ISIS War a Financial Windfall for US Arms Makers

Companies Surge in Anticipation of Spending Hikes

An open-ended war in Iraq and Syria isn’t good for many people. Not the American public, which is paying for it, and certainly not for the Iraqis and Syrians. Arms dealers are salivating at the profits they are likely to make as the war continues to escalate.

The big winner early in the war is Raytheon, who netted a big new Tomahawk cruise missile contract because of all of the missiles the US has been firing into Iraq and Syria.

In the long run, the people who benefit most from the war may not be the ones making the missiles the US fired, however, but rather the companies that made the vehicles the US is trying to destroy.

ISIS’ vehicles are mostly US-made vehicles looted from Iraq, and companies that made them, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, are eventually going to be paid to buy the Iraqi military a whole new collection of gear to replace what they lost and was eventually destroyed.

With expectations for a return to runaway military spending, all of the major military contractors are trading near all-time highs on the stock market, with their prices escalating as the war does.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.