The entire military industrial complex is predicated on murder for profit. Remember this every time someone tries to sell you the lie that we need to airstrike Iran because they shot down a drone.

Guess who's really winning there? Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics and their shareholders. Certainly not the Iranian or American people at large.

War is a Racket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Thanks for sharing this by the way. I actually checked out a published book of his (and associated) essay from my local library and read it just yesterday.

His perspective against for-profit wars, yet lean towards defensive military spending (not to be conflated with modern offensive military spending) was nuanced and very insightful.

There certainly is a legitimate self defense need for weapons technology. Realistically you cant do without. But things get murky when we start selling weapons to questionable allies.

Is a rare event for the UK to be fighting anyone who isn't using the guns we had sold them first.

Defense need, sure. But remember that warmongering and imperialism are fed by the war machine.