The One Graph That Sums Up Why We’re Going to War With Syria

by Chris Miles
policymic
August 30, 2013

If ever there was a sign of the military industrial complex in America, this graph is it.

Reports that the United States is very near to launching an attack against Syria to punish Damascus for the use of chemical weapons sent Raytheon’s stock price to a 52-week high this week.

Who is Raytheon? The manufacturer of the BGM-109, more commonly known as the Tomahawk missile, the weapon of choice of the Obama administration in any strike against Syria.

Raytheon stock has surged over the past two months, coinciding with the biggest U.S. military build-up America has mounted since it launched an assault against Libya in 2011.

Raytheon is a Cambridge, Mass.,-based American defense contractor with total employment of 72,400 people. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of guided missiles and produces such widely used weapons as the AIM-7 Sparrow missile, the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and the BGM-109 Tomahawk. The company is also responsible for the Air Warfare Simulation program used by the Air Force. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2010, the company had nearly $23 billion in arms sales, more than 90% of its total revenue for the year.

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[hat tip: What Really Happened]