Defence industry profits soar as death and destruction increase
More civilian deaths due to armed conflict were recorded in 2023 than for more than a decade, according to Action on Armed Conflict. Doctors in Gaza coined the devastating new term WCNSF (wounded child, no surviving family) at the end of that year to categorise many of the victims of Israel’s genocide.
For the people of Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan and many other regions of the world, the price of war is incalculable. For the weapons industry, it’s $52 billion.
That’s how much the top fifteen defence contractors are expected to earn in 2026, according to analysis by Vertical Research Partners for the Financial Times. Like all good entrepreneurs, they know never to waste a good crisis.
Lockheed Martin—suppliers of the F-16 and F-35 fighter jets that Israel uses to drop bombs on Gaza—increased its profits to $8.5 billion in 2023. CEO James Taiclet is proud of his community spirit. In 2021 he told reporters, “There’s no better way to get a tighter bond with an ally than to sell them jet fighter aircraft”.
RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) made a profit of $12 billion in 2023, thanks in no small part to increased demand for the bombs and missiles it sells to the Israeli military. Like all good corporate minds, RTX CEO Greg Hayes is always thinking ahead. “Peace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon”, he said in 2021. “I think it remains an area where we’ll continue to see solid growth.”
Solid growth in death translates to solid growth in defence industry profits. The fact that an industry as fundamentally anti-human as the weapons industry is allowed to exist, let alone thrive, tells you everything you need to know about the moral compass of capitalism.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who calculate the risk of human-caused apocalypse with the Doomsday Clock, say we’re closer to midnight than ever before. Defence industry profits are also higher than ever.
Sixty years ago, as the Cold War nuclear arms race heated up, Bob Dylan described defence industry leaders as “masters of war”. The relevance of his lyrics, sadly, hasn’t aged:
You hide in your mansion
While the young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
…
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
