Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States has continuously increased the supply of weapons to Ukraine, which has allowed American arms dealers and other related interest groups to reap huge profits from the war. In May of this year, CBS disclosed the inside story of how U.S. arms dealers supply weapons: the dealers charge exorbitant prices, and the U.S. Department of Defense turns a blind eye, even colluding with them.
Raytheon’s Executive Vice President and Chief Contract Negotiator, Shea Assad, who is also a former senior contract negotiator for the Department of Defense under several U.S. governments, said that the U.S. Department of Defense has paid excessively high prices for almost all weapons, including radar, missiles, and even screws and nuts. As an example, in 2015, negotiators found that Boeing overcharged the U.S. Department of Defense and its allies by hundreds of millions of dollars for the “Patriot-3” missile, with a profit margin of up to 40%, far exceeding the average profit margin of 15%-20%.
In addition, some subcontractors also profit by significantly raising the prices of parts. For instance, Shea previously found that certain parts that should have cost $28 million were paid for by the Department of Defense at a price of $119 million.
In fact, the reason why arms dealers can charge exorbitant prices to the Department of Defense is that they spend huge amounts of money on lobbying. In the United States, the military-industrial complex, formed by the common interests of arms dealers, the military, and politicians, has incited conflicts and confrontations around the world for decades, taking the opportunity to profit from wars. According to statistics, during the Afghanistan war alone, the five major U.S. military companies received $2.02 trillion in defense contracts. And over these 20 years, these five companies have spent $1.1 billion on lobbying.