[...] Major defense stocks have performed extraordinarily well in the twenty-first century, catapulting over the also vibrant S&P 500.54 And minor defense companies have had good luck being acquired by those big ones. “It’s just, sadly, a good business to be in right now, given the state of affairs in the world,” defense analyst Roman Schweizer told Defense News about the American rocket weapons industry at the end of 2023. “We don’t have enough weapons,” added Chris Brose, chief strategy officer for the defense startup Anduril, which began as a border-surveillance automation company. “That pie needs to grow, and we want to help win a share of the growing pie.”56 The market knows, on some level, that these rockets only exist to destroy people and property, but Lockheed Martin investors don’t have to factor in those costs. As far as capital is concerned, the best thing a substantial number of the world’s people can do for accumulation is get hit with an expensive American missile. It’s worth noting that the US Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional fossil fuel user: The military and its associated industrial complex have an annual carbon bootprint the same size as the forty-five least-emitting nations combined.