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To challenge the atrocity of enforced famine, we must also dismantle the economic and political order that finds in crisis not failure, but opportunity.
In Gaza, starvation has become strategy. According to the United Nations and humanitarian groups on the ground, two key famine conditions now exist in Gaza and are rapidly spreading. Israel’s months-long siege has blocked the flow of food, water, fuel, and medicine to a civilian population of over 2 million, resulting in catastrophic levels of hunger. Hundreds have died from malnutrition. More than a thousand more have died trying to access food.
This is not a failure of international governance. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by states and corporations. And increasingly, it is being managed not by traditional humanitarian institutions, but by private actors: contracted, credentialed, and corporatized. In March 2025, the United States and Israel launched the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a Delaware-registered nonprofit tasked with distributing aid in the territory. It bypasses the United Nations and replaces hundreds of aid points with a handful of militarized hubs guarded by private contractors. These sites, promoted as humanitarian lifelines, have instead become mass graveyards.
Gaza reveals the inner workings of a global system that transforms human suffering into a site of control and accumulation. At the center of this system is what I call the “Authoritarian-Financial Complex”—a fusion of militarized governance, financial extraction, and corporate logistics. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not a neutral aid vehicle but the logistical machinery of this complex, enclosing humanitarian relief within a tightly controlled, securitized, and profitable framework designed to manage crisis rather than resolve it.
The Authoritarian-Financial Complex (AFC) represents an evolution beyond the traditional military-industrial complex. Whereas the latter focused on state militarism and arms production, the AFC extends into finance, technology, and humanitarian logistics, embedding itself in the infrastructures of everyday life. It does not simply build weapons; it builds systems that manage populations through risk, fear, and data. The complex feeds on a manufactured sense of insecurity, framing entire communities as threats to be controlled, surveilled, or contained. This expanding logic of securitization creates new markets for biometric technologies, private security forces, AI-driven monitoring, and crisis management platforms. The AFC profits not only from actual war but from the perpetual anticipation of danger, turning fear itself into a renewable source of capital.
This transformation is powerfully illustrated in Francesca Albanese’s landmark U.N. report, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, which shows how Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation in Palestine has become embedded in global networks of capital and control. What began as a project of territorial domination has developed into a transnational economic system fueled by arms manufacturers, surveillance firms, data brokers, and logistics corporations. Albanese makes clear that the machinery of genocide functions as a dynamic engine of profit, operating in lockstep with the broader structures of the Authoritarian-Financial Complex.
What is occurring in Gaza exemplifies how humanitarianism is being hollowed out, militarized, and turned into a platform for surveillance capitalism.
According to Albanese, genocide has become “economized.” The displacement and annihilation of Palestinians is not only political; it is materially profitable. Arms companies advertise their missiles and drones as “battle-tested” in Gaza. Data firms collect behavioral patterns and biometric information on Palestinians that is then exported globally. Real estate developers profit from newly “cleared” territory. Every phase of oppression has become monetized.
The economy of genocide outlined in Albanese’s report reveals a broader dynamic at work within global capitalism. This logic extends beyond Palestine and conventional war zones, operating as part of a larger architecture known as the Authoritarian-Financial Complex. In this configuration, private equity finances military supply chains, data analytics firms embed themselves in systems of border control, and NGOs are recast as instruments of state-aligned governance. The machinery of violence is streamlined into a process of extraction, turning organized destruction into a stable and repeatable source of profit.
