Making a Killing: How US Taxpayer Money Goes Directly Into Weapons Makers' Pockets to Arm Ukraine
18:55 GMT 02.12.2024 (Updated: 19:02 GMT 02.12.2024)
© AP Photo / Evan Vucci
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A leading independent security affairs research institute has published a detailed breakdown of global defense manufacturers' 2023 earnings. Turns out NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has been very, very good for business.
41 US arms makers made the list of the world’s top 100 defense companies, recording a whopping $317 billion in total revenues in 2023, a new report compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has found.
Together with defense firms from other NATO members and other US allies worldwide, the collective West recorded over $494 billion in sales – more than 78% of the $632 billion world total.
The ranking's top five biggest companies (Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics) are American, and have hung on to their top five positions for five years running.
The five alone raked in $198.34 billion in 2023 (nearly double Russia’s entire $109 billion defense budget that year).
SIPRI attributed the record revenues to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Coincidentally, the same five US companies have made a killing selling arms to fuel both.
In January 2023, for instance, Northrop Grumman got $522.3 million to make 155 mm artillery shells for Ukraine. In June 2024, the company announced plans to build a shell factory in Ukraine using money from a $2 billion US ”co-production” scheme.
In March 2023, RTX’s Raytheon got $1.2 billion for Patriot missiles, receiving $478 million more in August 2024. RTX previously won $1.2 billion to build six NASAM missile batteries for Ukraine.
In August 2023, a General Dynamics subsidiary won a $34 million contract for tank maintenance services in Ukraine. That’s on top of a $23.1 million contract to build monkey model Abrams tanks for Kiev the same year.
Lockheed won a massive $4.8 billion award to build GMLRS precision missiles in April 2023. Large quantities of these have appeared in Ukraine.
In June 2024, Lockheed got $1.9 billion for more HIMARS precision rocket artillery, another major US export to Kiev.
In August, Lockheed and Raytheon got $1.3 billion for Javelin missiles. Thousands of Javelins have been sent to Ukraine by the US and its allies over the past two-and-a-half years.
In October, Boeing won a whopping $6.9 billion contract to make small diameter bombs for Ukraine, Japan and Bulgaria. Separately, it got $600 million for JDAM munitions testing and integration to "enhance" their deadliness. The Russian military reports almost weekly on the shootdown of JDAM munitions fired by Ukraine at Russian troop concentrations and cities.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. SIPRI’s list also shows huge revenues for an array of Western arms makers known for sending their wares to Ukraine, from BAE Systems, Thales and Saab, to Hanwha Group, Turkish Aerospace Industries, Rheinmetall and ThyssenKrupp.
Top earners among global defense companies in 2023. List compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
© Photo : Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Major global hedge funds have invested heavily into Western defense companies through the course of the crisis in Ukraine. Is it any wonder, then, that an unsuspecting BlackRock recruiter admitted to an undercover reporter in 2023 that the "war is really f***king good for business"?
