The framework's predictions in [§9.11.3](<9.11.3 What is Predicted.md>) are tried against the empirical and theoretical literature on defense-system performance.

*First.* Permanent defense-industry produces structural extraction. Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 farewell address articulated the prediction sixty-five years before this writing. The intervening empirical record (SIPRI Yearbooks documenting defense-spending trajectories; the long arc of US defense-industry consolidation through the Lockheed-Martin merger, Boeing-McDonnell Douglas, and Raytheon-United Technologies; revolving-door empirical work on Pentagon-to-contractor career flows) confirms the prediction across decades. Bacevich (2008; *The Limits of Power*; 2010; *Washington Rules*) documents the structural pattern at the analytic level. The empirical record is unambiguous.

*Second.* Spending diverges from threat assessments. The US empirical record on the post-Cold-War period documents the divergence: defense spending did not contract proportionate to the strategic-threat reduction following Soviet collapse, and it expanded substantially through the post-2001 period despite contested threat-assessment justifications. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute time-series data documents the comparative pattern across NATO and global defense spending. The threat-assessment-vs-spending gap empirical literature (Korb; the Project on Government Oversight reports) confirms the prediction directly.

*Third.* Forever-war pattern emerges with capture. The US empirical record on the post-2001 period (Iraq War 2003–2011, Afghanistan War 2001–2021, ongoing Syria and Somalia deployments, and the recent Niger deployment before the 2024 withdrawal) documents the forever-war pattern at scale. The empirical literature on conflict-resolution-versus-conflict-continuation political-economy (Bacevich; Glain on industry pressure for ongoing engagement) supports the framework's structural prediction. The 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal exposed the empirical scale of defense-industry investment in twenty-year continuation; the framework predicts the resistance to withdrawal as structurally derivable.

*Fourth.* Veterans-care underinvestment tracks defense-industry overinvestment. The US Veterans Affairs administrative-record empirical literature documents the underinvestment pattern across multiple decades and administrations. The 2014 VA wait-time scandal and its empirical aftermath document the structural pattern. Per-veteran funding compared to per-active-duty-service-member funding documents the disparity quantitatively. The framework's prediction is empirically confirmed across the time period.

*Fifth.* Domestic militarization tracks defense-industry capture. The US empirical record on the 1033 Program (transferring military equipment to local police), on the post-9/11 expansion of the surveillance state, and on the increasing deployment of military-grade equipment in domestic policing operations documents the prediction directly. Balko (2013; *Rise of the Warrior Cop*) and the ACLU empirical compilations document the pattern. The framework's prediction is that defense-industry overcapacity and defense-domain political economy create pressure for domestic outlets; the empirical record is consistent with that mechanism.

*Sixth.* Nuclear-proliferation pressure tracks structural-extraction logic. The arms-control-failure empirical record over multiple decades documents the proliferation-resistance pattern. The 2002 US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the post-2019 New START tensions, and the broader fading of post-Cold-War arms-control architecture document the structural pattern. The empirical literature on arms-industry political weight in arms-control negotiations (Wezeman and Wezeman at SIPRI) confirms the prediction.

*Seventh.* Demobilization resistance is structurally maximal. The US empirical record on post-Cold-War demobilization resistance, on Base Realignment and Closure Commission battles, and on the political-economy of district-level defense-spending protection documents the resistance pattern at scale. The empirical literature on Congressional defense-spending behavior (the iron-triangle literature; subcommittee-protection patterns) confirms the structural prediction.

*On theoretical convergences.* The framework converges on conclusions independently reached in: realist international-relations theory at one reading (the security-dilemma account; Jervis 1976), institutionalist international-relations theory (the security-community concept; Adler and Barnett 1998), peace-studies scholarship (Galtung on structural violence), and Eisenhower's own structural account in the 1961 farewell address. The convergence from realist, institutionalist, and peace-studies premises supports the robustness of the conclusions.

*What does not confirm the framework.* Strong-form pure-realism accounts predict that defense-spending trajectories track threat assessments without political-economic distortion; the empirical record refuses this prediction. Strong-form military-industrial-complex-as-myth accounts predict that defense-industry political weight is exaggerated; the empirical record refuses this prediction across multiple metrics. Strong-form pacifist accounts predict that defense institutions are precluded altogether; the framework precludes structural-extraction patterns within defense institutions but treats defense-as-constitutive-infrastructure as legitimate, parting from pure pacifism on the existence of the institution. The confirmations stated in this subsection are made under engagement with the contested international-relations opposition traditions [§9.11.1](<9.11.1 What is Disputed.md>) names at premise: pacifism (Tolstoy, *The Kingdom of God Is Within You* 1894; Hauerwas, *The Peaceable Kingdom* 1983), realism (Morgenthau, *Politics Among Nations* 1948; Mearsheimer, *The Tragedy of Great Power Politics* 2001), and cosmopolitanism (Kant, *Perpetual Peace* 1795; Held, *Democracy and the Global Order* 1995). Those traditions are engaged at section length in [§9.11.1](<9.11.1 What is Disputed.md>), and the confirmation record stated here applies under that engagement. The *in bello* combatant-equality dispute (Walzer vs. McMahan) adjudicated in [§9.11.2](<9.11.2 What is Required.md>) is additionally staged at [§9.11.1](<9.11.1 What is Disputed.md>); the confirmation record here concerns defense political-economy and does not turn on that adjudication.


---

← [9.11.3 What is Predicted](<9.11.3 What is Predicted.md>) | [9.11.5 What is Concluded](<9.11.5 What is Concluded.md>) →