While the world watches in horror at the deliberate weaponization of starvation in Gaza, there is an urgent need to confront the deeper system driving this policy. The spectacle of mass hunger, widely condemned as a moral catastrophe, is also the surface expression of a coordinated infrastructure that turns deprivation into a strategic and financial asset. This is the logic of the Authoritarian-Financial Complex: a system where the control of food, movement, and survival becomes a tool of governance and a source of capital. Beneath the headlines and humanitarian appeals lies a web of private contractors, military logisticians, and financial intermediaries who do not simply respond to crisis but operate through it. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is one such actor within this machinery, but the underlying mechanism is global, replicable, and expanding. To challenge the atrocity of enforced famine, we must also dismantle the economic and political order that finds in crisis not failure, but opportunity.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, for instance, has replaced more than 400 U.N. aid sites with just four militarized hubs. These hubs are located in Israeli-declared “safe zones,” which Palestinians were forced to relocate to after sustained bombing. They lack water, sanitation, fuel, and shelter. The food provided is often nutritionally deficient, heavily processed, and requires cooking infrastructure that many no longer have access to. In other words, aid is being distributed in a form that is difficult to consume, in locations that are difficult to reach, under conditions that are deadly by design.
According to Médecins Sans Frontières, these aid hubs function as “death traps,” not relief centers. Amnesty International has said the model “risks violating international humanitarian law.” Yet the GHF remains active, even as hunger deaths increase. Why? Because in the Authoritarian-Financial Complex, aid is not about care. It is about profit and control.
Behind the GHF’s humanitarian branding lies a dense network of private actors. Its board includes figures linked to the U.S. military-industrial complex. Its security contracts are handled by firms with connections to the Pentagon. This is a business. The GHF’s operations generate value in multiple directions. Logistics firms get paid to move food. Security firms profit from guarding it. In the future, it paves the way for tech companies to “optimize” aid through distribution software and biometric ID systems. Meanwhile, states like Israel and the U.S. use GHF’s presence to deflect legal responsibility and deny the scale of the famine. The entire architecture serves both material and political functions.
This arrangement creates a powerful financial incentive to perpetuate, rather than resolve, genocide and crisis. As long as conflict zones generate demand for arms, logistics, surveillance, and privatized aid, the firms involved remain profitable. Humanitarian catastrophe becomes not an emergency to be addressed, but a market to be maintained. The longer the siege continues, the more contracts are awarded, the more data is harvested, and the more donor capital flows into securitized "relief" operations. In such a model, peace is not just inconvenient—it is unprofitable. The system thrives precisely because the suffering never ends.
And there is precedent. The AFC thrives in crisis zones. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, private security firms like Blackwater moved in faster than the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors like Halliburton and DynCorp profited both from the country’s destruction and its reconstruction. In border zones, companies build walls, run detention centers, and develop “smart” migration tracking systems. What Gaza reveals is that this model now applies not just to post-war contexts but to genocide itself.
What is occurring in Gaza exemplifies how humanitarianism is being hollowed out, militarized, and turned into a platform for surveillance capitalism. It represents the collapse of aid into a venture-backed economy of control.
The siege of Gaza, and the starvation it has produced, should compel us to ask a deeper question: What kind of global system allows mass death to be treated as a logistical problem to be outsourced and monetized?
In a functioning international order, the deliberate starvation of a civilian population would trigger universal condemnation, sanctions, and urgent intervention. Instead, we have subcontracted survival to a nonprofit with ties to defense contractors. Instead of upholding international law, we are beta-testing a new model for aid distribution that removes accountability and embeds profit into suffering.
This is the essence of the Authoritarian-Financial Complex. It is a system that no longer hides its violence. It administers it through platforms and contracts. It trades in crisis. It grows through enclosure. It repackages domination as delivery and presents militarized deprivation as humanitarian innovation.
This is the war not just on Gaza but on the idea that human life has value beyond capital.
The AFC connects Wall Street to war zones, hedge funds to hunger, and data brokers to refugee camps. In its world, Gaza is not a moral crisis. It is a scalable opportunity.
To break this system, we must do more than call for a cease-fire. We must demand the abolition of the GHF and all privatized aid regimes that serve siege rather than relief. We must insist on accountability for the corporations profiting from destruction and deprivation. We must rebuild international humanitarianism as a space of solidarity, not outsourcing.
Above all, we must understand that genocide is no longer an act of the state alone. It is a business. And in that business, silence is complicity.
Gaza is not only a test of conscience. It is a mirror held up to a world where profit reigns above life. If we fail to dismantle the Authoritarian-Financial Complex now, it will define the next century of planetary crisis—with each famine, each war, and each displacement event monetized, securitized, and outsourced.
