Tag Archives: military-industrial complex

Business of War Is Booming as Orders Surge at Top Global Arms Firms

“The order books of the world’s biggest defense companies are near record highs,” a new Financial Times analysis reveals.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 12-28-2023 by Common Dreams

The event, which is held at the ExCeL London exhibition center, is the world’s largest defense and security event. Screenshot: YouTube

Orders at many of the world’s biggest arms companies are “near record highs” due to rising geopolitical tensions in recent years, an analysis published Wednesday by Financial Times revealed.

The London-based newspaper analyzed the order books of the world’s 15 top arms makers and found their combined backlogs were $777.6 billion at the end of 2022—a 10% increase from 2020.

Continue reading
Share Button

War Profiteers’ Stocks Soar as Israel Bombs Gaza

“As countries need to replenish their weapons, we do think defense companies will do very well,” said one expert.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-9-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: @aboodalweshah05/X

“War is good for business.”

That’s what one defense executive said at a London arms conference last month, and what the stock market reflected on Monday, as Israel blockaded and bombarded the Gaza Strip—bombing the occupied Palestinian territory’s main university, residential buildings, a refugee camp, and a major hospital—in response to Hamas’ weekend attack that killed hundreds of Israelis.

The United States, which already gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military assistance, is now preparing to send additional weaponry and other support. Meanwhile, the stocks of U.S. and European firms that make money off of war soared on Monday.

Continue reading
Share Button

Demanding an End to ‘Deadly Fossil Fuels,’ Tens of Thousands Take the Streets in NYC

“It’s time for Biden to declare a climate emergency and phase out the fossil fuels killing people and wildlife around the world.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 9-17-2023 by Common Dreams

Thousands of activists, indigenous groups, students, and others take to the streets of New York City for the March to End Fossil Fuels on September 17, 2023. Photo: Mollie Heckerling/X

Tens of thousands poured into the streets of New York City on Sunday for the largest climate mobilization in the U.S. in years, with organizers and marchers telling President Joe Biden to stop approving planet-wrecking fossil fuel projects and start doing everything in his power to accelerate the nation’s renewable energy transition.

Campaigners expressed outrage that Biden has refused to declare a national climate emergency and is planning to skip United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday.

Continue reading
Share Button

‘Important Step’: Biden Admin to Track Foreign Forces Killing Civilians With US Weapons

“Of course, its impact will come down to the details of implementation,” said one expert.

By Jessica Corbett Published 9-13-2023 by Common Dreams

Child Observing Sana’a Ruins. Photo: Felton Davis/flickr/CC

Human rights advocates and some congressional Democrats on Wednesday cautiously welcomed Washington Post reporting that the Biden administration has created a program to track and investigate allegations of foreign forces harming or killing civilians with weapons provided by the United States.

“The United States clearly has a vested interest in knowing what harm its weapons sales and security assistance cause to civilians,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy Washington director Nicole Widdersheim told the newspaper. “Let’s see if the Biden administration puts political will behind this good idea.”

Continue reading
Share Button

Military alliances like NATO won’t solve our greatest security threat

Things may look rosy for NATO today, but climate breakdown, not wars, are the biggest threat to global security

By Paul Rogers. Published 7-14-2023 by openDemocracy

Finland accession to NATO ceremony. Photo: Estonian Foreign Ministry/flickr/CC

NATO really is on a roll thanks to Vladimir Putin, but even as its immediate prospects look good, the whole future of the alliance should be open to question.

For now, as Finland and Sweden join, Putin finds an enlarged alliance ranged against him. NATO’s reputation is so bound up with the fate of Ukraine that, in the unlikely event that Russia makes substantial military gains in the conflict, Kyiv cannot be allowed to lose. From Putin’s perspective, his warning early last year of the threat posed to Russia from NATO has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This does at least mean he can claim ‘I told you so’ – which is helping maintain some domestic support.

Continue reading
Share Button

Biden Administration Poised to Supply Ukraine With Banned Cluster Bombs

An official announcement is expected very soon.

By Common Dreams. Published 7-1-2023

Allegedly out of date NATO CBU-87 cluster bomb used in bombing of Yugoslavia; in 1999. Photo: Petar Milošević/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine with cluster bombs and may announce this decision in early July, NBC News reports.

“We have been thinking about DPICM for a long time,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the National Press Club. “Yes, of course, there’s a decision-making process ongoing.”

Continue reading
Share Button

US Increases Dominance as World’s Top Arms Exporter

“The impacts of the global arms trade aren’t just about the volume of weapons delivered,” said one expert, citing “a few examples of how U.S. arms deliveries can make the world a more dangerous place.”

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 3-13-2023 by Common Dreams

U.S. Air Force members load 155 mm M777 towed howitzers onto a C-17 Globemaster III on March Air Reserve Base in California on April 27, 2022. (Photo: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Shawn White)

A Sweden-based research institute published a report Monday showing that the United States accounted for 40% of the world’s weapons exports in the years 2018-22, selling armaments to more than 100 countries while increasing its dominance of the global arms trade.

