Who Profits From Trump’s War with Iran?

As Iran burns, defense stocks surge.

Pexels | Photo by RDNE Stock project

Given the gravity of current events, this week’s science piece will be postponed until next week. Today’s essay is free for all readers because it’s a conversation worth having. I started this piece months ago as a companion piece to Why Nations Go to War, never predicting how relevant this data would become.

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“More than once,” Marine General Smedley Butler wrote, “I asked myself, ‘How did I get mixed up in this business of selling death?’”

In the 1930s, he wandered the country like a guilt-ridden ghost, warning Americans that war wasn’t noble — it was a racket. A rigged game. A business designed to enrich armament bosses, not protect the soldier in the trench.

Last night, as Trump’s air strikes lit up Iran, Butler’s voice came roaring back from the dead.

The headlines are predictable: “Precision strikes,” “Escalation fears,” “Strong American response.” So are the benefactors: Lockheed. Raytheon. General Dynamics. The usual suspects are lining up at the trough.

But that’s just the surface.

The real winners don’t wear fatigues or hard hats. They don’t build the bombs. They build the tools to predict where they’ll fall, and how to profit from the chaos that follows. They trade in data.

They don’t show up on casualty reports, but they are always there when the smoke clears.

Fear is the Fuel

While most Americans were glued to split-screens of smoke plumes in Iran and Pentagon pressers, Wall Street’s war-betting class was already cashing in. Last night, defense stocks — RTX, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics — soared after the attack on Iran. The men in suits make money not by dodging shrapnel, but by clicking “buy” fast enough when the first bomb drops.

Then there’s oil. Let’s just say we now know why Trump recently secured a $142B arms deal with the Saudis — the largest defense sales agreement in history. Now, investors are predicting a spike in oil prices.

Oxford Economics, never ones to let a good panic go to waste, ran the numbers on a worst-case scenario — think Strait of Hormuz blockade, exploding pipelines, general oil-related mayhem. They concluded Brent crude could leap to $130 a barrel, dragging U.S. inflation up toward 6%. Ouch. Get your Jimmy Carter sweaters ready.

Next up is Palantir —the nerds-turned-oracle selling predictive surveillance tech to jittery governments. Every global conflict is a marketing campaign for software that claims it can stop the next attack by analyzing your uncle’s grocery list and a goat’s GPS collar in Kandahar.

In normal times, Palantir’s predictive policing and surveillance contracts would raise ethical questions. But in wartime? Nobody’s asking about ethics. They’re too busy signing contracts. War means government panic. And panic means procurement — data streams, battlefield mapping, pre-crime dashboards, etc. It’s all bundled under “defense innovation,” with a markup big enough to fund a second yacht.

Sure, some might argue that Palantir’s tools help prevent attacks and protect lives. However, prevention doesn’t justify profiteering, especially when results lack transparency and lead to a police state.

Let’s be clear. Palantir doesn’t just help others survive war. It feeds on it. And they are not even coy about it. There’s a reason why their co-founder, Alex Karp, has repeatedly proclaimed, “Bad times are very good for Palantir.”

How demure.

Somewhere, a hedge fund manager is whispering to his assistant, “God bless volatility.” The more chaotic the world gets, the more essential Palantir becomes. And in the TACO 2.0 era of improvised foreign policy, that chaos isn’t a bug. It’s the business model.

Private Guns, Public Funds— The War’s Invisible Middlemen.

These are the folks who don’t win medals. They win no-bid contracts. And they never run out of reasons to keep the war going, just one more fiscal quarter.

History has receipts. Take DynCorp — one of the biggest players in the post-9/11 contracting boom. DynCorp was hired to train Iraq’s police under the State Department’s CIVPOL program. Instead, they turned a mission of rebuilding into a profit spree. In April 2025, DynCorp agreed to pay $21 million to the Justice Department after admitting they “knowingly submitted inflated subcontractor charges” — padding costs on lodging, translators, and drivers.

They didn’t storm the beach at Normandy. They stormed the budget.

And they’re not alone. Between 2003 and 2007, the U.S. government spent $85 billion on battlefield contracts. (That’s more than eight times the EPA’s entire annual budget.) Of that, a staggering $17 billion — or 20% — went to private “peacekeepers.” These were contractors armed not just with rifles, but with spreadsheets, markup fees, and immunity.

Then there’s Blackwater — ex-military, now-for-profit soldiers who never retire — they just switch paychecks. Blackwater. DynCorp. Triple Canopy. They change names like mob fronts, but the mission stays the same: privatize the dirty work, bill the taxpayer, and avoid congressional hearings like landmines.

The numbers are staggering. During the Iraq War, from 2004 to 2008, Blackwater landed over $320 million in defense contracts. A 2007 audit revealed they were charging $1,222 a day per contractor, or roughly $445,000 a year per hired gun. That’s not war. That’s mistaking Baghdad for the Ritz.

These guys move like a shadow army. They aren’t bound by the rules of engagement or human decency. But they do follow one rule religiously: never miss a performance bonus. A 2007 Committee on Oversight found that Blackwater had the highest firing rate in escalation of force incidents — firing first in 85% of its incidents.

If diplomacy is war by other means, Blackwater did customer service by gunfire.

