ABSTRACT
January 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower’s prophetic speech, which warned citizens of the threat of the military-industrial complex and its influence on the education of our children. Even as Eisenhower warned of a looming military hegemony, Kennedy embraced it as a counterweight to the Soviet launch of Sputnik I. Kennedy embraced a conflict economy as a necessity for winning the Cold War, crystallized in a competitive ethos, “We cannot afford to fall behind.” Catching the momentum of that moment, Obama echoed Kennedy in his 2011 State of the Union address, stating, “This is our Sputnik Moment,” calling for the US to dominate economically and militarily on a global scale (Figure 10.1). If we view education historically, we cannot omit war as an integral phenomenon impacting the development of life in US schools and across the globe.
