In a republic, which is
characterized by representative rather than direct democracy and includes
checks on even the elected representatives, private interests, such as corporations
that manufacture weapons purchased by the government, undue the very legitimacy
and public good of a republic when the elected (and appointed) public officials
capitulate to those interests because those interests are of a part rather than
the whole. The profit calculus of a defense contractor is not necessarily in
line with the national interests of the country in which the corporation operates.
Furthermore, acquiescing to the relatively narrow private benefit of corporations
places an elected official in the position of possibly betraying one’s constituents
and even the national security—the public good—of the whole, the country. It is
in the political (and even financial) interests of such officials to hide or
obscure their motives in voting on a defense budget by using “real threats
abroad” as a subterfuge to increase defense spending going to contractors in
payment for more weapons. The threats may be real or not. How would an
electorate possibly know without access to classified information? Adam Smith wrote
of his concern that governments and capitalists would collude to shortchange
labor. The collusion can also be at the expense of an electorate and even a
republic itself. In response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question on what sort
of government the U.S. Constitutional Convention had just proposed, Ben Franklin
is said to have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The People may be at
a considerable disadvantage without realizing it if distant collusion is financially
and politically sufficiently concentrated and furtive under subterfuges of
public-policy ideals.
During the summer of 2026, when
the U.S. was attacking Iran militarily and supplying Israel with weapons, the
stockpiles of the U.S. War Department’s munitions were being diminished to the
point that the Pentagon began to pressure defense contractors “to accelerate
production of weapons.”[1]
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell issued a statement on August 8, 2026 directed
to the companies to urge them to adopt a “pace the threat demands.” Deputy
Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg had recently written to the CEOs “giving them no
more than 21 days to submit plans to ‘drive significantly faster, more
aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical
capacities.’”[2]
Although it makes no sense to drive schedules or to characterize them as
aggressive, the corporate-speak and military-mindset melded into the same
sentence symbolize a fusion that U.S. President Eisenhauer, the general who had
led the Allied D-Day invasion in World War II, had characterized as the U.S.
military-industrial complex. Even though Feinberg wrote to the CEOs, “Years-long
development cycles are not acceptable. . . . We must dramatically accelerate
our program schedules and expand our production capacity now,” it is more
likely in the larger picture that the proverbial tails were waging the dog, meaning
that the private companies generally called the shots, with the Congress and
President complying.
With U.S. budget caps constraining
defense spending by the federal government “from about $528.2 billion in fiscal
2011 to $496.1 billion in fiscal 2015, instead of a previously projected increase
to roughly $598 billion,” for example, “the Pentagon’s top contractors sent an
army of more than 400 lobbyists to Capitol Hill [in the spring of 2015] to
press their case for increasing the nation’s spending on military hardware, in
a massive effort costing tens of millions of dollars of [the defense
contractors’] own funds from April to June alone, according to an analysis of
public lobbying data by the Center for Public Integrity.”[3]
Even though causation cannot be derived from positive correlation, private
companies would not spend so much money—Lockheed Martin Corporation alone spent
$3.5 million and sent 56 lobbyists to Congress on defense spending—were a
payoff in terms of more federal spending for contracts not desired and even
expected.[4]
In December 2015, Congress approved $573 billion for defense ($496.1 billion
for the previous fiscal year). As any farmer might say, such an increase is not
chicken feed; neither, I might add, did it occur by accident, for the private
corporations receiving defense contracts did not take kindly to the budget
caps.
Similarly, in 2026, ramping up
production of Patriot interceptors, for example, which had fallen from 2,330
before the attacks on Iran in 2026 to 1,030 when the cease-fire that April took
effect, to between 759 and 827, a decrease of at least 65%, and of THAAD
interceptors, which had fallen from 452 to between 232 and 262, was very much
in the financial interests of the corporations making those interceptors. It
was as if the Pentagon were saying to children playing outside on a hot summer
day, you need to hurry up and finish your ice-cream cones so you can have more.
Such an order is hardly an order. Just imagine adults furtively acquiescing to how
much ice cream the children want ostensibly by pressuring them to
quicken the pace of eating when actually the children have been paying the adults
to spend more on ice cream.
Beyond the political and
foreign-policy interests (and ideology) of the Trump Administration in
supporting Israel both directly in its militancy in Gaza and Lebanon and
indirectly by attacking Iran, the financial interests of the companies that sell
military hardware to the Pentagon should not be glossed over, for without such
interests, it is difficult to say how militaristic the U.S. Government would be
abroad, even given the financial power of AIPAC. To be sure, Ukraine, a country
still being invaded by Russia without provocation, was at the time very much in
need of anti-missile interceptors. Within 24 hours of Feinstein’s statement, “13
people were killed and some 90 others were wounded [from] Russian attacks” on
Ukrainian cities as the Kremlin intensified its bombardment.[5]
It bears remembering, however, that the existence of normatively justified uses
of American weapons abroad is a boon to defense contractors. Like the financial
“lobbying” by AIPAC, which is difficult to justify in terms of legitimate uses
of American military power abroad, justified uses of American weapons such as
in Ukraine—a country being invaded rather than invading—do not
mean that those companies do not have a disproportionate influence on how much
money the U.S. Government spends on defense. In fact, contractor spending on
political campaigns can leverage legitimate uses to pressure member of Congress
and even the federal president to contract even for weapon production for more
questionable uses.
2. Ibid.
3. Alexander Cohen, “Top Defense Contractors Spend Millions to Get Billions,” The Center for Public Integrity, August 5, 2015 (accessed August 9, 2026).
4. Ibid.
5. Malek Fouda, “13 Killed in Ukraine and 90 Injured as Russia Intensifies Overnight Bombardment Campaign of Ukrainian Cities,” Euronews.com, 9 August, 2026.
