Prior to the corporatizing yeast known as the Cold War, the U.S. government owned and operated its military arsenals. These arsenals made weapons of war. Many still exist, though corporations now operate them. For example, BAE Systems LLC (a subsidiary of BAE Systems plc) runs the Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee and the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia.

B is for Budget.

Year after year, the Executive and Legislative branches work together to divert most discretionary spending away from beneficial domestic programs (nutrition, public transportation, education, housing, infrastructure) and into militarism. Corporations absorb over half of the ensuing military budget.

C is for Contracting.

Corporations are ways of organizing people in order to maximize short-term profit. That profit goes to the capitalists. In the United States, corporations excel at profiting off human needs (healthcare, shelter, food) and government function (war).

The U.S. military itself doesn’t produce much war technology. It enters into contracts with corporations, which sell goods and services, such as bombs, aircraft, ships, land vehicles, surveillance software, logistics, and base operations. Corporate executives have learned over time how to squeeze every last drop of profit from military contracting.

D is for Death.

Death overseas comes from

• invading and occupying

• dropping bombs and launching missiles at humans, buildings, and infrastructure

• economic sanctions, which are collective punishment

• supporting brutal regimes (Apartheid Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE), which collaborate with the Pentagon and purchase from U.S. corporations

• polluting

Death at home comes from polluting and from redirecting public funds away from beneficial domestic programs and into militarism. For example, tens of thousands of people die in the U.S. every year because they lack healthcare, yet there’s always enough money for war.

E is for Economics.

The economic system known as capitalism isn’t designed to serve the working class. It’s designed to serve the capitalists. (Capitalists are the greediest at the top who take the profit the workers create.) In this dismal system that offers workers little chance for economic mobility, most people who enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces do so for economic reasons. The Pentagon dangles different incentives to recruit people: loan repayment, healthcare, signing bonuses, a steady paycheck, tuition assistance, and the GI Bill.

F is for Fascism.

Government authority + big business = textbook fascism.

Better propaganda is the primary difference between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the European fascist regimes of the 20th century.

If you think fascism only pertains to one of the two U.S. political parties, then you are not paying attention to the legislation that the other party passes when in control of the White House and/or Congress. It fully funds and supports the institutions of militarism and the broader bundling of government authority with big business.

G is for “great power competition.”

The managers of the U.S. empire demand nonstop conflict, hot and cold.

Major events include

• the first Cold War — 1917 through 1990

• legislative entrenchment1 — 1990 through 2001

• the bombing of the Balkans, West Asia, and Sudan — 1990 through 2001

• the post-9.11 “forever wars” — 2001 through present

Today’s “great power competition” is a euphemism for the new cold war. It targets two governments that not do everything D.C. says: Beijing and Moscow.

H is for Hollywood.

It’s not just corporate news that lie to the public about war and militarism. Hollywood gives a wildly inaccurate picture of military life, war, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy. If, for example, you find yourself thinking, “It sure would be thrilling to work for CIA!” Stop. Ask yourself, “Why do I think that? What is CIA’s actual purpose?”

I is for Industrial Conversion.

Industrial conversion involves changing what corporations produce.

Converting the war industry into making beneficial technology is a straightforward process. It just takes political will.

J is for Jargon.

Jargon makes warfare sound professional and efficient.

Take, for example, Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2). Its stated purpose is to connect all technology in order to dominate the battlefield. Its practical purpose is to allow the war industry to sell endless technological upgrades.

Euphemisms also manipulate us. A euphemism is a kinder, gentler word that takes the place of cold, hard reality.

• She’s an “advisor,” certainly not a CIA case officer bribing local officials.

• It’s “building partner capacity,” not militarizing an allied government.

• It’s “freedom of navigation,” not provoking a country by regularly sailing an armada off its coast.

K is for Knowledge.

Knowledge defeats lies and propaganda. It is very important for everyone in the U.S. to learn how the economic system works and to share that knowledge with family, friends, and neighbors.

The ruling class will continue to implement censorship and propaganda. Your on-the-ground knowledge is the antidote.

L is for Legal.

U.S. law is written first and foremost to benefit the U.S. ruling class, not the working class. (Law enforcement enforces these laws.)

The law does not restrict the empire.

