The term defense industrial base (or DIB), also known as the defense industrial and technological base, is used in political science to refer to a government's industrial assets that are of direct or indirect importance for the production of equipment for a country's armed forces. It is loosely associated with realism, which views the state as the preponderant guarantor of security, and frequently features as an element of grand strategy and defense policy, as well as diplomacy.
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United States
A commonly cited example of a defense industrial base is that of the United States, where, given the onset of the Cold War accompanied by the outbreak of the Korean War, the maintenance "of a peacetime defense industry of significant proportions was an unprecedented event."
Researchers and public figures critical of close ties among legislators, militaries and the defense industrial base due to a government's monopoly on demand for products of the latter employ the concept of the military–industrial complex to critique these connections. Early studies of interest group representation in the US referred to these ties as exemplary of the iron triangle phenomenon.