Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, warning of a growing "military-industrial complex," opens Eugene Jarecki's account of how that warning played out. The film traces defense spending, arms contractors, and think tanks through the Cold War and into the Iraq War, with interviews ranging from William Kristol and John McCain to historian Chalmers Johnson and Gore Vidal. Its throughline is Wilton Sekzer, a retired NYPD officer whose son died in the World Trade Center on September 11 and who asked the Air Force to write his son's name on a bomb dropped on Baghdad, then has to reckon with what that bombing actually accomplished. Archival footage covers Eisenhower's own career, the missile and aircraft industries that grew around Washington, and the lobbying networks connecting Congress, the Pentagon, and defense manufacturers. The film lays out its argument through people who built and defended the system alongside those questioning it, following the money from congressional votes to factory floors to targets on the ground.