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william hartung
'An Arsenal of Profiteering': Military Contractors Have Gotten Over Half of Pentagon Spending Since 2020
"These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing," said the project's director.
Jul 08, 2025
Less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a budget package that pushes annual military spending past $1 trillion, researchers on Tuesday published a report detailing how much major Pentagon contractors have raked in since 2020.
Sharing The Guardian's exclusive coverage of the paper on social media, U.K.-based climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote: "Are you a U.S. taxpayer? I am sure you will be delighted to know where $2.4 TRILLION of your money has gone."
The report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft shows that from 2020-24 private firms received $2.4 trillion in Department of Defense contracts, or roughly 54% of DOD's $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending for that five-year period.
The publication highlights that "during those five years, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion)."
In a statement about the findings, Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project, said that "these figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing."
"This is not an arsenal of democracy—it's an arsenal of profiteering," Savell added. "We should keep the enormous and growing power of the arms industry in mind as we assess the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and globally."
Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. By comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. [5/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
The paper points out that "by comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. In other words, the U.S. government invested over twice as much money in five weapons companies as in diplomacy and international assistance."
"Record arms transfers have further boosted the bottom lines of weapons firms," the document details. "These companies have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and Ukraine, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. military aid to Israel was over $18 billion in just the first year following October 2023; military aid to Ukraine totals $65 billion since the Russian invasion in 2022 through 2025."
"Additionally, a surge in foreign-funded arms sales to European allies, paid for by the recipient nations—over $170 billion in 2023 and 2024 alone—have provided additional revenue to arms contractors over and above the funds they receive directly from the Pentagon," the paper adds.
The 23-page report stresses that "annual U.S. military spending has grown significantly this century," as presidents from both major parties have waged a so-called Global War on Terror and the DOD has continuously failed to pass an audit.
Specifically, according to the paper, "the Pentagon's discretionary budget—the annual funding approved by Congress and the large majority of its overall budget—rose from $507 billion in 2000 to $843 billion in 2025 (in constant 2025 dollars), a 66% increase. Including military spending outside the Pentagon—primarily nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy, counterterrorism operations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other military activities officially classified under 'Budget Function 050'— total military spending grew from $531 billion in 2000 to $899 billion in 2025, a 69% increase."
Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this month "adds $156 billion to this year's total, pushing the 2025 military budget to $1.06 trillion," the document notes. "After taking into account this supplemental funding, the U.S. military budget has nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000."
Noting that "taxpayers are expected to fund a $1 trillion Pentagon budget," Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler said the paper, which he co-authored, "illustrates what they'll be paying for: a historic redistribution of wealth from the public to private industry.”
Semler produced the report with William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Hartung said that "high Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops.'"
"But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning," he continued. "Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages."
The arms industry has used an array of tools of influence to create an atmosphere where a Pentagon budget that is $1 trillion per year is deemed “not enough” by some members of Congress. [9/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
In addition to spotlighting how U.S. military budgets funnel billions of dollars to contractors each year, the report shines a light on the various ways the industry influences politics.
"The ongoing influence of the arms industry over Congress operates through tens of millions in campaign contributions and the employment of 950 lobbyists, as of 2024," the publication explains. "Military contractors also shape military policy and lobby to increase military spending by funding think tanks and serving on government commissions."
"Senior officials in government often go easy on major weapons companies so as not to ruin their chances of getting lucrative positions with them upon leaving government service," the report notes. "For its part, the emerging military tech sector has opened a new version of the revolving door—the movement of ex-military officers and senior Pentagon officials, not to arms companies per se, but to the venture capital firms that invest in Silicon Valley arms industry startups."
The paper concludes by arguing that "the U.S. needs stronger congressional and public scrutiny of both current and emerging weapons contractors to avoid wasteful spending and reckless decision-making on issues of war and peace. Profits should not drive policy."
"In particular," it adds, "the role of Silicon Valley startups and the venture capital firms that support them needs to be better understood and debated as the U.S. crafts a new foreign policy strategy that avoids unnecessary wars and prioritizes cooperation over confrontation."
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Biden Admin Hasn't Acted on 500 Reports of Israel Attacking Gaza Civilians With US Arms
One expert said the Biden administration is "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
Oct 30, 2024
The Biden administration has reportedly received around 500 notices from international humanitarian groups, nonprofit organizations, and eyewitnesses alleging that the Israeli military has used American weaponry in attacks that harmed civilians in the Gaza Strip, likely in violation of both U.S. and international law.
But the administration, which has armed Israel's military to the hilt since the Hamas-led attack of last year, "has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims," according to The Washington Post, which first reported the nearly 500 notices on Wednesday.
Dozens of the reports delivered to the U.S. State Department over the past year "include photo documentation of U.S.-made bomb fragments at sites where scores of children were killed," the Post noted, citing unnamed human rights advocates who were briefed on the process.
"Yet despite the State Department’s internal Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which directs officials to complete an investigation and recommend action within two months of launching an inquiry, no single case has reached the 'action' stage," the newspaper reported, citing unnamed current and former officials. "More than two-thirds of cases remain unresolved... with many pending response from the Israeli government, which the State Department consults to verify each case's circumstances."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies, everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
John Ramming Chappell, a legal and policy adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told the Post that Biden administration officials are "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies," Chappell added, "everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
William Hartung, a senior research fellow and arms industry expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the Post that "it's almost impossible" that Israel isn't violating U.S. law "given the level of slaughter that's going on, and the preponderance of U.S. weapons."
