America’s Military Industrial Complex (AMIC) and Global Wars

 The World and Its Arms Trading Nations

The United States has the largest defence budget in the world. Each year, it allocates huge amounts to developing new weapons and weapon technologies. In each conflict in which it intervenes, America has two interests: pursuing its strategic goals and boosting its defence industry by enabling weapons sales. 

The facts and views about America’s economic interests in any war have been exhaustively discussed in the public domain. During the Afghan and Iraq wars, the problematic premise of US interests in global conflicts were put under scrutiny like never before. Less known is how these interests evolved in the succeeding decades. A glimpse of this change can be seen in the words of Alexander C Karp in his recent book, ‘The Technological Republic’ in which he observes that the key US industries have moved away from serving the nation and its strategic and secuirty interests and found a new boss to serve- the consumer, the king of the market economy. What Karp sees as a downgrading of US corporate world’s nationalist committment can also be viewed as a decline of the American Military Industrial Complex. 

Which Nations Dominate World Weapons Trade?

The Silicon valley no more caters to the US state and its geopolitical interests as it used to but more the global market and consumer. The US weapon industry, however, still remains the largets in the world. New players have entered the foray, such as Israel, Russia and China, who have weapon industries almost as sophisticated as the United States has. Nevertheless, the top five arms-producing and military services companies in the world are American (based on 2023 figures). They are, Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics. The next five companies on this list in terms of arms revenues are UK’s BAE Systems, the Russian company, Rostec, and three Chinese companies- AVIC, NORINCO, and CETC. Russia and China obviously have emerged as two major players in the field.      

Among the 100 top ranking weapon manufacturing companies of the world, 41 are American. Their revenue taken together is half the revenue of the 100 top ranking. Though only one Russian company is listed among the top ten arms trading companies (based on their revenue), there could be more similar Russian companies about whom data is not available in the public domain. 

The Arms Trade Volume Remains the Same in the Last 15 Years

The SIPRI Year Book 2025 noted that the global arms trade volume has remained at the same level throughout the last 15 years despite many conflicts and wars erupting in recent years. The reason for the volume remaining the same are these- slow procurement cycles, economic constraints, and growing domestic arms production. 

Many countries such as India have put greater focus on domestic arms production and this policy change has delivered results for such countries too. In other words, the dependency of the world nations on the US for good quality and technologically sophisticated weapons stands diminished.   

The History of American Military-Industrial Complex

The American weapon supremacy grew roots in the decade that succeeded the Second World War. Lockheed Missile and Space, Ford Aerospace, Westinghouse, and United Technologies were the major weapon manufacturing companies those days. All of them were based in Silicon Valley, California. The then US president, Franklin Roosevelt, was instrumental in a major policy shift that married the American state’s war machinery with private entrepreneurship and scientific and technological pursuits.  

As the oft-quoted Eisenhower warning revealed, "an immense military establishment and a large arms industry" drove the American government and politics. Eisenhower made the following famous statement in his farewell address to the nation as the 34th president:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.” 

At some point immediately after the Second World War, the military-industrial complex became inseparably linked with the American economy. The nexus of private arms dealers, lobbyists, defence officials, and politicians began to instigate and add fuel to wars and supply arms to both sides.    

How Private American Companies Profited from Iraq and Afghan War

After the Iraq and Afghanistan military interventions in the name of the ‘War on Terror’, two American arm manufacturing companies, Halliburton and Blackwater (renamed ‘Academi’ later), procured many contracts for reconstruction and security support. The Afghan war is viewed as an American failure, yet the truth is it was a huge economic success for the American Military Industrial Complex (AMIC). According to the US independent think tank Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI), the top beneficiaries of the war in Afghanistan were the US military contractors Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. 

The following figures and estimates speak more than words. Five of the world’s ten largest defence contractors are from the US. In 2019, 61% of global weapon sales were made by US arms manufacturing companies. Of the $6.4 trillion spent by the US after 9/11 in around 80 countries, a major portion went to the top five defence contractors.  

Many senators and congressmen of the US legislative system own millions of dollars' worth of stocks of the top 30 defence contractors. Such facts prove that the biggest war profiteer in the world is the United States of America. All the forces, including democratic movements, who fight their oppressor-regimes or enemy forces with the direct or indirect support from the US, actually play into the hands of this industrial-military complex, irrespective of whether they amass weapons or start a real war in their mutual disagreements. 

