Mapping the Business of War
Corporations consume over half of the U.S. military budget. And seven corporations—Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, L3Harris, and HII—dominate that half. Their 2023 revenue from military contracting topped $234 billion.
Where are these corporations located? What do they produce?
This map summarizes what each facility currently works on and suggests peaceful, beneficial fields toward which production could immediately pivot.
Industrial Conversion
Industrial conversion involves changing the output of existing factories.
A federal job guarantee can protect workers during conversion. Workers know their facilities best, so they—not corporate executives—should be in charge of conversion.
Numerous fields stand to benefit from these workers (e.g., engineer, physicist, computer programmer, machinist, electrician) who are currently in military industry. Fields include but are not limited to public infrastructure, international scientific cooperation, transportation, disaster relief, and energy generation and storage.
As seen in the map, many facilities already produce goods and services—including satellites, rockets, telemetry, avionics, aircraft, information technology, propulsion, cameras and imaging systems, ships, land vehicles, logistics programs, and communications equipment—that could be used for peaceful civilian purposes.
Federal spending on non-military fields such as infrastructure and sustainable energy creates more jobs than military spending. Other benefits come from industrial conversion:
Less death. Less destruction. Less pollution (e.g., A, B, C).
Political space to bring the troops home and take care of them.
Money, once tied up in a bloated military budget, freed for public need, such as housing, education, and water infrastructure.
A united working class can generate the political will to take on big business interests and initiate economic conversion—war to peace.
Update 16 March 2024: Google disabled the map on Thursday, 14 March 2024. Google alleged potential violation of its Dangerous & Illegal Activities policy. I appealed. There is nothing dangerous or illegal about taking public, official information (from military contracting announcements, USAspending.gov, corporate press releases, and corporate job postings) and transferring it to a map. Update 5 April 2024: Google stopped censoring the map.
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 believe a better world is possible.