>It's possible I'm thinking of the wrong book. I recall reading some
>Classic Of Military Sci-Fi, and I thought it was Starship
>Troopers, in which it turned out that the government had basically
>become a branch of the army, and the army essentially a subsidiary of
>the company providing most of its gear, over the course of an
>interminable outer-space war, to the point where they were
>deliberately prolonging the war indefinitely to keep the machine
>running. Economic prosperity, full employment, a plausible excuse to
>limit civil liberties, and built-in population control - what's not to
>like?

You might be thinking of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, which was pretty much written as a rebuttal to Starship Troopers.