This is the war not just on Gaza but on the idea that human life has value beyond capital. We must name it. And we must end it.
The "garrison state" Eisenhower warned of has arrived, with negative consequences for nearly everyone but giant weapons conglomerates and their competitors in the emerging military-tech sector.
When, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the unwarranted influence wielded by a partnership between the military and a growing cohort of U.S. weapons contractors and came up with the ominous term “military-industrial complex,” he could never have imagined quite how large and powerful that complex would become. In fact, in recent years, one firm — Lockheed Martin — has normally gotten more Pentagon funding than the entire U.S. State Department. And mind you, that was before the Trump administration moved to sharply slash spending on diplomacy and jack up the Pentagon budget to an astonishing $1 trillion per year.
In a new study issued by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the Costs of War Project at Brown University, Stephen Semler and I lay out just how powerful those arms makers and their allies have become, as Pentagon budgets simply never stop rising. And consider this: in the five years from 2020 to 2024, 54% of the Pentagon’s $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending went to private firms and $791 billion went to just five companies: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion). And mind you, that was before Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Budget bill landed on planet Earth, drastically slashing spending on diplomacy and domestic programs to make room for major tax cuts and near-record Pentagon outlays.
In short, the “garrison state” Eisenhower warned of has arrived, with negative consequences for nearly everyone but the executives and shareholders of those giant weapons conglomerates and their competitors in the emerging military tech sector who are now hot on their trail. High-tech militarists like Peter Thiel of Palantir, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and Palmer Luckey of Anduril have promised a new, more affordable, more nimble, and supposedly more effective version of the military-industrial complex, as set out in Anduril’s “Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy,” an ode to the supposed value of those emerging tech firms.
Curiously enough, that Anduril essay is actually a remarkably apt critique of the Big Five contractors and their allies in Congress and the Pentagon, pointing out their unswerving penchant for cost overruns, delays in scheduling, and pork-barrel politics to preserve weapons systems that all too often no longer serve any useful military purpose. That document goes on to say that, while the Lockheed Martins of the world served a useful function in the ancient days of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, today they are incapable of building the next-generation of weaponry. The reason: their archaic business model and their inability to master the software at the heart of a coming new generation of semi-autonomous, pilotless weapons driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing. For their part, the new titans of tech boldly claim that they can provide exactly such a futuristic generation of weaponry far more effectively and at far less cost, and that their weapons systems will preserve or even extend American global military dominance into the distant future by outpacing China in the development of next-generation technologies.
War and a Possible Coming Techno-Autocracy
Could there indeed be a new, improved military-industrial complex just waiting in the wings, one aligned with this country’s actual defense needs that doesn’t gouge taxpayers in the process?
Don’t count on it, not at least if it’s premised on the development of “miracle weapons” that will cost so much less and do so much more than current systems. Such a notion, it seems, arises in every generation, only to routinely fall flat. From the “electronic battlefield” that was supposed to pinpoint and destroy Viet Cong forces in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the Vietnam War years to Ronald Reagan’s failed vision of an impenetrable “Star Wars” missile shield, to the failure of precision-guided munitions and networked warfare to bring victory in Iraq and Afghanistan during this country’s Global War on Terror, the notion that superior military technology is the key to winning America’s wars and expanding U.S. power and influence has been routinely marked by failure. And that’s been true even if the weapons work as advertised (which all too often they don’t).
And while you’re at it, don’t forget, for example, that, nearly 30 years later, the highly touted, high-tech F-35 combat aircraft — once hailed as a technological marvel-in-the-making that would usher in a revolution in both warfare and military procurement — still isn’t ready for prime time. Designed for multiple war-fighting tasks, including winning aerial dogfights, supporting troops on the ground, and bombing enemy targets, the F-35 has turned out to be able to do none of those things particularly well. And to add insult to injury, the plane is so complex that it spends almost as much time being maintained or repaired as being ready to do battle.
