Follow us on social

Wall Street Journal love letter to the arms industry

Wall Street Journal love letter to the arms industry

Columnist slams anyone — left or right — who dares criticize this American institution

Analysis | QiOSK

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is not composed of a bunch of peaceniks who decry the crimes of the military-industrial complex at every opportunity. But a pro-industry op-ed it ran Thursday — entitled simply, “In Defense of the Defense Industry” — might as well have been written by the public affairs department of Raytheon. If anything, the Journal should be embarrassed for running it.

It’s a strange piece. Two-thirds of it describes efforts to protest or at least establish distance from the big weapons firms by everyone from protesting students at Harvard to officials of the Heritage Foundation to executives of major investment firms. The author, Ira Stoll, the editor of FutureofCapitalism.com, protests too much, lumping student activists demonstrating against Raytheon with a conservative think tank that has stopped taking arms industry money to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest with firms like Black Rock that offer investment funds free of stocks in major weapons makers.

This is not exactly a unified front bent on dismantling the military-industrial complex, although any action that curbs the power and influence of the Raytheons and Lockheed Martins of the world is a welcome step.

When Stoll finally gets around to defending the weapons companies, he cherry picks cases where their systems have been used by U.S. allies like Israel and Ukraine. He conveniently forgets to mention how U.S.-supplied weapons have been used repeatedly to bomb and kill Palestinians, much less the role of U.S.-built bombs in attacking hospitals, water treatment plants, ports — even a school bus — in Yemen.

The truth is that arms executives — many of whom rake in tens of millions in compensation each year — are not so much immoral as amoral. If there’s business to be had, regardless of the character of the client, they’re there to sell their wares, no questions asked.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the article is that the head of an organization devoted to touting the blessings of capitalism is praising the least capitalist industry in America. The top five weapons contractors — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman — split well over $100 billion per year in Pentagon contracts, many of which were awarded without significant competition or basic standards of accountability.

In all, over half of the department’s $800-plus billion budget goes to private companies. These vast sums are secured in part through the work of the more than 800 lobbyists employed by the weapons industry, many of whom came from top jobs at the Pentagon. The industry may have its problems with cost overruns and performance issues with systems like the F-35 combat aircraft and the Littoral Combat Ship, but its ability to exert its influence to secure taxpayer money is unmatched.

The big weapons firms are better at making money than they are at producing affordable, effective systems. As a 60 Minutes investigation revealed earlier this year, price gouging is rampant in the arms sector. In one of the most stunning examples, a former Pentagon procurement official held up an oil pressure switch that cost NASA $328. The Pentagon paid $10,000 for the same item. And it’s not just parts. As 60 Minutes noted, “[t]he Pentagon, he told us, overpays for almost everything – for radar and missiles … helicopters … planes … submarines… down to the nuts and bolts.”

Meanwhile, even as they posture as members in good standing of the “arsenal of democracy,” companies like Lockheed Martin are spending tens of billions of dollars buying back their own stock, a practice that has been repeatedly criticized by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). These financial maneuvers have everything to do with enriching shareholders and top executives, and nothing to do with providing defense capabilities.

Yes, America needs the ability to defend itself. But it would be able to do so far more effectively and for far less money if we reined in the power and influence of the military-industrial complex. It’s time to put the public interest above special interests when it comes to Pentagon spending and strategy. Eventually, maybe even the Wall Street Journal will come around to recognize that reality. But don’t hold your breath.


Analysis | QiOSK
Abrams M1A2 Main Battle Tank
Top photo credit: An Abrams M1A2 Main Battle Tank is loaded onto a trailer headed to Vaziani TrainingArea May 5, 2016, in preparation for Noble Partner 16. (Photo by Spc. Ryan Tatum, 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division)

Gutting military testing office may be the deadliest move yet

Military Industrial Complex

With the stroke of a pen, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon’s weapon testing office.

His order is intended to “eliminate any non-statutory or redundant functions” by reducing the office to 30 civilian employees and 15 assigned military personnel. The order also terminates contractor support for the testing office.

keep readingShow less
President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Top image credit: President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attends the 34th Arab League summit, in Baghdad, Iraq, May 17, 2025. Hadi Mizban/Pool via REUTERS

Egypt's energy gamble has left it beholden to Israel

Middle East

As the scorching summer season approaches, Egypt finds itself once again in the throes of an uncomfortable ritual: the annual scramble for natural gas.

Recent reports paint a concerning picture of what's to come, industrial gas supplies to vital sectors like petrochemicals and fertilizers have been drastically cut, some by as much as 50 percent. The proximate cause? Routine maintenance at Israel’s Leviathan mega-field, leading to a significant drop in imports.

But this is merely the latest symptom of a deeper, more chronic ailment. Egypt, once lauded as a rising energy hub, has fallen into a perilous trap of dependence, its national security and foreign policy options increasingly constrained by an awkward reliance on Israeli gas.

For years, the Egyptian government assured its populace and the world of an impending energy bonanza. The discovery of the gargantuan Zohr gas field in 2015, hailed as the largest in the Mediterranean, was presented as the dawn of a new era. By 2018, when Zohr began production, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared that Egypt had "scored a goal," promising self-sufficiency and even the transformation into a regional gas exporter. The vision was that Egypt, once an importer, would leverage its strategic location and liquefaction plants to become a vital conduit for Eastern Mediterranean gas flowing to Europe.

Billions were poured into new power stations, further solidifying the nation's reliance on gas for electricity generation, which today accounts for a staggering 60 percent of its total consumption.

keep readingShow less
Karol Nawrocki
Top image credit: Karol Nawrocki holds a rally March 2025. KSikorski / Shutterstock.com

Trumpism finds a home in Poland

Europe

In a nail-biter finish to a bitter campaign, a polarized Polish electorate over the weekend chose the Euro-skeptic, populist right candidate, Karol Nawrocki over Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw.

This contest, with close parallels to the recent one in Romania, produced an unanticipated triumph for Nawrocki, who, like George Simian, his Romanian counterpart, aligned himself with the MAGA agenda of President Trump. At a CPAC meetingheld in Poland in the lead-up to Poland’s runoff, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s endorsement of Nawrocki was applauded by populist nationalist leaders from across Europe.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.