The M-I Complex we have is absolutely necessary. One can argue about bloat, waste, and pork, and be absolutely correct, but that doesn't change the fact it is absolutely vital. Eisenhower, a man around for three wars (WW1, WW2, Korea) was forced to admit that prior American wartime mass armament and mobilization was a terrible idea in the era of modern warfare. You can teach a guy to reload and fire a musket with ease and do all that. But drive a tank? Fix jet engines? Not die horribly as an infantryman in an era of automatic weapons? The USA's mobilization was a disaster for the first few years of WW2, and the post-war demobilization had absolutely wrecked our preparedness when Korea happened. The shit we had all ready to leap off the drawing boards made German wunderwaffe look like a joke (the M20 Super Bazooka we had ready right at the end of WW2 made the Panzerschreck look like a Roman Candle, for example), and had we properly continued that R&D and production similar to how the Russians did post-war, Korea never would have happened.