The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies, such as CIA and NSA, have Offices of General Counsel. These offices interpret the law in ways that enhance military operations and espionage.

If a U.S. law ever gets in the way of military or intelligence activity, then an agency’s commander or the U.S. President just issues a “waiver.” Recent examples include

• using harmful sonar during Navy training in the Pacific (getting around the Marine Mammal Protection Act)

• buying Finnish ships (getting around a law that requires U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships to be built inside the U.S.)

• selling weaponry to Egypt (getting around a requirement that Washington certifies that the Egyptian government is taking steps to improve its human rights record)

• building a wall (getting around environmental law)

• launching drone strikes (getting around a requirement that the person to be murdered is an imminent threat)

Another way to dodge the law is to create a compartmentalized intelligence program (e.g., special access program) to which only a handful of people have access, limited in their knowledge of one another’s work. In other words, the few people within the program tend only to know their own role and not the big picture.

M is for Murder.

A military’s ultimate purpose is organized killing. As officers and senior non-commissioned officers told me repeatedly during my time in the military, the U.S. military’s job was to “break stuff and kill people.”

N is for Neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism is the current stage of capitalism. Its policies deregulate big business and encourage corporations to carry out government function.

Neoliberalism finds more ways to funnel the profits, which the working class creates, upward to the ruling class. This means busting unions, reducing labor rights (e.g., establishing “right-to-work” states), automating jobs, sending jobs overseas, shoving the remaining jobs into the “gig economy,” and polluting the natural world.

Neoliberalism reduces federal spending on beneficial domestic programs. The workers gets scraps while the top capitalists are always taken care of: allowed to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, allowed to hoard wealth, and bailed out when needed.

O is for Opportunity Cost.

Would you rather have a high-speed rail from Boston to Miami or give the Pentagon some more bombers? Would you rather spend $1.5 billion to build more U.S. military facilities in West Asia or get 135,176 people a year of public housing here at home? Would you rather pay a corporation to build new land-based nuclear weapons that could kill us all or create 52 million community gardens across the country? Would you rather pay a corporation $8.4 billion for engineering and “product support” for air-to-ground missiles or send 175,000 teenagers to college?

Year after year, the two-party system directs most of the federal budget toward militarism and warfare, not caring for the public.

For more tradeoffs, visit the National Priorities Project.

P is for Price Gouging.

Corporations reportedly price gouge the U.S. public.

And war corporations reportedly price gouge the U.S. military. One corporation, TransDigm, has reportedly based its entire business model on doing so.

Q is for Quarterly Profit.

Corporate executives funnel the profit (which the workers create) into

• stock buybacks, which increase the share price

• dividends payments to shareholders

• executive compensation

• building new facilities where more profit can be created (but first getting tax breaks from corporate politicians).

Well over a trillion dollars has been made in this business of war during the past two decades.

R is for R@pe.

It’s not just several members of the U.S. ruling class who practice the R word, as seen in the Epstein Files.

The war industry and U.S. military leadership also practice the R word through nonstop destruction of the natural world.

• Razing a forest to built a data center that nobody wanted? R.

• Emitting more pollution than most small countries? R.

• Polluting ground water and not telling anyone (e.g., A, B, C)? R.

S is for Success.

“Success” comes in two forms.

1. U.S. military activity itself is extremely profitable for corporations and Wall Street, as the U.S. military doesn’t bomb, move, or communicate—let alone eat, refuel, fly, or eavesdrop—without corporate goods and services.

2. When “successful,” military or intelligence operations open up a country to multinational corporations. Consider an example from each of the Empire’s three main eras (the first Cold War, the “global war on terror,” and today’s “great power competition”):

   1. In the 1960s, U.S. intelligence agencies facilitated the mass killing of Indonesian workers, union organizers, communists, and Indonesians who wanted Indonesians to determine the fate of Indonesian resources and labor. After they were murdered, Indonesia became a corporate playground with little environmental or labor law.

   2. Early in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, U.S. viceroy Paul Bremer issued edicts that opened up Iraq’s economy—from agriculture to telecommunications—to multinational corporations. (And the U.S. still controls Iraq’s oil revenue!)

