Asif Mahmood

Why does the United States fight wars? Is there always a clearly defined objective behind them, or has war itself become the objective?

Consider this. In the very first month of the US Iran conflict, the world’s 100 largest oil and gas companies reportedly earned staggering profits. According to a report published in The Guardian, these corporations made as much as 30 million dollars per hour during that period. Yes, per hour. Meanwhile, in the United States, discussions around insider trading linked to wartime developments are no longer whispered. They are increasingly out in the open.

Now take the cost of war itself. Since the onset of this conflict, the United States has been spending close to two billion dollars a day. Data submitted by the Pentagon to Congress, as cited by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, shows that by the sixth day alone, more than 11 billion dollars had already been spent. To put this into perspective, countries like Pakistan struggle to maintain even three billion dollars in reserves, while Washington expends nearly that amount every couple of days on war.

The French statesman Georges Clemenceau once remarked that war is too serious a matter to be left to generals alone. Today, one must ask whether wars have slipped even further from public accountability and into the hands of powerful corporations. Wars are fought, thousands perish, entire regions are destabilized, yet defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin continue to thrive.

A glance at Lockheed Martin’s own official communications is revealing. Even as the United States withdrew from Afghanistan and the so called war on terror receded from headlines, Pentagon spending and contractor revenues remained at what the company described as an “extremely high level.” In just four years, private firms received contracts worth 2.4 trillion dollars from the Pentagon. That translates to roughly 600 billion dollars annually. A figure so vast that it rivals, or even exceeds, the combined budgets of large parts of the world.

This raises a troubling question. Have wars evolved into a business model? Do the powers that wage wars pursue strategic goals, or has the continuation of war itself become the goal, ensuring that the machinery of profit never stops?

History offers little comfort. What did the United States ultimately gain from Vietnam? What was achieved in Iraq after years of conflict built on questionable premises? And after two decades of war in Afghanistan, the same Taliban were handed back control as American forces withdrew. What, then, was the endgame? Was there ever one, or was the process itself the purpose?

It is time for the international community, and indeed the human conscience, to confront this reality. If global peace is truly the aim, then the war driven economic system must be subjected to ethical constraints. Without such accountability, wars will not cease. They will persist, not as tragic necessities, but as profitable enterprises.