While Gaza and Ukraine both continue to produce casualties, they also continue to help the world's weapons makers log record revenues.
The Times of Israel is reporting that the sales by the world's top weapons makers hit a record of $679 billion last year, as the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza boosted demand for their lethal products. The most recent spike was close to six percent higher over the previous year. Over the last decade, weapons manufacturers revenues for those top 100 weapons makers has spiked 26 percent according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
39 of the planet's top weapons manufacturers are based here in the United States, including planet earth's top three which are Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly known as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. All totaled, US arms makers revenues hit $334 billion in 2024, accounting for almost half of the worldwide revenues for the industry.
Back in April, the International Union of Scientists reported militarism was a leading cause of the Earth's climate breakdown which was resulting in an increasing number of deaths each year.
"Extreme weather events such as storms, fires, heatwaves, rising sea levels, and floods are displacing millions, creating climate refugees. Pollution and contamination of air, water, and soil are ravaging ecosystems," according to the IUS analysis. "Billions are already suffering, and this number is projected to rise, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world has ever faced. Yet even in the face of this chaos, one major destroyer of our climate and environment remains underreported: the war-machine or the military-industrial complex."
The report continues.
"When the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, military emissions were specifically excluded from the commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, under the Paris Agreement of 2015, military emissions were treated as voluntary reporting, a move that allowed for the continued underestimation of the true environmental toll of warfare. As a result, the climate impact of global military operations is frequently underreported and poorly understood, even though the military-industrial complex is a major contributor to global warming. This exclusion is a significant gap and is maintained deliberately in global climate governance to serve the interests of the military-industrial complex and imperialist powers."
Meanwhile, according to Open Secrets the defense sector contributed $50 million to political action committees and individual candidates in the 2020 election cycle alone. In the 2024 cycle, the top three weapons makers greased the skids with close to $11 million split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
We got into all of this with our current events panel including Yale Global Justice fellow James Henry, investigative reporter, economist and attorney. He was joined, as he is every week by Dr. Joe Wilson, labor historian and biographer of A. Philip Randolph, the iconic civil rights leader. In our B Block got an update from journalist Jordan Coll on tomorrow's Jersey City Mayoral run-off between City Council Member James Solomon and former Gov. James McGreevey.
In our second hour, we spoke with Peter Chen, senior policy analyst with New Jersey Policy Perspectives, a progressive non-profit think tank. Peter will walk us through what's at stake during Trenton's lame duck session and what can the incoming Sherrill administration do to address the Trump administration's direct assault on programs like Food Stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid.
We also got a progress report on the Mumia Abu Jamal march through Pennsylvania with Larry Hamm, New Jersey social justice activist and founder of the People's Organization for Progress.
We finished up with our labor in action segment with a discussion about the new contract won by the American Guild of Musical Artists that represents the dancers at New York City Ballet. We spoke with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Indiana Woodward who served on the AGMA Negotiating Committee.
She was joined by Martha Kinsella, AGMA Regional Director and AGMA Legal Counsel.
