Industrial capitalists created the modern weapons industry, and have, with few exceptions, controlled it all along--including in communist countries. Sure the reds controlled some weapons production here and there rather than the capitalists. But in industry terms, and in the sheer numbers of weapons in which our world is awash, the overwhelming majority of them are, and always have been, controlled by industrial capitalists.

Try visiting here, to begin to explore "economic conversion" of war based economics to the economics of human and environmental needs:

http://prop1.org/prop1/prop1.htm

In the global weapons industry, a slowdown in buying has left companies with an excessive manufacturing capacity and management structure. By merging, they can eliminate some of the overhead and combine the income of the two companies. The American defense industry has seen a dramatic consolidation from dozens of military contractors down to just a few primary ones.

The problem with giant transnational companies is that they usurp power from communities and democratically-elected governments, replacing a process by which policy can be made by community input, with policy made by corporate executives.

DougR and Lonesome EJ--ever hear of Halliburton? None of the war on terrorism is about honor and patriotism, or keeping the world safe. It is about money. Follow the money, and money mongers and they will lead straight to the defense department, the White House and the military industrial war mongerers.

From the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institiute:

"Last but not least, the fall of communism in East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union ushered in a period of "free market fundamentalism" in which free trade and deregulation of financial markets were the unquestioned order of the day...(T)he triumph of free market approaches to global trade and finance have had serious unintended consequences in facilitating self-perpetuating economies of war and plunder, particularly in the most impoverished regions of the global south."

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/bh1000.htm