The Middle East Wars and American Military Industrial Complex

Now, if anyone goes in search of the source of the weapons used in the ongoing Middle East conflicts, they would find that both sides of the conflict were using many US-made weapons sold directly or indirectly to them. 

Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation was one such company with quite an unassuming name, given the fact that its manufactured products included semiconductors and image sensors that paved the way to the invention of personal computers but also spying cameras for CIA satellites. Silicon Valley, as we understand it now, was born out of the cluster of such a few unique technology companies in the late 1950s in California. Interestingly, Hamamatsu Photonics, a Japanese company manufacturing optical devices, acquired Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation in 2024.  

CIA has its own exclusive venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, which is sometimes described as a ‘government platform accelerator’ and actually is a not-for-profit global investment platform. The official website of IQT says, “Investing in global innovation to secure the nation.” IQT works to identify start-up companies “developing game-changing innovations in strategic technology areas”, evaluate how these innovations can be of use to the current and future US strategic and intelligence missions, and help the government agencies acquire and adapt these technologies. 

Wars, Conflicts, and the War Industry

When the arms manufacturers and suppliers become direct stakeholders in armed conflicts around the world, the cycle of violence can never end. 

In 2020-24, three non state armed groups were identified as recipients of major arms. Without naming them, SIPRI Year Book 2025 speaks of them as located in Lebanon/Palestine, Libya, and Yemen. Interestingly, among the top ten recipients of major arms, neither Russia nor Israel has found a place. Both the countries have their own arms manufacturing capabilities that are almost at par with the US. The decline of global demand for American weapons could be one reason why the US itself (as reflected in the US people’s mandate and the newly popular slogan of American exclusivism) has less interest in getting involved in global conflicts. These new developments and changes in the weapon industry balance suggest that those who blame America alone for the recent conflicts must also look at other countries for selling arms that enabled the flare up of the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. 

The US military industry has been on the decline for many reasons- the defense acquisition laws enacted in the recent decades have made it difficult for weapon manufacturing companies to win contracts and the country’s continuing economic travails and budget deficits have put significant constraints on defense spending. There is agreement among researchers that the US military-industrial complex has been on the decline when compared to the cold war era. 

In early 1990s, the US had 50 major defense contractors, a number which has now been reduced to six large defense companies. The industry got consolidated into fewer hands and this catalysed the industry’s decline by 2010. In 1961, the US defense spending amounted to 9.4% of total GDP. In 2010, it was only 4.7%. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US had to spend a major portion of its defense budget on military personnel rather than weapons, a policy shift that significantly reduced the money set aside for buying weapons, and thereby affecting the weapon industry. Notwithstanding all these limitations, the US has been a regular supplier of arms to Israel and continues to be so. 

The US Weapons in the Israel-Gaza War

BBC reported in September 2024 that Israel imported 69% of its major conventional arms from the US between 2019 and 2023. David Gritten of BBC wrote, 

“The US provides Israel with $3.8bn (£2.9bn) in annual military aid under a 10-year agreement that is intended to allow its ally to maintain what it calls a "qualitative military edge" over neighbouring countries.”

Israel is a weapon exporter but it imports guided missiles, bombs, and aircraft. After the October 7 Hamas attack, the US raised its military assistance to Israel but in May next years, as Israel was preparing for the ground offensive in Gaza, withheld weapons sale based on humanitarian concerns. Yet, the US made a number of small sales of weapons to Israel, sales that did not require Congressional approval. The Biden administration however approved a $ 20 billion weapons sale to Israel in 2024 August though this batch of weapons are to be delivered only in 2026. 

 
The US Weapons in the Russia-Ukraine War

Since February 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, the US has provided above $ 67 billion worth of weapons and security systems to Ukraine. In between, the US President Donald Trump halted weapons supply to Ukraine for a while but the supply resumed as NATO and Trump agreed that the former would buy the Patriot missile defense systems from the US and give them to Ukraine.  

The US Weapons in 2025 Israel-Iran War

According to official figures, the US used 75 precision-guided weapons in its attack on Iran’s three nuclear sites on the night of June 21, 2025. Among these were, 14 numbers of 30,000 pound GBU 57 massive Ordnance penetrators. The attack involved the use of 125 aircrafts.  

Obviously, the powerful US military-industrial complex continues to hold its sway on global geopolitics. The underlying reasons for its decline in the recent decades however remain still relevant. We shall have to look closely to see how American exclusivism under Donald Trump’s presidentship versus the economic benefits that the US enjoy out of its arms industry will play out in the coming days.