   3. Massive U.S.-based financial firms were already planning the reconstruction of Ukraine as of summer 2023. Ukraine’s reconstruction is a “tremendous opportunity,” a JPMorgan executive has conceded. (The bar is set high: 80-90% of the billions allocated for the reconstruction of Afghanistan actually went straight back into U.S. corporations.) Ukraine is still being destroyed in an “unprovoked” war that profits Western corporations (e.g., A, B, C, D).

T is for Threat Inflation.

The leaders at the top of large military and intelligence units inflate threats in order to obtain bigger budgets. Big business (lobbyists, 501(c) pressure groups, think tanks, media pundits) inflates threats in order for U.S. military and intelligence agencies to get bigger budgets. Since corporations carry out most U.S. military and intelligence activity, bigger budgets mean more corporate revenue.

Look how China has been inflated as a “threat” in order for U.S. government & industry to expand military-industrial infrastructure around the Pacific. In reality, China, Russia, and other official enemies are not threats to the U.S. public. Countries do, however, react to the aggressive manner with which the U.S. ruling class wields the Armed Forces, intelligence agencies, and OFAC.

U is for Unity.

The ruling class excels at fracturing the public along racial lines and funneling people into supporting the two parties. Do not let them. The only way to change the system is for the working class to unite across racial lines, operating together to implement positive change.

V is for Victory.

The U.S. government hasn’t “won” a war since World War II, with the possible exceptions of Panamá and Grenada.

Victory isn’t the goal. Preventing an alternative to capitalism from arising is. And if corporations can profit along the way, they will.

W is for Worldwide.

The troops don’t deploy themselves.

The U.S. ruling class deploys the troops around the world… to hundreds and hundreds of military bases. No other military is used in such a dominating way. These bases don’t just protect and promote the U.S.-led capitalist order. They also profit corporations, which contract with the military to run the bases and fill them with weapons of war and goods and services, and route profitable military operations through them.

The troops are nothing but pawns to the ruling class.

X, Y, and Z are for X-band Radar, Youth, and Zucchini.

The X-band radar is reportedly one of the war industry’s many costly, under-performing products. Others reportedly include LCS, F-35, V-22, and EMALS.

Youth will turn this nightmare around.

Zucchini is one of the many vegetables you should be growing.

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Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. He is associate director or the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), a group of independent military and intel veterans who disagree with U.S. foreign policy and believe a better world is possible.

Arm yourself with a couple of bingo cards before listening to anyone from the Pentagon, the war industry, or Capitol Hill.

Recognizing and rejecting lies is essential to creating a better society. Other steps include implementing universal healthcare and rent control, bringing the troops home and taking care of them, and converting the war industry into peaceful businesses.

Visit Words About War to learn more about language.

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Thanks to Matt Hoh and Bill Astore for helping me get this project over the finish line.

Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. He is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN).

First, the U.S. government “needs to invest in counter-drone technologies.” The board asserts, “The lack of such defenses is one reason” that the U.S. Navy has been unable to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Actually, the U.S. government has long invested in such technologies. The RTX Coyote, Northrop Grumman M-ACE, Boeing Compact Laser Weapon System (CLWS), and L3Harris Vampire come to mind. The problem is not a lack of investment in certain war technology, but rather U.S. foreign policy itself. In other words, to focus on technology is to avoid the actual problem: The troops should not be used as pawns deployed again and again in the Middle East. As Iranian troops are nowhere near New York Harbor, U.S. troops should be nowhere near the Strait of Hormuz. Bring the troops home and take care of them.

Second, the Times’ editorial board states, the U.S. government “needs more of its own cheap, disposable weapons like one-way attack drones and unmanned ships.”

No. The U.S. government needs to regulate the war industry. As it stands, massive corporations have captured the U.S. government through lobbying, financing political campaigns, utilizing 501(c) trade groups, crafting policy within the Pentagon, and more. That’s how you get overpriced, under-performing weapons of war, including but not limited to the F-35 aircraft, the Littoral Combat Ship, and sundry ballistic missile defense systems. While the Times’ board acknowledges that the Pentagon prefers to pour money into equipment “much more complex” than cheap drones, it completely misses the fact that this is a feature of corporate capture.

