The Endless Gravy Train of Global Conflict
Another day, another massive check cut from the empty pockets of the American taxpayer to the bloated coffers of the merchants of death (yes, I am looking at you, Lockheed Martin) while the rest of the world wonders if we have collectively lost our minds. It is a scam. This recent announcement that the Pentagon is handing over $328.5 million—that is over ten billion in New Taiwan dollars if you are counting at home—to supply equipment for the Taiwan Air Force is just the latest chapter in a book of financial theft that never ends. They call it defense. I call it a subscription service for global instability that none of us actually signed up for but all of us are forced to pay for with our labor and our future. It is disgusting.
We are told this is about security and protecting a fledgling democracy from the big bad wolf across the strait, but let’s be real for a single second here. This is about keeping the assembly lines in Fort Worth and Bethesda humming with the sound of cold, hard cash (the kind of cash that never seems to be available when we talk about fixing a bridge or feeding a kid in the Appalachians). The military-industrial complex is a parasite that has successfully convinced the host that its blood-sucking is actually a vital medical procedure required for the survival of the republic despite all evidence to the contrary regarding the actual safety of the average citizen. It is a lie. We are buying sensor systems and ‘gear’ for a conflict that the very act of buying the gear helps to provoke. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence and profit that makes the shareholders of Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) sleep very soundly while the rest of us check the inflation rates on our groceries.
The 2025 Year-End Fire Sale
The Pentagon did not just stop with Lockheed though (because why have one monopoly when you can have a duopoly of destruction?) as they also threw some scraps to Boeing to close out the year. Boeing, the company that cannot seem to keep doors on its planes or astronauts on the space station without a rescue mission, is still somehow a ‘trusted’ partner in the business of global warfare. This is the ultimate ‘too big to fail’ racket. The Department of Defense closed out 2025 with a flurry of contracts that look more like a desperate attempt to burn through a budget before the auditors show up than a coherent strategy for peace. They awarded $328.5 million for Taiwan-focused sensor systems to Lockheed and then tossed Boeing (NYSE:BA) a cool $2.73 billion for various projects because why not? Money is fake. To the people in the pentagon, those zeros are just pixels on a screen. To you, they are hours of your life spent working for a government that prioritizes the ‘Air Force gear’ of a nation thousands of miles away over the basic functionality of your own neighborhood. It is maddening.
Think about the sheer scale of these numbers for a moment and try not to get a headache (I know, it is hard when you realize how much of your life is being liquidated for these toys). A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is about 31 years. We are talking about billions of dollars being tossed around like confetti at a parade for companies that have a vested interest in the world staying exactly as dangerous as it currently is. Peace is bad for the bottom line. If China and Taiwan actually sat down and worked things out, Lockheed’s stock would drop faster than a defective fuselage. They need the tension. They crave the ‘threat environment’ because that is the only way to justify the NT$10.3 billion price tags for equipment that will likely sit in a crate until it becomes obsolete and needs to be replaced by the next generation of overpriced sensors. It is a cycle.
The Sensor System Shell Game
What exactly are we buying for $328.5 million anyway? The reports are vague (by design, obviously) mentioning ‘sensor systems’ and ‘gear’ for the Taiwan Air Force. This is the language of the grift. If you went to a mechanic and he told you that you needed $300,000 worth of ‘car gear’ and ‘driving sensors’ without explaining what they did, you would call the cops. But when the Pentagon does it, we call it ‘geopolitical strategy.’ It is a joke. These sensors are supposedly for tracking and targeting, but in reality, they are just expensive paperweights in a game of nuclear chicken. The US is essentially using Taiwan as a showroom for Lockheed’s latest catalog. We are turning a vibrant island into a giant weapons depot and calling it ‘support.’ If we actually cared about the people there, we would be talking about diplomacy and trade, not how many millions of dollars we can extract from their defense budget to pad the year-end earnings of American defense contractors. It is exploitation.
And let’s talk about the timing of these contracts. Closing out 2025 with a bang! It is the bureaucratic equivalent of ‘use it or lose it.’ If the Pentagon does not spend every cent of its trillion-dollar budget, they might get less next year. Heavens forbid! So they rush to sign contracts for sensor systems and fighter jet parts to ensure the spigot of public money stays wide open. They are terrified of a balanced budget. They are terrified of a world where we do not need to spend more on war than the next ten countries combined. They have built a world where the only way to have an economy is to build things that blow up or help things blow up. It is a death cult. We are all members. We pay our dues every April 15th.
The Geopolitical Domino Effect
Does anyone actually believe this makes us safer? Every time we send another ‘gear’ package to Taiwan, Beijing gets another reason to ramp up their own production. It is an arms race where the only winners are the companies making the arms. The people of Taiwan are caught in the middle. The people of the United States are paying the bill. The people of China are being told the Americans are coming for them. It is perfect. For Lockheed Martin, this is the ideal market condition. They have successfully commodified the fear of World War III. They have turned the potential end of civilization into a quarterly growth metric. It is brilliant. It is also evil.
Where does it end though? If $328 million is the price for a few sensors, imagine the price when the actual shooting starts. We are being conditioned to accept these numbers as normal. We are being told that this is just the cost of doing business in a ‘complex world.’ But the world is only complex because we keep funding the complexity. If we stopped arming every corner of the globe, maybe things would simplify. Maybe we could afford to have a healthcare system that doesn’t bankrupt people for having the audacity to get cancer. But no, we need those sensors. We need that Taiwan Air Force gear. We need to make sure Boeing gets its $2.7 billion. Priorities. We have them.
The Corporate Capture of the Pentagon
The line between the Department of Defense and these corporations has completely dissolved. It is a revolving door. You work at the Pentagon, you approve a $328 million contract for Lockheed, and then two years later, you are sitting on the board of Lockheed Martin making seven figures. It is legal bribery. It is the reason why these contracts never get canceled and why the prices only ever go up. No one is looking out for the taxpayer. No one is looking out for the ‘national interest’ unless that interest is defined as the stock price of LMT and BA. It is a closed loop. We are on the outside looking in, wondering why our schools are crumbling while the Taiwan Air Force gets the latest and greatest in American sensor technology. It is a betrayal. It is the American way.
Don’t expect the media to call it out either. They are too busy pearl-clutching about the latest political theater to look at where the actual money is going. They will report on the ‘Taiwan military sale’ like it is a routine weather report. ‘Mostly cloudy with a chance of three hundred million dollars in military spending.’ They won’t ask why. They won’t ask who profits. They will just read the press release from the Department of Defense and move on to the next distraction. It is pathetic. We deserve better. We deserve a world where our wealth isn’t used to manufacture the instruments of our own destruction. But until we stop falling for the ‘defense’ lie, Lockheed Martin will keep cashing those checks. They are laughing at us. They are winning.