Since last October, the U.S. has delivered more than 50,000 tons of weaponry to Israel, a flow of arms that has continued amid overwhelming evidence that the Israeli military has used American weapons to commit grave violations of international law.
In April, as Common Dreams reported at the time, Amnesty International USA sent a research brief to the Biden administration detailing several cases in which the Israeli military violated international humanitarian law with U.S. weapons, including a pair of deadly strikes last year on homes full of civilians—attacks that killed 19 children.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military bombed a five-story residential building in northern Gaza, killing around two dozen children and scores of adults.
Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration is "deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life in this incident" and has "reached out to the government of Israel to ask what has happened here."
Later in the same briefing, reporters pressed Miller on actions the Biden administration is taking to push Israel to stop impeding shipments of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It's been just over two weeks since the Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if the humanitarian situation in Gaza doesn't improve within 30 days.
"Obviously, the 30 days isn't up," Drop Site's Ryan Grim noted during Tuesday's press briefing. "But two weeks ago the situation in northern Gaza was bad; like, today it's utterly dystopian. The opposite of making progress has happened there."
Miller responded that "we have made clear that the situation in northern Gaza... needs to change."
Nevertheless, Miller insisted to reporters that the U.S. State Department has "not assessed [Israel] to be in violation of the law at this point," a statement that contradicts the findings of both internal department experts and outside analysts.
"All the laws and policies that are supposed to prevent U.S. weapons from being used to commit atrocities by foreign countries are being completely ignored by the Biden admin in its rush to continue unimpeded weapons flows to Israel to commit genocide," Josh Ruebner, policy director at the IMEU Policy Project, wrote Wednesday.
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Report Urges Congress to Tackle Venture Capitalists Peddling AI 'Miracle Weapons'
"Neither taxpayers nor the Congress should buy the hype surrounding these new technologies without careful oversight and scrutiny."
Jun 03, 2024
A new report released Monday sounds the alarm on the growing influence of profit-hungry venture capital firms that are promoting weapons systems powered by artificial intelligence, a rapidly emerging technology that experts and watchdogs warn could be an
existential threat to humanity if not strongly and properly regulated.
The
report, published by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cautions that venture capital (VC) firms and their allies in Washington, D.C. are "determined to move full speed ahead on the development and deployment of weapons based on AI and other technological innovations, despite many unanswered questions about the costs and risks involved."
Michael Brenes and William Hartung, the report's authors, implore Congress to pursue concrete policy actions to regulate the torrent of VC money flowing into the development of AI-powered military technology—so-called "miracle weapons"—as the Pentagon actively courts Silicon Valley startups.
Citing data from PitchBook, The Financial Times reported last year that "U.S. venture investment in defense startups surged from less than $16 billion in 2019 to $33 billion in 2022."
The Quincy Institute report observes that "the surge in VC investment in emerging arms technology is being spearheaded by a handful of firms and individuals," including "the Founders Fund, started by Peter Thiel, who is also the co-founder of PayPal and the arms technology firm Palantir; and Andreesen Horowitz, whose 'American Dynamism Fund' invests in notable emerging tech firms like Anduril and Shield AI."
"Given the risks of catastrophic malfunction and hair-trigger wars conducted with minimal human input, we need a vigorous national debate before moving full speed ahead on military applications of AI and other emerging technologies," Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, said in a statement Monday.
Brenes, a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute, said that "hugely consequential decisions" about the role of AI in U.S. military technology and operations "cannot be driven by narrow considerations of corporate profit."
"Neither taxpayers nor the Congress should buy the hype surrounding these new technologies without careful oversight and scrutiny," said Brenes. "Otherwise, we will see yet another round of cost overruns for systems that do not work as advertised."
"With defense startups growing in number, and enticing military and political leaders, it will be exacerbated in an era of 'big tech.'"
The new report comes amid sustained outrage over the U.S. tech giant Google's AI partnership with Israel, which has used artificial intelligence in its devastating military assault on Gaza.
The report also comes months after the Biden administration announced its "Replicator" initiative, a project the Pentagon characterized as an attempt to counter China with an "AI-empowered military."
"Since we need to break through barriers and catalyze change with urgency, we've set a big goal for Replicator: to field attritable autonomous systems at a scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months," Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a speech last year.
Hicks' remarks drew immediate alarm from watchdog organizations, which have criticized the Pentagon's lack of transparency surrounding its AI efforts.
In March, a coalition of groups spearheaded by Public Citizensent a letter to the Pentagon warning that "autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
"Deploying lethal AI weapons in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the letter reads. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
The Quincy Institute report specifically calls on Congress to "establish a revamped Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that could provide oversight of the industry and ensure that Silicon Valley startups do not manufacture promises that cannot be delivered."
The report also urges Congress to shutter the revolving door between the federal government and military contractors, which gives private companies further influence over consequential policy outcomes.
"This is not a new problem," the report acknowledges. "But with defense startups growing in number, and enticing military and political leaders, it will be exacerbated in an era of 'big tech.' Republican Representative Mike Gallagher recently announced that he was joining Peter Thiel's Palantir after resigning from Congress. This is while Gallagher promotes belligerent views on China in mainstream outlets like Foreign Affairs, arguing that the United States is in the throes of a 'New Cold War' with China that must be won by 'rapidly increasing U.S. defense capabilities to achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages over Beijing.'"
"It will be up to interested members of Congress, working with the administration, to craft specific proposals and regulations to manage the role of private money in the development of emerging military technologies," the report states.
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