That history of technological hubris and strategic failure should be kept in mind when listening to the — so far unproven — claims of the leaders of this country’s military-tech sector about the value of their latest gadgets. For one thing, everything they propose to build — from swarms of drones to unpiloted aircraft, land vehicles, and ships — will rely on extremely complex software that is bound to fail somewhere along the way. And even if, by some miracle, their systems, including artificial intelligence, work as advertised, they may not only not prove decisive in the wars of the future but make wars of aggression that much more likely. After all, countries that master new technologies are tempted to go on the attack, putting fewer of their own people at immediate risk while doing devastating harm to targeted populations. The use of Palantir’s technology by the Israeli Defense Forces to increase the number of targets devastated in a given time frame in their campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza could foreshadow the new age of warfare if emerging military technologies aren’t brought under some system of control and accountability.
A further risk posed by AI-driven warfare is the possibility that the new weapons could choose their targets without human intervention. Current Pentagon policy promises to keep a human “in the loop” in the use of such systems, but military logic runs counter to such claims. As Anduril President and Chief Strategy Officer Christian Brose has written in his seminal book Kill Chain, the high-tech wars of the future will hinge on which side can identify and destroy its targets most quickly — an imperative that would ensure slow-moving humans were left out of the process.
In short, two possibilities arise if the U.S. military transitions to the “new improved” military-industrial complex espoused by the denizens of Silicon Valley: complex systems that don’t perform as advertised, or new capabilities that may make war both more likely and more deadly. And such dystopian outcomes will only be reinforced by the ideology of the new Silicon Valley militarists. They see themselves as both the “founders” of a new form of warfare and “the new patriots” poised to restore American greatness without the need for a democratic government in the war-making mix. Their ideal, in fact, would be to ensure that the government got out of the way and let them solve the myriad problems we face alone. Ayn Rand would be proud.
Such a techno-autocracy would be far more likely to serve the interests of a relatively small elite than aid the average American in any way. From Peter Thiel’s quest for a way to live forever to Elon Musk’s desire to enable the mass colonization of space, it’s not at all clear that, if such goals could even be achieved, they would be generally available. It’s more likely that such opportunities would be restricted to the species of superior beings that the techno-militarists see themselves as being.
The Ultimate Brawl Between the Big Five and the Emerging Tech Firms?
Still, the techno-militarists face serious obstacles in their quest to reach the top rungs of power and influence, not least among them, the continued clout of old-school weapons makers. After all, they still receive the vast bulk of Pentagon weapons spending, based in part on their millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign expenditures and their ability to spread jobs to almost every state and district in the country. These tools of influence give the Big Five far deeper roots in and influence over Congress than the new tech firms. These large, legacy companies also influence government policy through their funding of hawkish think tanks that help shape government policies designed to regulate their conduct, and so much more.
Of course, one way to prevent the ultimate brawl between the Big Five and the emerging tech firms would be to feed them both with ample funding — but that would require a Pentagon budget that would soar well beyond the present trillion-dollar mark. There are, of course, some projects that could benefit both factions, ranging from Donald Trump’s pet Golden Dome missile defense scheme, which could incorporate hardware from the Big Five with software from the emerging tech firms, to Boeing’s new F-47 combat aircraft program, which calls for unpiloted “wing men” likely to be produced by Anduril or another military tech firm. So, the question of confrontation versus cooperation between the new and old guard in the military sector has yet to be settled. If the rival firms end up turning their lobbying resources against each other and going for each other’s proverbial throats, it could weaken their grip on the rest of us and perhaps reveal useful information that might undermine the authority and credibility of both sides.
But count on one thing: neither sector has the best interests of the public in mind, so we need to prepare to fight back ourselves regardless of how their battle plays out.
Okay, then, what could we possibly do to head off the nightmare scenario of a world run by Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and crew? First, we’ll need the kind of “alert and knowledgeable” citizenry that Dwight D. Eisenhower pointed to so long ago as the only antidote to an ever more militarized society. That would mean concerted efforts by both the public and the government (which would, of course, have to be run by someone unlike Donald J. Trump — already a project in itself!).
