For 5 decades the American economy has devoted some of its best resources to waging the Cold War. By the 1990s, this investment had not only made the United States the world's high-tech cop but had also successfully launched many new industries - computing, chipbased electronics, and satellite communications. But this military-based industrial policy has come at a high social and economic price, as the authors demonstrate in a comprehensive reassessment of the military-industrial complex. Based on extensive new data and on interviews with defense industry executives, Pentagon officials, and community and union leaders, this book shows in disturbing detail how Cold War technologies have distorted and drained the economy. Military-led industrial policy has misfocused our research efforts, displaced more jobs than were created, and kept us from competing effectively in world markets. The authors argue that a reversal in the long downward slide of the American economy will require a concerted effort at economic conversion. They outline a national "needs-based" science and technology policy to resore standards of living and industrial vitality and propose an integrated economic development strategy designed to break addiction to Pentagon patronage. Here is a blunt and meticulously researched critique of the bitter economic fruits of the cold war - and a plan for a cure.