These 20 Companies Profit The Most From War

USA Today/24/7 Wall Street: Lockheed Martin, Boeing among the 20 companies profiting the most from war

Global arms sales totaled $420 billion in 2018, up 4.6% from 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). U.S.-based companies again dominate SIPRI's list of top global arms manufacturers and military services providers. With Congress passing its record high $738 billion defense spending bill this December, which includes military modernization and a new Space Force military branch, this trend is likely to continue.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed data provided by SIPRI to identify the companies profiting most from war. Companies were ranked based on SIPRI's estimates of arms and military services sales in 2018. Chinese companies were not considered due to lack of sufficient data. Arms and military services sales figures came from SIPRI. Profits for the latest fiscal year came from financial reports and corporate press releases.

The United States is home to half of the world’s 10 largest defense contractors and to 43 of the top 100 defense companies. These companies accounted for 59% of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defense contractors in 2018 – an increase of 7.2%

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WNU Editor: Here is an easy prediction. Arms sales and profits will continue to increase in 2020.

U.S. Defense Stocks Are Soaring On The Spectre Of War With North Korea

CNBC: Defense stocks soar on the spectre of war with North Korea

* Year-to-date, the S&P 500 Aerospace and Defense Industry sub-sector index is up 30 percent, compared to 12.9 percent for the S&P 500.
* The promise of increased military spending is boosting the U.S. defense sector, say analysts.
* President Donald Trump said in February he wanted to up military spending by $54 billion.

On Oct. 1, President Donald Trump once again took to Twitter to attack Kim Jong-un, saying that negotiating with the North Korean chairman is a waste of time. While social media mudslinging may not be the best way to deal with a hostile leader, there's at least one group who may not mind Trump's Twitter threats: defense industry investors.

Year-to-date, the S&P 500 Aerospace and Defense Industry subsector index is up 30 percent, compared to 12.9 percent for the S&P 500. Since July 3, when North Korea fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile and Trump said in a tweet, "Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?" the index has climbed by 14.3 percent.

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WNU Editor: It makes one wonder .... what do people with money know that we do not know.

US Gear Ending Up In Pakistan Markets

From Military.com:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Throughout the ages, this ancient Silk Road town near the border of Afghanistan has been the place where the black market thrives and the military spoils of empires are hawked openly.

Here in the storefronts you can still buy antique field rifles left over from the British presence of the 19th century and find uniforms and revolvers from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Now the shops in this industrial rim of Peshawar are filling with military equipment and computers looted from the most recent empire to bog down in this hostile and impenetrable terrain: the United States of America.

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My Comment: We now know where all that missing military equipment is ending up. If I was the Americans .... I will be trying to buy it back.

Arms Merchants Being Publicly Named

Racks of 1,000-pound bombs were housed in the Taji Ammunition Dump, known as Area Echo, north of Baghdad, Iraq. Nearly 20,000 tons of munitions were destroyed in Area Echo. U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technicians assigned to the 710th Ordnance Company detonated the last seven 1,000 pound bombs, Dec. 16, 2005. U.S Army photo by Staff Sgt. Kevin Bromley

Russia Decries U.S. Sanctions On Arms Exporting Company
-- L.A. Times

The U.S. move is part of a global crackdown on firms it says exported technology to Iran, North Korea and Syria that could lead to nuclear bombs. Russia says sales at its state-owned conglomerate were legal and met international guidelines.

Reporting from Moscow and Bogota, Colombia -- Russia reacted angrily Friday to U.S. sanctions leveled this week against an arms trading company, calling them an "arrogant application" of American laws abroad.

Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov said the U.S. move to ban government agencies from dealing with Rosoboronexport, a state-owned company managed by a close friend of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was "absolutely incompatible with the new realities in the current world structure."

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My Comment: Name the names .... we all need to know who is doing what in the world.

Arresting The Merchants Of Death -- Part 2

Monzer al-Kassar

Yesterday I had a post that details the arrests of two international arms merchants, Victor Bout and Monzer al-Kassar.

Today, the Belmont Club expands on the history and lifestyle of Monzar al-Kassar.

The Guardian featured an atmospheric piece on how the Prince of Marbella, Monzer al-Kassar, a man on the "Most Wanted" list of Iraq, lived. You could do worse.

The Observer tracked him down to his lavish, 15-suite residence, designed like a Renaissance palazzo overlooking Puerto Banus. Guards swing the gates open to allow guests into the estate, where there is a swimming pool built like a four-leaf clover. Three Spanish mastiffs prowl during the night to deter uninvited guests.

Inside the palace, a grand piano is showcased at the bottom of a marble staircase under a domed skylight. In the grand salon, silk flowers are arranged in a giant Chinese vase in front of a marble fireplace. Statues of servants holding lamps stand before the massive drapes, and on the wall are murals of African servants in turbans, carrying platters of fruit.

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My Comment: My fear has always been that nuclear material will one day be sold by the likes of Monzer al-Kassar or Victor Bout to terror organizations who will have no moral qualms on using it against a city or other innocents.

The extreme danger will arise if .... someone in Russia decides to sell 10 pounds or more of plutonium to Victor Bout. Victor Bout in turn sells this material to an Islamic extremist organization, who in turn then sells it to an al Qaeda group that then smuggles it into New York City and explodes as a radioactive dirty bomb.

In the eyes of the U.S., they will trace this material back to the Russian reactor that manufactured it .... and the assumption will then be made that Russia has attacked the U.S. What will happen then? Most likely the worst case scenario.

Arresting The Merchants Of Death

Victor Bout

From The Belmont Club:

Victor Bout and Monzer al-Kassar: household names, if not in the land of the living, then among the houses of the soon to be dead: the victims of the world's Merchants of Death. Victor Bout was a notorious Russian arms dealer, doing business all over the world, who was arrested in a DEA sting operation in Thailand, where he remains. The Americans want him tried in New York. The Russians don't. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Bout was arrested in a sting operation initiated by the US Drug Enforcement Administration a few hours after he arrived in Bangkok. The agency says he came to Thailand to negotiate the sale of Igla surface-to-air missiles to two undercover agents posing as officers from the Colombian narco-rebel movement known as FARC.

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My Comment: Arms merchants have been with us for so long, they are considered a part of the international community. Adnan Khashoggi is probably the one that has been the most successful, but like the drug trade, when you get rid of one gang there will always be another one to replace them.