It's a great time to be alive ...

An early weapons market (artist's rendering)

Forever wars, you know, the kind lining the pockets of the death merchants never disappoints. It matters not what war just so long as we have one, right?

To whit ...

IT'S A GREAT TIME TO BE ALIVE if you're in the business of manufacturing and selling things that kill people at scale. The latest State Department statistics on the state of the domestic arms industry—and the U.S. is the world leader, as you'd expect from a reigning-if-embattled global hegemon—are eye-popping. So much so that a leading arms-industry analyst wonders if they represent "a new normal," beyond the war in Ukraine.

According to the latest roughly-annual tally of U.S. arms sales, released by the State Department last week, the U.S. defense industry registered $205.6 billion in arms sales during fiscal year 2022. That number encompasses both the $51.9 billion in hardware the U.S. government sells directly to foreign governments (known as Foreign Military Sales) and the far larger $153.7 billion those governments buy from export-designated U.S. arms manufacturers (Direct Commercial Sales).

Yes indeed, it's a great time to be alive ...