MAPPING THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (MIC), AVIATION + AEROSPACE,
& IT’S ECONOMIC IMPACT
Chris DeGaetano
919-453-4908
Specula Media Instagram
MAPPING THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (MIC), AVIATION + AEROSPACE,
& IT’S ECONOMIC IMPACT
Chris DeGaetano
919-453-4908
Specula Media Instagram
❶ Thesis Statement
❷ Project One
❸ Project Two
❹ Project Three
❺ Project Four
Pratt-GDI3
MAPPING THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Although operating under the guise of necessity, war is an industry. Warfare has always been an economic network, distributed and borderless, rather than tied to one nation or cause. War is not just senseless violence, but an interconnected network with the aim of creating a perpetual cycle of demand for military expansion. Beyond policy and supply chains, it is design practices that are responsible for stripping conflict of its moral gravity and presenting it as a profitable enterprise. How is design utilized to sanitize war into business? This question is pivotal to understanding how war manages to give economic and cultural rationale to tools of death and destruction.
By analyzing the visual aesthetics of the industry as a whole through the lens of branding and visual communication, this thesis aims to expose the economic absurdity embedded within this system–where the price of a single fighter jet can eclipse the cost of vital social services for entire communities.
“All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That point is war.”
In a quote by Walter Benjamin, a philosopher and cultural critic most known for his essay: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935), Benjamin warned that when politics is aestheticized, it becomes detached from material conditions and repackaged as spectacle. Fascist regimes did this by turning mass rallies, parades, and symbols into art-like experiences–allowing people to “consume” politics emotionally rather than confront it critically.
For Benjamin, this trajectory always leads to war, because war becomes the ultimate spectacle: violence disguised as beauty, heroism, or necessity. This concept of privileging emotion over intellect has become increasingly relevant in the present-day United States political sphere, particularly with the rise of social media. Through curated images and emotionally charged narratives; design serves as the tool that encodes information into aesthetic expression. Defense contractors, government agencies, and media outlets alike employ the same strategies that dominate political communication: polished visuals, simplified narratives, and emotional appeals that obscure complexity.
It becomes the responsibility of the viewer to discern a factual basis, to look through the layers of corporate and governmental mediation, and to recognize the power structures hidden beneath the surface. If design can sanitize and justify war, it can also dismantle its spectacle. The strategy of this thesis is to hijack this aesthetic language and re-encode it with critique. By contrasting corporate military visuals with accurate financial comparisons, this thesis aims to turn corporate camouflage into easily transmissible public information that encourages critical engagement and transforms graphic design into a method of transparency.
Thesis Diagram
Project I
Understanding rising tensions between US President Trump and Venezuela
For more than a century, Venezuela has occupied an outsized place in U.S. foreign policy due to its massive oil reserves, strategic position along the Caribbean Sea, and its role as a political counterweight within Latin America. After the 1990s, Venezuela’s shift toward anti-U.S. policies under Hugo Chávez reframed the nation as a regional challenger to American influence. Economic collapse, political unrest, and competing claims to legitimacy in the Maduro–Guaidó era further intensified tensions, drawing the U.S. into cycles of sanctions, covert operations, maritime patrols, and military posturing.
Today, Venezuela represents a convergence of energy security, geopolitical rivalry, humanitarian crisis, and militarized drug enforcement, making it a flashpoint where American strategic interests and questions of sovereignty collide. Recent U.S. naval deployments to the Caribbean—framed as counter-narcotics missions—are widely interpreted as symbolic shows of force, blurring the line between security operations and regional pressure campaigns.
As or recent, Venezuela condemned the latest round of U.S. sanctions as a violation of international law, with its military leadership framing them as a continuation of long-standing American imperial aggression. Recent reporting on a U.S. naval build-up in the Caribbean—featuring warships, F-35 aircraft, and rapid-deployment forces—has intensified fears of a potential regime-change operation. In response, the Venezuelan government announced a “massive” mobilization of troops and civilians to prepare for what it claims could be an imminent attack.
The escalating standoff reflects a modern form of neo-imperialist conflict, one in which the United States projects power not through traditional colonization but through sanctions, embargoes, and military pressure. Venezuela’s deepening partnerships with Iran, Russia, and China further heighten U.S. concerns, creating a geopolitical fault line in the Western Hemisphere.
Process and experimentation using Blender and Photoshop
“Petrol Peace Unit” is a satirical military patch referencing the strategic weight of Venezuela’s oil reserves in U.S. foreign policy. The central oil rig—embedded with an all-seeing eye—symbolizes surveillance, extraction, and the constant monitoring of resource-rich regions. The Venezuelan colors and eight stars anchor the piece in the nation’s visual identity, while the ironic unit title critiques the idea of enforcing ‘peace’ through economic pressure and military presence.
Project II
Specula Branding Tryptich
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961
Specula operates as a mirror: reflecting the hypocrisy, double-speak, and market-driven mechanisms behind militarized “innovation,” nationalistic branding, and the business of endless conflict.
Specula reveals how design becomes a weapon of framing — transforming the grotesque realities of war into something marketable, “professional,” and culturally acceptable. By adopting the tone of nationalistic corporate branding and pushing it to the point of discomfort, the project challenges viewers to reconsider the aesthetics they trust, the logos they recognize, and the narratives they absorb.
Specula logo and branding ideation in illustrator and different shots of the camo suit created in Blender
Project III
As one of the first posters designed for my thesis, I aimed to examine the F-35 Lightning II — self pronounced by Lockheed Martin as the most advanced fighter jet in the world — not as a technological marvel, but as a monument to economic excess.
These resources, currently dedicated to the F-35 program, could instead fund critical domestic priorities such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social services, highlighting a stark opportunity cost.
❶ Thesis Statement
❷ Project I
❸ Project II
❹ Project III
❺ Project IV
❷ Petrol Peace Unit Patch
An oil rig with an all-seeing eye sits at the center of Venezuela’s flag colors, framed by eight stars. This patch transforms a symbol of extraction into a reflection on national identity, power, and the pursuit of peace.