At the moment, the tech sector is indeed increasingly embedded in the Trump administration and he owes a number of them a distinct debt of gratitude for helping him over the top in the 2024 election. Despite his very public and bitter falling out with fellow narcissist Elon Musk, the influence of the tech sector within his administration remains all too strong, starting with Vice President J.D. Vance, who owes his career to the employment, mentoring, and financial support of Silicon Valley militarist Peter Thiel. And don’t forget that a substantial cohort of former employees of Palantir and Anduril have already been given key posts in this administration.
Creating a counterweight to those new-age militarists will require a full-scale societal effort, including educators, scientists, and technologists, the labor movement, non-tech business leaders, and activists of all stripes. Silicon Valley workers did, in fact, organize a number of protests against the militarization of their handiwork before being beaten back. Now, a new wave of such activism is all too desperately needed.
Just as many of the scientists who helped build the atomic bomb spent their post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki lives trying to rein in or abolish nuclear weapons, a cohort of scientists and engineers in the tech sector needs to play a leading role in beginning to craft guardrails to limit the military uses of the technologies they helped develop. Meanwhile, the student movement against the use of U.S. weapons in Gaza has begun to expand its horizons to target the militarization of universities writ large. In addition, environmentalists need to double down on criticisms of the immense energy requirements needed to power AI and crypto, while labor leaders need to reckon with the consequences of AI destroying jobs in the military and civilian sectors alike. And all of this has to happen in the context of a far greater technological literacy, including among congressional representatives and workers in government agencies charged with regulating the suppliers of new military technologies.
None of that is, of course, likely to happen except in the context of a resurgence of democracy and a committed effort to fulfill the unmet rhetorical promises that undergird the myth of the American dream. And speaking of contexts, here’s one that anybody preparing to protest the further militarization of this society should take into account: contrary to the belief of many key figures from the Pentagon to Wall Street to Main Street, the peak of American military and economic power has indeed passed, never to return. The only rational course is to craft policies that maintain American influence in the context of a world where power has been defused and cooperation is all too essential.
Such a view, of course, is the polar opposite of the bombastic, bullying approach of the Trump administration, which, if it persists, will only accelerate American decline. And in that context, the key question is whether the widespread harm inherent in the new budget bill — which will only continue to wildly enrich the Pentagon and big arms firms of both kinds, while hitting the rest of us across the political spectrum — could prompt a new surge of public engagement and a genuine debate about what kind of world we want to live in and how this country could play a constructive (rather than destructive) role in bringing it about.
Celebrating weapons makers, even with a nod and a wink, serves to normalize the U.S. role as the world’s premier arms producer while ignoring the consequences of that status.
I wrote a book about Lockheed Martin — the world’s largest arms-making conglomerate. But even I was surprised to learn that for a number of years now, they have also been involved in the fashion industry.
The revelation came in a recent New York Times piece on Kodak, which has had a minor resurgence, not by selling its own products, but by selling its name for use on a range of consumer products, produced by other firms, from luggage to eyewear to hoodies and t-shirts.
Deeper into the article it was mentioned in passing that Lockheed Martin had been doing the same. It linked to another article that noted that Lockheed Martin-branded cargo pants and hoodies have been a hit in South Korea since they were introduced a few years back. Brisk sales are continuing, with the Lockheed brand adorning streetwear with slogans like “Ensuring those we serve always stay ahead of ready.” One blue t-shirt dons the outline of an F-35 on the back, emblazoned with the motto “The F-35 strengthens national security, enhances global partnerships and powers economic growth.” It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but at least it’s free advertising.
Lockheed Martin’s efforts at reputation laundering come at a moment when many arms industry leaders are vocally supporting — even applauding — armed violence.
