[supercon]

According to Wikipedia[1], the biggest U.S. arms companies employ ~700.000 people, so I don't think you need to be a conspiracy theorist when you deduct from this that, if world peace were to settle to the globe it would mean less jobs for the people, less tax income for the government and less profit for the industry. Although most of the sales for these companies come from the U.S. government, according to TIME the export business isn't exactly pocket-change either[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry [2] http://time.com/4161613/us-arms-sales-exports-weapons/

[dingaling]

> the biggest U.S. arms companies employ ~700.000 people

Which is about one-half of Walmart's employee base, but the USA doesn't base its foreign policy on the whims of the Walton family.

What's more persuasive about the military-industrial-government complex is that most of its leaders emerged from the same universities and think-tanks. Essentially they share the same viewpoints and philosophies and can pull the appropriate levers in the domains that the control and they freely move from one domain to another.

[supercon]

> Which is about one-half of Walmart's employee base,

This doesn't take away the fact that there is interest in having these companies operating in the future.

> but the USA doesn't base its foreign policy on the whims of the Walton family.

If by "the USA" you mean the government, yes you are right, because it doesn't have to. Companies as big as Walmart, Lockheed Martin, McDonald's are fully capable of influencing the 'outside world' by their own means.