2017 was a banner year for the arms industry

Half of Pentagon spending goes to contractors, the military budget is set to skyrocket, and the Trump administration is peddling arms all over the world

Arms companies have had a good year.

The top 100 learned in July that their annual revenues amounted to a healthy $364.8 billion, with American companies — as usual — dominating. While the military itself has suffered several calamities — the apparent murder of a Green Beret by two Navy SEALs in Mali in June, the deadly crash of the U S S. John McCain near Malaysia in August, the killing of four Special Forces troops in Niger in October, — the contractors have thrived.

The author of The Art