Not to be outdone, emerging tech firms are selling limited edition fashion lines of their own. Palantir recently dropped a line of hats and tees that quickly sold out. Eliano Younes, Head of Strategic Engagement for Palantir, has noted that when they re-launched the Palantir shop that “the site almost crashed within four minutes.” And Anduril has partnered with Reyn Spooner to launch a limited drop of Hawaiian shirts — a favorite uniform of company founder Palmer Luckey.
Not everyone welcomes the entry of weapons makers into the fashion world. A critic of Lockheed’s apparel line who goes by the name of Opal noted, “They stopped killing people for just a minute to help them kill those looks . . . The people who made these decisions are either so out of touch or like unbelievably acutely aware of what’s going on, and I can’t really tell the difference.”
As Opal fears, the marriage of fashion and weapons makers may be a sign of the times, as shoppers welcome the entrance of arms makers into the consumer sector rather than seeing their foray into fashion as an exercise in poor taste. This is probably because military firms and the weapons they produce are so deeply embedded in our culture that many people view the companies as purveyors of neat technology while ignoring the devastating consequences that occur when those weapons are actually used.
Lockheed Martin’s efforts at reputation laundering come at a moment when many arms industry leaders are vocally supporting — even applauding — armed violence. Prominent Silicon Valley military tech executives like Luckey and Palantir CEO Alex Karp, have no compunction about glorifying war while their companies are paid handsome sums to build the tools needed to carry it out. Luckey, the 32-year old head of the military tech firm Anduril, asserts that “Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited by enacting violence in pursuit of good aims.” He didn’t discuss who gets to decide what “good aims” are, or why being “excited” about killing fellow human beings could ever be a good thing.
And Karp held his company’s board meeting in Israel at the height of the Gaza war to cheer on Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter. At the time of the meeting, the company’s Executive VP Josh Harris announced that “Both parties have mutually agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions. This strategic partnership aims to significantly aid the Israeli Ministry of Defense in addressing the current situation.”
These attitudes contrast with the efforts of old school arms company leaders like former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, who was a master at burnishing the image of his company while downplaying its role as a primary producer of weapons at war.
Augustine led by personal example, working closely with the Boy Scouts and the Red Cross, championing science education, and speaking regularly of the need for corporate ethics, which he seemed to equate mostly with acts of charity by company employees, not with grappling with moral questions about how his company’s weapons were being used.
To a lesser degree, Augustine’s approach continues to this day. Company press releases describe Lockheed Martin as a firm that is “driving innovation and advancing scientific discovery.” The company’s image-building efforts include support for scholarships in STEM education, funding programs to build and upgrade facilities serving veterans, supporting food banks and disaster response programs, and more. There’s nothing wrong with helping fund a good cause, but it shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the company’s other activities.
The weapons produced by Lockheed Martin have fueled the war in Gaza, and they were integral to Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen, an effort that included bombing funerals, a school bus, hospitals, civilian markets and water treatment plants in Yemen, in a war that cost nearly 400,000 lives through the direct and indirect means, from indiscriminate bombing the the enforcement of a blockade the hindered imports of food and medical supplies.
On the rare occasions that arms industry executives are asked about the human impacts of their products, they usually say they are only doing what the government allows. They fail to mention that they spend large sums of money and effort trying to shape government policy, making it easier to rush weapons to foreign clients without adequate consideration of their possible uses in aggressive wars or systematic repression.
Given all of this, Lockheed Martin’s endorsement of a line of street clothing seems like a relatively harmless side show. But celebrating weapons makers, even with a nod and a wink, serves to normalize the U.S. role as the world’s premier arms producer while ignoring the consequences of that status.
America needs to be able to defend itself and its allies, but celebrating war and preparations for war is not the way to do it. We need more reflection and less celebration. And we need to call weapons makers what they are, not welcome the use of their names as marketing tools designed to sell consumer products.
The real question as we try to dig ourselves out of a period of devastating wars and increasing global tension is whether we need huge weapons firms like Lockheed Martin at all, or if there is a more efficient, humane way to provide for the common defense, less focused on profit and PR and more focused on developing the tools actually needed to carry out a more rational, restrained defense strategy.