{"id":104325,"date":"2018-01-01T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=104325"},"modified":"2018-01-01T12:00:47","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T12:00:47","slug":"the-merchants-of-death-survive-and-prosper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/01\/the-merchants-of-death-survive-and-prosper\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cMerchants of Death\u201d Survive and Prosper"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 Jan 2018 – <\/em>During the mid-1930s, a best-selling expos\u00e9 of the international arms trade<\/a>, combined with a U.S. Congressional investigation<\/a> of munitions-makers led by Senator Gerald Nye, had a major impact on American public opinion.\u00a0 Convinced that military contractors were stirring up weapons sales and war for their own profit, many people grew critical of these \u201cmerchants of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, some eight decades later, their successors, now more politely called \u201cdefense contractors,\u201d are alive and well.\u00a0 According to a study<\/a> by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, sales of weapons and military services by the world\u2019s largest 100 corporate military purveyors in 2016 (the latest year for which figures are available) rose to $375 billion.\u00a0 U.S. corporations increased their share of that total to almost 58 percent, supplying weapons to at least 100 nations<\/a> around the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The F-35 Lightning II, produced by Lockheed Martin Corporation, the company at the top of SIPRI’s Top 100. Photo: Flickr\/Jasper Nance.<\/p><\/div>\n

The dominant role played by U.S. corporations in the international arms trade owes a great deal to the efforts of U.S. government officials.\u00a0 \u201cSignificant parts of the government,\u201d notes military analyst William Hartung<\/a>, \u201care intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life.\u00a0 From the president on his trips abroad to visit allied world leaders to the secretaries of state and defense to the staffs of U.S. embassies, American officials regularly act as salespeople for the arms firms.\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, he notes, \u201cthe Pentagon is their enabler.\u00a0 From brokering, facilitating, and literally banking the money from arms deals to transferring weapons to favored allies on the taxpayers\u2019 dime, it is in essence the world\u2019s largest arms dealer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, when Tom Kelly, the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Political Affairs was asked during a Congressional hearing about whether the Obama administration was doing enough to promote American weapons exports, he replied:\u00a0 \u201c[We are] advocating on behalf of our companies and doing everything we can to make sure that these sales go through. . . and that is something we are doing every day, basically [on] every continent in the world . . . and we\u2019re constantly thinking of how we can do better.\u201d\u00a0 This proved a fair enough assessment, for during the first six years of the Obama administration, U.S. government officials secured agreements for U.S. weapons sales of more than $190 billion around the world, especially to the volatile Middle East.\u00a0 Determined to outshine his predecessor, President Donald Trump<\/a>, on his first overseas trip, bragged about a $110 billion arms deal (totaling $350 billion over the next decade) with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The greatest single weapons market remains the United States, for this country ranks first among nations in military spending, with 36 percent<\/a> of the global total.\u00a0 Trump is a keen military enthusiast<\/a>, as is the Republican Congress, which is currently in the process of approving a 13 percent increase<\/a> in the already astronomical U.S. military budget.\u00a0 Much of this future military spending will almost certainly be devoted to purchasing new and very expensive high-tech weapons, for the military contractors<\/a> are adept at delivering millions of dollars in campaign contributions to needy politicians, employing 700 to 1,000 lobbyists to nudge them along, claiming that their military production facilities are necessary to create jobs, and mobilizing their corporate-funded think tanks to highlight ever-greater foreign \u201cdangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

They can also count upon a friendly reception from their former executives now holding high-level posts in the Trump administration, including:\u00a0 Secretary of Defense James Mattis (a former board member of General Dynamics); White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (previously employed by several military contractors); Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan (a former Boeing executive); Secretary of the Army Mark Esper (a former Raytheon vice president); Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson (a former consultant to Lockheed Martin); Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Ellen Lord (a former CEO of an aerospace company); and National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg (a former employee of a major military and intelligence contractor).<\/p>\n

This formula works very well for U.S. military contractors, as illustrated by the case of Lockheed Martin, the largest arms merchant in the world.\u00a0 In 2016, Lockheed\u2019s weapons sales rose by almost 11 percent<\/a> to $41 billion<\/a>, and the company is well on its way to even greater affluence thanks to its production of the F-35 fighter jet<\/a>.\u00a0 Lockheed began work on developing the technologically-advanced warplane in the 1980s and, since 2001, the U.S. government has expended over $100 billion<\/a> for its production.\u00a0 Today, estimates by military analysts as to the total cost to taxpayers of the 2,440 F-35s desired by Pentagon officials range from $1 trillion<\/a> to $1.5 trillion<\/a>, making it the most expensive procurement program<\/a> in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

The F-35\u2019s enthusiasts<\/a> have justified the enormous expense of the warplane by emphasizing its projected ability to make a quick liftoff and a vertical landing, as well as its adaptability for use by three different branches of the U.S. military.\u00a0 And its popularity might also reflect their assumption that its raw destructive power will help them win future wars against Russia and China.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t get into those aircraft fast enough,\u201d Lieutenant General Jon Davis, the Marine Corps\u2019 aviation chief, told a House Armed Services subcommittee in early 2017.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a game changer, a war winner, on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, aircraft specialists<\/a> point out that the F-35 continues to have severe structural problems and that its high-tech computer command system is vulnerable to cyberattack.\u00a0 \u201cThis plane has a long way to go before it\u2019s combat-ready,\u201d remarked a military analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.\u00a0 \u201cGiven how long it\u2019s been in development, you have to wonder whether it\u2019ll ever be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Startled by the extraordinary expense of the F-35 project, Donald Trump<\/a> initially derided the venture as \u201cout of control.\u201d\u00a0 But, after meeting with Pentagon officials and Lockheed CEO Marilynn Hewson, the new president reversed course, praising \u201cthe fantastic\u201d F-35 as a \u201cgreat plane\u201d and authorizing a multi-billion dollar contract for 90 more of them.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, none of this is entirely surprising.\u00a0 After all, other giant military contractors–for example, Nazi Germany\u2019s Krupp<\/a> and I.G. Farben<\/a> and fascist Japan\u2019s Mitsubishi and Sumitomo<\/a> –prospered heavily by arming their nations for World War II and continued prospering in its aftermath.\u00a0 As long as people retain their faith in the supreme value of military might, we can probably also expect Lockheed Martin and other \u201cmerchants of death\u201d to continue profiting from war at the public\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Lawrence Wittner<\/a>, syndicated by PeaceVoice<\/a>, is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY\/Albany.\u00a0 He is the author of <\/em>Confronting the Bomb<\/a> (Stanford University Press).<\/em>Top of Form<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In mid-1930s, an expos\u00e9 of the international arms trade had a major impact. Convinced that military contractors were stirring up weapons sales and war for their own profit, many people grew critical of these \u201cmerchants of death.\u201d Today, some eight decades later, their successors, now more politely called \u201cdefense contractors,\u201d are alive and well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}