that the Congresssional committee chairmen were largely from southern states in the post WWII period and beyond.

Those southern senators and congressmen were re-elected for long terms, hence the seniority system kicked in and they became powerful committee chairmen. And with that came lots of military projects [[as well as pork) going to their states and districts at a disproportionate level.

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Originally Posted by Patrick

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...304189971/1069#

Well, Tacom is going to be expanding big time in the next few years. There will be a lot of transfers from Rock Island and Alabama to Warren. I asked a pal who works at the Pentagon and he basically said the military wants to utilize SE Michigan's engineering and technical resources, which cannot be found in the Sunbelt. Makes you wonder why the South has had such trouble setting up brainpower in states like AL and TN. Sure, it is easy to roll out a bunch of incentives to build a factory, but when it comes time to build a tech center, they have yet to make a dent with the exception of a few token facilities.

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Great point, you know the Japanese won't build a car factory in Michigan but they have no problem at all putting up engineering and technical centers in the state.

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military contracts

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they need to make the outsourcing of military contracts illegal.