Halliburton’s All-You-Can-Bill Buffet

Still not convinced? Let’s talk about the war machine’s crown prince: Halliburton, and its loyal cash vacuum, KBR. While Dick Cheney swore he “severed ties,” Halliburton’s stock tripled during the Iraq invasion — fueled by $4.3 billion in contracts for everything from tents to fuel to fried chicken. Their unofficial motto? You kill, we cater.

But the banquet didn’t end there. In 2012, the Defense Contract Audit Agency flagged massive billing issues involving food service payments. KBR reported that it had billed the government over $33 million, when it should have billed roughly $23 million. The auditors refused reimbursement and demanded KBR repay $11.2 million plus interest, citing unjustified staffing and inflated subcontractor billing.

This might be why DOGE refused to investigate “waste, fraud, and abuse” in our military.

And with Trump’s new war in Iran, the model is already humming. The minute the first missile launched, contractors dusted off proposals, extended deployment timelines, and started drafting their pitch decks for “stabilization logistics.” This is what they’ve trained for — not combat, but continuity.

These aren’t soldiers. They’re salesmen. And war is the hottest product on the market.

Congressional Combat Investors

There’s a special place in hell for those who always seem to find the moral clarity to bomb another country right after a quarterly dip in the defense sector. You know the type — squinting earnestly in front of flags, talking about “resolve,” “freedom,” and “protecting American interests,” while quietly collecting checks from the very companies that build the weapons they’re voting to use.

The war for profit machine never slows. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the Center for Public Integrity (2003) reported that over 70 defense-related companies — many recent contractors — donated more than $500,000 to the Bush–Cheney campaign. A 2022 report found more of the same. Firms contributing to political campaigns received 40% more in defense contracts than non-contributing firms. In 2002, Raytheon alone spent $6.8 million on lobbying, then promptly saw its stock rise by 30% in the weeks after the bombing began.

Today, it’s even more efficient. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — Republicans and Democrats alike — routinely hold stock in defense companies while sitting on the very panels that approve their budgets. In 2022, a New York Times investigation found that 97 members of Congress bought or sold stock, bonds, or other financial assets that conflicted with the legislation they were overseeing. Of the 50 most market-happy lawmakers, 44 were buying and selling stocks in companies their own committees were supposed to be regulating. Imagine if referees placed bets on the game and then wrote the rulebook after kickoff. Welcome to American democracy, portfolio edition.

And let’s not forget the pageantry. These are the same lawmakers who show up for military parades, shake hands with soldiers for the cameras, and drop phrases like “peace through strength” without ever mentioning that Palantir, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin all donated to their last campaign.

They don’t get blood on their hands. They get endorsements.

The corruption isn’t even controversial. It’s just good business. Because the folks who benefit from war are not war hawks. They’re war pigeons — flocking to any sign of smoke and leaving richer than they arrived.

If it Bleeds, it Leads…to war.

And then there’s the media. The media doesn’t start wars. But it shapes the story arc. The framing. The urgency. The acceptable range of opinions. The drumbeat. No, they’re not dropping bombs. They’re not bidding on war contracts. But they are deciding what kind of war you see, and which questions you never think to ask.

Case in point: In the run-up to the Iraq War, major networks gave over 71% of airtime to current or former government and military officials. Of those, nearly all were in favor of the invasion. In contrast, only 3% of guests were skeptical or critical of the war.

Only 3%. Too bad peace isn’t profitable.

Of course, some may argue that networks are merely covering public interest stories. But when 71% of airtime favors the war and only 3% questions it, that’s not coverage. That’s orchestration.

Cable news learned early that war drives ratings. A study from the Pew Research Center found that network viewership surged during the initial Iraq invasion, and ad revenue followed. CNN reported that the initial invasion led to strong ratings, aiding parent WarnerMedia’s advertising income.

Even today, “serious” war coverage comes with cinematic graphics, countdown clocks, and panelists with retired military titles and lucrative defense consulting gigs. And if a journalist questions the war itself, they’re labeled unserious. If they question the money trail, they’re told to respect the troops. (Please don’t.)

And just like that, the most vital question — “Who profits from this war?” never gets asked.

And if that kind of venality makes you uneasy, it should. Because this war, like the last one, and the one before it, requires your permission. It runs on your silence. Your click. Your vote. Your shrug. You don’t have to profit from it to be part of it.

You just have to keep watching.

The Devil Doesn’t Knock — He’s Already Inside

In every war, someone always claims it’s for peace. For freedom. For safety. But behind every euphemism is a spreadsheet. Behind every missile, a margin.

Follow the chain of events:

• Trump sows chaos.

• Wall Street bets on fear.

• Contractors build the invoice before the bomb.

• Politicians wave the flag with one hand and collect checks with the other.

• And the media edits the footage to fit neatly between ads for luxury SUVs and Dear Leader’s prescribed narrative.

And the rest of us? We’re the audience. We clap, or we cry, or we change the channel. We tighten our belts, pray for fuel prices to drop, and find convenient scapegoats.

Simone Weil once wrote that “violence obliterates.” It doesn’t just kill — it erases truth, thought, meaning. It hollows out the soul. But there’s a special kind of violence in watching men build fortunes from that obliteration.

So don’t just follow the money. Follow the contracts. Follow the lobbyists. Follow the ticker symbols that spike when a country falls. Because every war has its casualties, and every casualty has a cost.

In the end, there are no victors. Only vendors.

Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.