The report—entitled Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2022—was published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and listed the United States, Russia, France, China, and Germany as the world’s top five arms exporters from 2018-22. The five nations accounted for 76% of worldwide weapons exports during that period.

The five biggest arms importers over those five years were India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia, and China.

The United States saw a 14% increase in arms exports over the previous five-year period analyzed by SIPRI. U.S. arms were delivered to 103 nations from 2018-22, with 41% going to the Middle East.

“Even as arms transfers have declined globally, those to Europe have risen sharply due to the tensions between Russia and most other European states,” Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, said in a statement. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster. Strategic competition also continues elsewhere: Arms imports to East Asia have increased and those to the Middle East remain at a high level.”

According to the report, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year “had only a limited impact on the total volume of arms transfers in 2018–22, but Ukraine did become a major importer of arms in 2022.”

Ukraine was the 14th-largest arms importer from 2018-22 and the third-biggest last year.

Wiliam Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Monday that “the impacts of the global arms trade aren’t just about the volume of weapons delivered. The question is how those weapons are likely to be used, and the extent to which they promote stability versus fueling conflict or propping up repressive regimes with abysmal human rights records.”

“On this score the United States has much room for improvement,” he continued. “Transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use at the peak of their brutal war in Yemen, and sales to major human rights violators from the Philippines, Egypt, and Nigeria are a few examples of how U.S. arms deliveries can make the world a more dangerous place.”

“There are a number of promising steps that Congress can take—as articulated by a new coalition, the Arms Sales Accountability Project—that would mandate closer scrutiny of U.S. sales,” Hartung asserted.

“There is also some useful language in the Biden administration’s new arms transfer policy directive, that, if implemented, would significantly rein in the most egregious sales,” he added. “Only time will tell if U.S. policy can be moved towards one based on arms sales restraint rather than arms sales promotion.”

This work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Share Button

Ukraine war: Does Putin have his eye on the 2024 US presidential election?

A pro-Russian president in the White House would shift the outcome of a prolonged war in Putin’s favour

By Paul Rogers  Published 3-4-2023 by openDemocracy

Putin’s choice for US president: Donald Trump or someone like him. Photo: Trump White House Archived/flickr/CC

n the past few weeks, Russian forces in Ukraine have been attempting to take territory in intensive combat, but their progress has been minimal. This is adding to the sense that Russia is in difficulty and Ukraine is making progress in winning the war, with considerable support from the United States.

In its determination to consolidate this apparent advantage, Washington is warning forcefully of the actions it will take to counter countries willing to aid Russia. The G7 has also recently announced specific actions against some 200 companies and individuals across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with part of the aim being to discourage those that have not yet been involved in sanctions-busting but are in a position to do so. Continue reading

Share Button

War Industry ‘Celebrating Christmas Early’ as House Passes $858 Billion NDAA

“There is no justification to throw… $858 billion at the Pentagon when we’re told we can’t afford child tax credit expansion, universal paid leave, or other basic human necessities,” said the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. “End of story.”

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 12-8-2022 by Common Dreams

Class of 2022 cadets participate in a live-fire exercise as part of their Cadet Field Training. Photo: Matthew Moeller (US Army)/flickr/CC

Peace advocates on Thursday slammed the House of Representatives’ passage of a mammoth $858 billion military spending bill as an early holiday gift for the Pentagon and the weapons corporations who benefit from the United States’ ongoing—but largely forgotten—War on Terror.

House lawmakers voted 350-80 in favor of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 45 Democrats and 35 Republicans voting “no.”

The new NDAA authorizes an $80 billion military spending increase over the 2022 bill, and $118 billion more than when President Joe Biden took office in 2021. The 2023 allocation is more than the combined military budgets of China, India, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). It’s also more than the annual gross domestic product of countries including Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, based on United Nations figures. Continue reading

Share Button

Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Yet Congress Poised to Approve $847 Billion Budget

“This isn’t using our taxpayer dollars wisely,” said the National Priorities Project. “It’s robbing programs that we need, like the discontinued child tax credit that cut child poverty by half.”

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 12-1-2022 by Common Dreams

F-35A Lightning II drops a 2,000-pound GBU-31 bomb. Photo: Public Domain

Anti-war advocates blasted U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, one day after it was reported that Congress is expected to pass an $847 billion military budget for the coming fiscal year even though the Pentagon recently failed its fifth consecutive annual audit and nearly 40 million people nationwide are living in poverty.

Last month, “the Pentagon once again failed to pass a basic audit showing that it knows where its money goes,” the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies said in a statement. “And instead of holding out for any kind of accountability, Congress stands ready to give a big raise to an agency that failed to account for more than 60% of its assets.” Continue reading

Share Button