Just War. Just Peace. Just Profit.

The ultimate cost of war is always carried by a country's citizens. Accordingly, war should never be considered a lucrative prospect, let alone a profitable venture, for arms manufacturers or defense contractors. Simply stated, all military spending should be limited to non-profit ventures on short leashes.

This may sound, at best, a kneejerk and naïve position. Stay with me. I reach this conclusion, again and most recently, after considering two perspectives. One is a current article in The Economist; the other is the just peacekeeping theory. Let’s briefly review both.

Image Credit: VisualCapitalist

Just Profiting From War

The article, Guns and gruel: War is not always good for armsmakers’ stocks, ran in the March 7, 2026 print edition of The Economist. For those with access to the full article, I encourage you to read it. The following short excerpt is sufficient to shed light on our collective need to remove the profit motive from military spending:

“Financial markets are never more ghoulish than in times of bloodshed. As soon as a missile is fired somewhere in the world, they start gauging not just losses but potential opportunities for profit. Even for believers in the efficiency of capitalism, the process is icky to behold. It is again on display amid the American-Israeli war against Iran.

The obvious winners (beside energy firms benefiting from surging oil and gas prices) are armsmakers. On March 2nd, American defense stocks rose by 3%. In Europe, firms like BAE Systems and Hensoldt bucked a broader equity selloff. Across the rich world, weaponsmakers stocks are up by 52% over the past 12 months. Some have done much better. Hanwha Aerospace of South Korea and Kraken Robotics, a Canadian maker of sonar, have increased their market value more than tenfold since the start of 2024. In venture capital, defense seems as hot as artificial intelligence.

With armed conflicts spreading, investors’ enthusiasm for arms suppliers is understandable. Yet it comes with risks. The stocks are at their priciest in modern history. Western defence firms’ shares trade at about 35 times their forecast earnings, not far off Nvidia, whose sales of the AI boom’s favored chips are growing by 75% a year. These multiples make sense only if the drum beat of war persists – but is not so loud that governments crimp the firms’ ability to generate profits.

. . .

Between the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, the one raging in the skies over the Middle East, and another that could erupt if China decides to invade Taiwan, armsmakers are enjoying the limelight more than at any time in decades. They are some of the biggest corporate winners in a more dangerous, unstable world. But their continued success is contingent on a Goldilocks scenario of just enough conflict but not too much. Otherwise, their investors may find returns to be thin gruel [after governments heavily tax or claw back defense profits generated from public spending][emphasis added].”

As reflected in this cursory article, a disheartening capitalist ethic toward war would be to keep the conflict going long enough to generate profits but not enough to earn the ire of the government, which finally recognizes that too much of its public spending is on guns. This view doesn’t have to be the capitalist ethic toward war, or even an option.

Image Credit: David Gushee

My seminary ethics professor was Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee. He’s a helluva smart guy who teaches his students the just war theory together with the just peacekeeping theory. Here, I want to briefly remind the reader of the just war theory and then summarize the just peacekeeping theory in support of a different capitalist ethic toward war. The most efficient way I can do this is to draw substantially from the beginning of the 22nd chapter of Gushee’s book, Introducing Christian Ethics (his 25th or 26th book; again, “helluva smart guy”).

Just War Theory

A “[just war] approach begins with the claim that war is a grave evil, a deep tragic reflection of human sinfulness, with predictably grave costs in lives and treasure. The proper stance toward such a reality is to begin with a presumption against it. The burden of proof rests with anyone who would justify war.

Those who would advocate a war must meet every one of a lengthy set of criteria to make entry into war morally justifiable. These jus ad bellum criteria include the following: just cause, last resort, just authority, just intention, probability of success, proportionality of benefit in relation to cost, and in some lists, clear warning. These sum up in this way: Only the legitimate sovereign may make war, only as a last resort and with a just cause, only with the intention of restoring a just peace, only if there is a legitimate chance of winning, only if the costs in blood and treasure are not too great, and only if the adversary has been warned that war is imminent unless they change their course of action. This sets a high bar against war; most wars in history would not qualify. This is fitting in light of war’s dangers and damages” (Front Edge Publishing, 2022, pp. 280-1).

Glen Stassen Image Credit: NYTimes

Just Peacekeeping Theory

Professor Gushee was a student of professor Rev. Dr. Glen Stassen, who pioneered the just peacekeeping theory. Again, I draw substantially from Gushee’s same book and chapter.

“The core biblical insight of just peacemaking theory is that Jesus did not merely ban violence, he commanded peacekeeping. Nonviolence is a negative–we do not kill. Peacemaking is a positive–we make peace. Nonviolence can be practiced by doing nothing, while peacemaking requires active efforts to bridge gaps, bring reconciliation, transform conflict. Just peacemaking can be viewed as fulfilling the “last resort” criterion of just war theory. It can also be viewed as transcending just war theory’s own tendency to focus on when it is legitimate to make war with the better question of how to make peace” (p.283).

Over time, Stassen standardized a list of ten peacekeeping practices. Each of these deserves intensive real-world consideration, but here I refer only to three that most plainly reframe war’s profit motive:

6. Foster just and sustainable development so that hungry people have hope that their economic needs will be met without revolution;

7. Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system such as global trade flows that knit nations and people together and make war destructive for all; …

9. Reduce the trade in offensive weapons, the spread of which makes the quick resort to massive violence, even in the poorest lands, and the fear of being pummeled by the other side, such a dangerous factor in intergroup conflicts (pp. 283-4).

Just Profiting from Peacemaking

I opened this post with the stick approach and conclusion that all military spending should be legally limited to non-profit ventures. Stick approaches frequently work. There’s also the carrot approach of making a compelling argument to thoughtful capitalists and governments.

That carrot approach could start with reminding the capitalist of some market fundamentals: capital seeks return, stability, and growth. Regarding war fundamentals: war destroys infrastructure, erases markets, displaces workers, interrupts supply chains, and leaves nations buried in debt. Even when a few industries profit temporarily, the broader economy pays the bill. Capital that flows into war is capital diverted from innovation, productivity, and human flourishing.

Turning the capitalist to some peacemaking fundamentals: peace creates growth environments, builds markets instead of destroying them, expands trade instead of collapsing it, attracts entrepreneurs, unlocks long-term investment, and allows societies to compound wealth across generations. For a capitalist the question becomes simple: Where does capital grow more reliably—battlefields or marketplaces?

Peacemaking, as Stassen notes, is not naïve idealism. It’s sound investment strategy. Investing in diplomacy, conflict prevention, reconstruction, international cooperation, and economic development produces the conditions under which markets thrive. I think of peacemaking as being the spiritual infrastructure that makes capitalism possible.

I trust that in considering the perspectives of The Economist and Glen Stassen together, you agree that the profit motive should be removed from war spending. Whether by stick or carrot or both, doing so is in capitalism’s and humanity’s collective best interest.

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