US Weapons Manufacturers Profiting From War in Ukraine
by John Lawrence
So far the US has spent $13.6 billion on the war in Ukraine. The money includes weapons, military supplies and one of the largest infusions of U.S. foreign aid in the last decade. But it also covers the deployment of U.S. troops to Europe and money for domestic agencies to enforce sanctions. Stock prices for Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are up. They are making money from all the Javelins and Stinger missiles they are selling to the US government which is giving them to Ukraine free of charge. Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin Corp jointly produce Javelins, while Raytheon makes Stingers. EU countries are buying even more US weaponry from the US military-industrial complex. Germany even wants F-35 aircraft from Lockheed Martin. U.S. weapons exports rose 2.8% to $175 billion in fiscal 2020. The Ukraine war is a field day for the weapons industry. As far as they're concerned, the more arms shipments to Ukraine the better. They are bullish. CEOs will probably get a substantial increase in pay, and the weapons contractors will be able to buy back more of their own stock boosting stock values even more. The US policy so far is no boots on the ground, but plenty of taxpayer money going up in smoke, money that could have been spent on bettering the lot of the American people.
The is always money available for war, but when it comes to Biden's Build Back Better package, Congress gets very stingy. So a localized war is more important than the fate of the whole planet due to global warming. Or it's more important than affordable health care. Or it's more important than imposing a tax on multi-billionaires who, by the way, are not paying for the war because they pay no taxes. If they have defense contractors in their portfolio, they are profiting from the war. Politico reported:
More than 25 nations have joined in purchasing and delivering weapons to support Ukraine’s war effort. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in missiles, ammunition and other items to the front. The EU signed off on a €500 million ($551 million USD) package — a first for the 27-country European bloc — to help arm Ukraine. And both Finland and Germany have rewritten long-standing policy that barred exporting weapons into war zones.
At the same time, there are tens of thousands of troops being activated and deployed by NATO countries in Eastern Europe.
Using a resource guide retrieved from the Forum on the Arms Trade that mostly relies on official government statements and reports in the media — and backfilled with our own independent research — POLITICO has worked to track and compile weapons and materials that have been announced or directed to Ukraine by various countries since January.
This non-exhaustive list focuses on lethal weapons and some non-lethal material. It does not count humanitarian and developmental aid that has been sent to Ukraine in the same period. Arms trade research organizations have noted the timeline and official receipt of equipment is hard to confirm due to security concerns. In some cases, such as with France and Turkey, an official tally has not been made public.
While US taxpayers are paying for the war in Ukraine and for the delivery of weapons to Europe, Saudi Arabia and other places in the world, billionaires are paying nothing. Congress will not even pass a tax on billionaires so that they would be forced to pay, as Biden says, "their fair share." Their fair share is zero, zip according to Congress which is basically on the side of the billionaires. So planet earth diminishes in importance, as far as global warming is concerned, because fighting and paying for war is so much more important. In fact not only is war more important than peace, which doesn't move the stock market, it's more important than renewable energy. All of a sudden there is a need for more oil, more fossil fuel, all of which produces more greenhouse gasses. The attitude is if we need to destroy planet earth in order to win this war, then that is the price we'll have to pay.