Following the publication of the new top 100 list of the world’s military industry, with data from 2024 compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), we can see that the figure of $679 billion in arms sales has been reached, an annual increase of 5.9% in real terms.
Of the major arms manufacturers, we know that the majority are from the United States and Europe, 39 and 26 respectively. The leading US companies continue to be Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and L3 Harris Technologies. The Chinese companies AVIC and CETC, the British BAE Systems, and the Russian company Rostec have also appeared in the top 10 for several years.
A closer look at the companies reveals that some have significantly increased their revenue. Among these, several European firms stand out, such as the German companies Rheinmetall, with a 47% increase in revenue, and Diehl, with a 53% increase; the Czech company Czechoslovak Group, which has seen a 193% increase in revenue; and the Polish company PGZ, with a 34% increase. Also noteworthy in Europe are the considerable revenue increases of major French industries, such as Dassault Aviation, which has risen by 30%, and companies specializing in military technology applied to various areas of the military and security sector, such as Safran and Thales. Finally, the 41% increase of the Ukrainian arms manufacturer JSC (Ukrainian Defense Industry) is worth mentioning. The only Spanish company on the list is once again Navantia, with $1.27 billion in defense spending projected for 2024.
The 23 companies in the top 100 that are based in Asia-Pacific also saw strong revenue growth. Notable increases include the 42% rise in revenue for the South Korean company Hanwha Group, accompanied by a 38% increase for LIG Nex1 and a 45% increase for Rotem. Adding to this the significant growth in military revenue for Japanese companies Fujitsu (25%), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (87%), and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (36%), further highlights the region’s strong performance. The entry of Indonesian company Defend ID into the list is also noteworthy. In contrast, Chinese companies showed much more modest figures or even a decrease in revenue.
Israel’s military industry deserves special mention. The genocide in Gaza and the country’s massive militarization have led to Israel having three companies with revenues exceeding $5 billion, reaching $16.2 billion in revenue for these three companies alone in 2024. Finally, I would highlight the emergence of Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, which appeared at number 77 in the ranking, up from 106 the previous year, achieving a revenue of nearly $2 billion in the defense sector.
Western hegemony and the erosion of disarmament
When we look not so much at the number of companies, but at their revenue, we see that the share of US companies is greater, reaching 49% of the defense revenue of the top 100 military industries identified by SIPRI, based on 2024 data. But if we add the revenue percentage of US companies to that of European companies and their Asia-Pacific geopolitical allies, they approach 80% of defense revenue in 2024. In other words, Western countries within NATO maintain their hegemony in global arms production.
The strategy launched by NATO in 2014 to increase the percentage of GDP allocated to military spending to 2% has had an effect. And now, with the target of 5% set at its last meeting in The Hague —3.5% for hard military spending and 1.5% for soft military spending—not only is the military industry receiving a new boost, but the outlook is also shaping up to be much higher than the figures projected for 2024.
On the other hand, the increases in military spending are not only a short-to-medium-term perspective, given the analysis of permanent and growing threats incorporated in official discourses, such as the possibility of an attack by Russia on NATO members in the medium term , which, although not credible, in any case does not justify that military escalation is the best way to deal with a conflict of such dimensions.
Rather, it seems that behind this consolidation of increased military budgets and the long-term arms race lies not only a security strategy and response to threats and risks in Europe, but rather a policy in which, alongside elements of security and international relations, economic interests, a model of society and a political regime with militarizing logics emerge, in which the far-right ideologies that support them are favored.
In conclusion, we see that the expansion of the military industry is widespread globally, driven by a shift not only in rhetoric but also in economic and business practices. Most worryingly, this rhetoric, besides fueling an arms race, escalates tensions and hinders the management of the global security architecture, making it more difficult to reach the understanding necessary for establishing channels of dialogue and policies for disarmament and demilitarization.
In addition to the aforementioned rhetoric, there are political decisions, concrete events such as the incorporation of new countries into NATO, like Finland and Sweden, which had previously resisted it, the difficulty in maintaining disarmament treaties or agreements among the major military powers, the announcement of the development of new weapons with greater destructive capacity, and the elimination of the stigma surrounding some existing disarmament treaties, such as the one concerning cluster bombs, which has been called into question following their recent use in Ukraine.
The new revenue data from arms companies should serve as a warning that the inertia of the defense economy is not neutral, but tends to place business and production objectives ahead of political, peace and security objectives, consolidating a logic of permanent militarization that conditions political decisions.
READ MORE: https://rebelion.org/cuando-la-industria-de-armas-gana-el-desarme-pierde/
