{"id":242428,"date":"2023-08-21T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=242428"},"modified":"2026-04-26T20:54:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:54:52","slug":"top-5-u-s-weapons-contractors-made-us196b-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/top-5-u-s-weapons-contractors-made-us196b-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 U.S. Weapons Contractors Made US$196B in 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

(Shutterstock\/ khartblanche)<\/p><\/div>\n

Half of the world\u2019s 20 biggest arms makers are based in the US, according to a new ranking from <\/em>Defense News.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

7 Aug 2023 \u2013<\/em> U.S. weapons makers continue to dominate the global arms industry, with four U.S.-based companies in the world\u2019s top five military contractors, according to a new Defense News ranking<\/a> of the top 100 defense firms.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the top five U.S. weapons contractors made $196 billion in military-related revenue, according to Defense News. Lockheed Martin dominated all other defense-focused companies, with total military revenue of roughly $63 billion last year. RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, was a distant second, earning roughly $40 billion in revenue in 2022.<\/p>\n

The same five U.S. \u201cprime\u201d contractors have long dominated lists of the world\u2019s biggest arms manufacturers. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing and General Dynamics have remained in the top seven of the Defense News ranking since it began in 2000.<\/p>\n

Notably, several Chinese firms have expanded their military operations in recent years as tensions have risen between the U.S. and China. Four Chinese companies are now in the top 20, including one \u2014 the Aviation Industry Corporation of China \u2014 that became the world\u2019s fourth largest military contractor last year.<\/p>\n

The top 5 for 2022 are as follows: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Aviation Industry Corporation, and Boeing.<\/p>\n

The U.S., for its part, had 10 companies in the top 20. Italy, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom each had at least one of the world\u2019s 20 biggest military firms last year.<\/p>\n

The new dataset highlights the extent to which U.S. military contractors rely on government contracts to stay afloat. In 2022, U.S.-based primes got 71 percent of their total revenue from public contracts. Lockheed Martin is by far the most reliant on taxpayer dollars, earning 96 percent of its total revenue from military contracts.<\/p>\n

As RS recently reported<\/a>, these companies invested much of these earnings into controversial stock buybacks, which are meant to attract investors by keeping share prices high; Lockheed Martin alone spent $5.8 billion on stock repurchases last year.<\/p>\n

The big five saw a three percent drop in revenue over the past year when compared to fiscal year 2021. But this year\u2019s numbers are unlikely to signal a long-term trend given that many top weapons firms have reported<\/a> record levels of new orders for military equipment, driven in part<\/a> by the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Connor Echols is a reporter for <\/em>Responsible Statecraft. He was previously an associate editor at the Nonzero Foundation, where he co-wrote a weekly foreign policy newsletter. Echols recently completed a fellowship with the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Amman, Jordan, and received his bachelor\u2019s degree from Northwestern University on journalism and Middle East and North African Studies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – responsiblestatecraft.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Aug 2023 \u2013 Half of the world\u2019s 20 biggest arms makers are based in the US, according to a new ranking from Defense News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":242430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2999],"tags":[867,1161,1188,1104,2797,1126,1050,112,70,1594,481,1073,875],"class_list":["post-242428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war-racket-destruction-capitalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-race","tag-arms-trade","tag-culture-of-war","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-pentagon","tag-usa","tag-war-economy","tag-warfare","tag-weapons","tag-wmd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242428","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=242428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242431,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242428\/revisions\/242431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}