Tensions are steadily growing over territorial disputes in East Asia. Japan has repeatedly renewed its claim to South Korea’s Dokdo islets in the East Sea. Japan and China have been involved in a spat over who owns an uninhabited -- but possibly resource rich -- archipelago known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.
On September 16, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that China and other Asian countries could end up at war over territorial disputes, if governments keep up their "provocative behavior."
Speaking to reporters before arriving in Japan on a trip to Asia, Panetta appealed for restraint amid mounting tension over territorial rights in both the East and South China Seas.
Analysts say such provocative behaviors may trigger an arms race in the region. They contend that, if the current situation escalates, development and welfare spending risks being scaled back in favor of bolstering the military industrial complex as a direct consequence of increasing military expenditures.
The term military-industrial complex was first used by U.S President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation in 1961 and has since been embraced in popular culture to refer to a conglomeration of the relationship between government agencies and the defense industrial base that supports them.
There is a belief within some quarters that there are faceless entities within the military industrial complex that are keen on escalating regional tensions leading to all out open warfare. Should that ever happen, the military industrial complex stands to profit from arms sales.