Regulating industry would mean holding corporate executives accountable, a taboo concept in Washington, D.C. Genuine accountability means changing the laws so that business leaders are liable for pollution, shoddy products, workplace safety violations, and more. Instead of prioritizing short-term profit above all else, business leaders would henceforth oversee the production of durable goods and services that serve the public good.

Third, the board says, U.S. Congress “should pass laws that help the private sector build up its manufacturing capacity. The Pentagon, for its part, needs to stop buying so many of its weapons from just five big weapons makers and start betting on dynamic tech companies that can quickly adapt.”

No.

Instead of doubling down on a war economy that doesn’t prioritize good jobs, Congress should pass laws that initiate industrial conversion. Industrial conversion -- changing what factories produce -- could turn the U.S. war industry into an enterprise that develops all kinds of beneficial goods and services, from weather satellites and hospital ships to high-speed trains and fundamental scientific research. Non-war industries such as education and healthcare produce more jobs and actually improve public well-being. A win-win.

Lastly, the board fearmongers about “China’s economic and military expansion” when suggesting that the U.S. government should “collaborate” with like-minded industrialized democracies. Setting aside the fact that the United States is not a democracy (it’s an oligarchy), the U.S. military and war industry already collaborate with Western industrialized nations, including nearly all European countries, as well as client states like Japan and South Korea, and international pariahs like Israel.

For example, U.S. war corporations have manufacturing plants in Europe and sell to European governments, as European corporations (e.g., BAE Systems, Kongsberg, Leonardo, Rheinmetall, Rolls Royce, Thales) have manufacturing plants in the U.S. and sell to the U.S. government. U.S. and European corporations have long collaborated on making weapons of war, such as the Rolling Airframe Missile, and worked together in joint ventures, such as CFM International.

For its part, the U.S. military exercises with allies nonstop around the world on all habitable continents. Its reach extends beyond Western industrialized nations when training and equipping everyone from Honduras to Malawi to the Philippines and in between. A lack of collaboration is not the problem. The system is.

Conclusion

The “rising threats to American security,” to use the Times’ phrasing, are not overseas. They’re right here at home: the Democratic-Republican duopoly that caters to corporate greed while neglecting public need.

Instead of investing in counter-drone technology and disposable weaponry, boosting the war industry’s capacity, and collaborating with like-minded governments, the U.S. political class would be wise to bring the troops home and take care of them, regulate big business, put a price-cap on rent and groceries, and invest in universal healthcare and public infrastructure. To continue to choose militarism is to oversee our collective demise.

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Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. He is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN).

Corporation Breaks Ground on Rocket Factory in Springfield

February 8, 2026

The sun is shining and a lone bird is chirping as Greedy Corporation (GC) celebrates its new rocket production facility on the company’s Springfield campus. The Department of War recently awarded GC another $240 million contract to increase the production of rockets for use in large missiles. The public wants tax dollars to be spent on healthcare, education, and infrastructure, but those are not priorities of the U.S. ruling class and its politicians.

Taking the Stage

Four rows of chairs are lined up behind a teak podium. Officials from the Department of War, executives from the war industry, and several politicians mill about, offering handshakes and practiced smiles.

Terry McHool, president of the corporation’s Space Solutions division, steps to the mic as everyone takes their seats.

“The threat is at an all-time high. Expanding solid rocket motor production in Springfield is a strategic investment in our nation’s security,” McHool asserts.

Corporations and top government officials create and inflate threats in order to increase military and espionage budgets and keep the public fearful and compliant. There is only one government that has hundreds and hundreds of military bases around the world: The U.S. government. The same government leads the world in spending on military and espionage.

No other comes close.

“We’ve implemented different automation processes to eliminate redundancies and streamline production,” McHool says.

What exactly is redundant? Oh... it’s the workers. Automation is one way that corporate executives hurt workers. Other ways include underpaying them, firing them summarily, busting unions, cutting safety standards, polluting, and using legal tricks, like classifying workers as independent contractors in order to avoid giving them benefits.

Despair is therefore widespread in the United States.

The executive thanks the audience and sits down.

Ribbon Cutting

U.S. Senator John Hock slides to the podium.

“Thank you, Terry. And a big thank you to everyone present,” Sen. Hock says. “This 101,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility will centralize production under one roof. Truly an impressive program.”

