Mapping the Business of War
Update (16 March 2024): Google disabled the map on Thursday, 14 March 2024. Google alleges potential violation of its Dangerous & Illegal Activities policy. I am appealing. There is nothing dangerous or illegal about taking public, official information (from military contracting announcements, corporate press releases, and corporate job postings) and transferring it to a map. In the meantime, I am working on providing the information in an alternative format.
Update (5 April 2024): 1) Google has stopped censoring the map. 2) I have posted my notes, which I used to make the map, at the bottom of this page.
Corporations consume over half of the U.S. military budget. And six corporations—Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and L3Harris—dominate that half. Their 2022 revenue from military contracting topped $210.5 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.
Economic Conversion
Economic conversion involves changing the output of existing industrial capacity.
A federal job guarantee can protect workers during economic 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 economic 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.
Notes
The information in my notes—where corporations are located and what they produce—is drawn from military contracting announcements (see also USAspending.gov), corporate press releases, and/or corporate job postings.
Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the business of war. He is the authority on the bundling of military and big business. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he is the author of the book Understanding the War Industry (Clarity Press, 2020). His research is available at warindustrymuster.com. Sorensen is a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN).