[ryukoposting]

Yeah, more or less. The US uses the DoD as its private-sector R&D funding firehose. They aren't writing Raytheon a $800B check and saying "make us some missiles." They might write a $4B check for some missiles, but that leaves $876B left over based on 2023's defense spending numbers.

Most of the money goes to stuff you wouldn't even think of as "military equipment." Stuff like medical devices, security, communications, networking, search-and-rescue, and so on. Morally neutral-to-good things that the military needs, but so does everyone else.

As a business, the difference between the DoD and the rest of the market is that the DoD is a single institution with the budget and willingness to bankroll your R&D. Sometimes it's the only feasible way to fund development of a genuine, morally good product.