A December 1 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the combined revenue of the world’s 100 largest arms-producing companies rose by 5.9% last year to a record US$679 billion.
This is blood money. Corporate profits have been boosted by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
About 49% of this combined revenue went to United States-headquartered arms companies. The 39 US-based companies in the SIPRI Top 100 raised their arms revenues by 3.8% to reach a total of US$334 billion; they account for almost half of all Top 100 arms revenues.
General Dynamics’ revenue rose by 8.1% to US$33.6 billion. SIPRI said this “can mainly be attributed to revenue growth related to the USA’s Columbia-class and Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine programmes”, which federal Labor is subsidising via the AUKUS agreement.
Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms producer, recorded a 3.2% revenue rise to reach US$64.7 billion. Deliveries of F-35 strike fighter aircraft, including to Israel and other US imperialist allies, accounts for much of this.
Australian arms manufacturers are an integral part of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 supply chain and have been secretly shipping F-35 components to Israel while it continues its genocide.
Northrop Grumman’s arms revenues rose by 3.3% to US$37.9 billion.
The total arms revenues of the three companies in the SIPRI Top 100 based in Israel rose by 16% to US$16.2 billion last year.
The report attributed this to Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza and “high global demand for Israeli military equipment such as advanced UAV and counter-UAV [uncrewed aerial vehicle] capabilities”.
Elbit Systems reported that 65% of its US$22.6 billion order backlog was from international contracts, including with European countries for long-range UAVs.
Elbit’s arms revenues went up by 14% to US$6.3 billion. It secured more than $5 billion in new contracts from the Israeli government following October 7, 2023.
Israel Aerospace Industries remained Israel’s second-largest arms producer, with arms sales going up by 13% last year to US$5.2 billion. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems increased its arms revenues by 23% to US$4.7 billion.
Eight China-based arms companies in the SIPRI Top 100 accounted for 13% of the combined arms revenue, but they recorded a collective 10% fall in revenue to US$88.3 billion.
SIPRI said it was the “biggest aggregate percentage decrease of any country with companies listed in the Top 100 for 2024”.
Seven companies in the SIPRI Top 100 are based in Britain. They reported a combined revenue of US$52.2 billion last year, a 6.6% rise, and accounted for 7.7% of the total SIPRI Top 100 arms revenues.
“BAE Systems was the fourth largest arms company in the world in 2024, which is the first time that a company based outside the USA has been among the top five since 2017,” the report said.
Only two Russian corporations, Rostec and United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), were in the SIPRI Top 100 list for last year “due to a lack of available data”. But Rostec’s arms revenues rose by 26% to US$27.1 billion and USC’s arms revenues rose by 6.5% to US$4.1 billion.
Four companies based in France increased their revenue by 12% to US$26.1 billion; four in Germany had a collective revenue rise of 36% to US$14.9 billion; and two in Italy increased their revenue by 9.1% to US$16.8 billion.
Czechoslovak Group, based in Czechia, recorded a 193% increase, making it the Top 100’s largest year-on-year percentage increase in arms revenues. This was partly attributable to a government-led project to source artillery shells for Ukraine, according to SIPRI.
Four companies in the SIPRI Top 100 based in South Korea increased arms revenues by 31% to US$14.1 billion last year, continuing the strong growth from the previous year.
Five companies based in Japan had combined arms revenues of US$13.3 billion last year, a 40% increase.
Horrible as these numbers are, they are only part of total arms spending, which SIPRI estimated to be US$2.44 trillion in 2023. SIPRI has yet to release last year’s total, but it is certain to be bigger.
This is money and resources that could have been used to address global poverty, other urgent social needs and, of course, the global climate emergency.
But with corporate profit the central driver of the global capitalist system, resources are being thrown into accelerating human suffering and environmental destruction.
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