Inspired by Dwight Eisenhowers legendary farewell speech (in which he coined the phrase military industrial complex), filmmaker Eugene Jarecki surveys the scorched landscape of a half-centurys military adventures, asking how and telling why a nation of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war. The film moves beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why - why does America fight? What are the forces political, economic, ideological that drive us to fight against an ever-changing enemy?