Which factories were closed during this consolidation? What jobs lost? Workers are not allowed to make the business decisions in a corporation. The executives make those decisions. No democracy.

Sen. Hock nods to his right, where two unpaid interns are now holding a big red ribbon.

He affirms, “This kind of missile propulsion is a key enabler of freedom. Please join me in the ribbon cutting ceremony.”

The suits stand up and shuffle over to the ribbon. A few reach out to touch the cheap plastic.

Sen. Hock wields a big pair of scissors. He tries to cut the ribbon, but the faux scissors aren’t very sharp, so the ribbon becomes folded up between the two blades.

Don’t Mention It

Sen. Hock speaks up to paper over the snag. “Defense is the state’s largest export, and Governor Hiwana’s administration is working hard to grow Springfield’s reputation as an aerospace powerhouse.”

The ribbon finally falls in two.

Sen. Hock doesn’t mention the massive financial support that city, county, and state governments gave GC, including “jobs credits” (a three percent tax break on new employee payroll), sales tax breaks, property tax breaks, and funds to help equip the facility.

The dignitaries grin like drunk snapping turtles as cameras flash and phones click.

Governor Janet Hiwana breaks from the group and sidles up to the podium. The others trickle back to their seats.

“I am grateful for GC and its commitment to excellence,” Gov. Hiwana booms.

Leadership means having the courage to do the right thing, even if it means going against the grain. Proper leadership would encourage the production of beneficial goods, like sustainable energy, nutritious food, and medical devices.

What Could Be

The economic system produces according to what profits the ruling class, not what benefits the public. Civil society groups have long advocated for industrial conversion, which involves changing what factories produce. The war industry could easily start producing beneficial goods and services, if forced to.

This Springfield missile factory for example, could immediately pivot to:

• producing motors for rocketry that launch scientific missions exploring the cosmos

• manufacturing small electronics for public infrastructure

• researching nontoxic space launch and new forms of propulsion

• developing composite materials for public transportation

• engineering materials for housing upgrades

• focusing on basic research, which improves public life

An Air Force lieutenant lurches around the stage picking up the ribbon scraps.

“The successful partnership between Springfield and the defense industry generates immense economic opportunity while elevating our state’s formidable national security footprint,” Gov. Hiwana says.

Actually, spending on non-militant fields, such as education or healthcare, creates more jobs.

Real national security is healthcare for all, widespread and efficient public transportation, robust infrastructure, affordable housing, quality local food production, sustainable energy generation and storage, and a healthy environment.

Springfield is located in a “right-to-work” state.

Right-to-work means that workers are not required to join a labor union or pay union dues, diluting union strength. The ruling class and its politicians say that this “gives workers more freedom and a choice regarding financial support for unions.”

In reality, right-to-work laws make it harder for workers to form and sustain unions and negotiate together for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Corporate executives are known to cut jobs and close factories in pro-union states and open factories in right-to-work states in order to make more profit (while hurting the workers).

Criminality

“I take great pride in the fact that Springfield is home to such an important business helping our national defense,” Gov. Hiwana concludes. “Congratulations to GC on this exciting new expansion.”

She returns to her seat amid great applause.

Last month, GC agreed to pay a mere $45 million to resolve government investigations into a major fraud scheme involving inaccurate pricing on federal contracts and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act and its implementing regulation, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The corporation, whose workers create (but don’t receive) more than $6 billion in profit every year, did not admit any guilt under the deferred prosecution agreement.

Deferred prosecution agreements are common in the war industry and in Corporate America in general. They are legal agreements in which the government agrees to drop criminal charges against a corporation in exchange for the corporation agreeing to meet a few flimsy conditions, such as paying fines or committing to reform the way it does business.

Top corporate executives are never at risk of punishment because of the “business judgment rule” and the protective structure of corporations themselves.

Corporate crime (e.g., fraud, wage theft, embezzlement, illegal disposal of pollutants, bribery, price gouging) remains rampant.

The Air Force lieutenant informs the audience that the ceremony has concluded. Neither the corporate leaders nor their politicians take questions from the lone journalist present.

About Greedy Corporation

GC connects the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. GC takes pride in giving the warfighters the tools they need.

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Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), a group of military and intel veterans who disagree with U.S. foreign policy and know a better world is possible.