Ending war and militarism involves exposing and opposing those who profit from it. Through the Cut Ties with Transnational Weapons Corporations (W-TNCs), the Resist US-Led War Movement will expose the war profiteering of W-TNCs and oppose them by isolating them from the institutions that give them financial and ideological support. Join the Cut Ties with W-TNCs campaign and wage local actions against war profiteers in your region!
Background
There is no way to calculate how many deaths result from direct conflict, especially as leading military forces label civilian deaths as “enemy combatants”. It is estimated that there are over 26 million refugees in the world displaced by war and militarization in their home countries. Almost 55 million people were living in internal displacement because of this reason by the end of 2020. Famines from militarized blockades and destruction of local food systems kill hundreds of thousands, with Yemen alone at over 130,000 deaths from starvation since the US-backed Saudi blockade. The US military clocks in as the world’s largest environmental polluter and one of the largest carbon emitters. But as American monopoly capitalist John D. Rockefeller put it, “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”
Transnational weapons companies (W-TNCs) are corporations with global operations overseeing and gaining profits from the industrial mass production of high-tech weapons of war, even if a percentage of their production is in non-weapons material (such as civilian aircraft or engines). They are private and sometimes state-owned companies, though all of them exist to profit from arming and re-arming state militaries to use in their wars against other countries or their own people. In short, war brings the demand for what they supply.
Imperialist and neocolonial states alike make use of these weapons to assert and defend their violent rule. Sales and “military aid” packages are encouraged for fascist governments that use them against their own people in ways that serve imperialist foreign policy. In a self-fulfilling cycle, W-TNC products are used in wars of aggression in order to lay claim to more land and labor power for control of more production, including the production of even more weapons.
In 2020, the combined profits of the top 5 W-TNCs (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raythoen, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics) equaled over $250 billion. Added to this is in 2021 is almost $12 billion in US taxpayer-provided military assistance, alongside the whopping $138 billion of all US weapons exports the same year. $105 million of this went to just 5 people, the CEOs of top 5 companies. It is therefore clear who is profiting from US-led wars.
Ending war and militarism involves exposing and opposing those who profit from it. Through this campaign, the Resist US-Led War Movement will expose the war profiteering of W-TNCs and oppose them by isolating them from the institutions that give them financial and ideological support.
Objectives
Download the full campaign paper:
Background
There is no way to calculate how many deaths result from direct conflict, especially as leading military forces label civilian deaths as “enemy combatants”. It is estimated that there are over 26 million refugees in the world displaced by war and militarization in their home countries. Almost 55 million people were living in internal displacement because of this reason by the end of 2020. Famines from militarized blockades and destruction of local food systems kill hundreds of thousands, with Yemen alone at over 130,000 deaths from starvation since the US-backed Saudi blockade. The US military clocks in as the world’s largest environmental polluter and one of the largest carbon emitters. But as American monopoly capitalist John D. Rockefeller put it, “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”
Transnational weapons companies (W-TNCs) are corporations with global operations overseeing and gaining profits from the industrial mass production of high-tech weapons of war, even if a percentage of their production is in non-weapons material (such as civilian aircraft or engines). They are private and sometimes state-owned companies, though all of them exist to profit from arming and re-arming state militaries to use in their wars against other countries or their own people. In short, war brings the demand for what they supply.
Imperialist and neocolonial states alike make use of these weapons to assert and defend their violent rule. Sales and “military aid” packages are encouraged for fascist governments that use them against their own people in ways that serve imperialist foreign policy. In a self-fulfilling cycle, W-TNC products are used in wars of aggression in order to lay claim to more land and labor power for control of more production, including the production of even more weapons.
In 2020, the combined profits of the top 5 W-TNCs (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raythoen, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics) equaled over $250 billion. Added to this is in 2021 is almost $12 billion in US taxpayer-provided military assistance, alongside the whopping $138 billion of all US weapons exports the same year. $105 million of this went to just 5 people, the CEOs of top 5 companies. It is therefore clear who is profiting from US-led wars.
Ending war and militarism involves exposing and opposing those who profit from it. Through this campaign, the Resist US-Led War Movement will expose the war profiteering of W-TNCs and oppose them by isolating them from the institutions that give them financial and ideological support.
Objectives
- Expose the business activities, oligarchic behavior and militaristic outlook of W-TNCs and the realities of their products’ use in wars of aggression and oppose these through locally, nationally and internationally coordinated campaigns
- Lead and coordinate actions to institutionally isolate W-TNCs as a means to more effectively target the users of W-TNC products, the government and military forces of US-led war
- Build unity between localized W-TNC campaigns to launch coordinated actions, and between W-TNC campaigns and other campaigns related to US-led war (border militarization, occupations, prisons and political prisoners, overseas bases and military exercises, environmental justice, military spending, etc.)
Download the full campaign paper:
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Video from the 2022 protest against CANSEC, Canada's global defense and weapons expo.