Alliant Techsystems

Tim Wright

Each year, the nine nuclear-armed nations spend a combined total of more than US$100 billion on their nuclear forces – assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to deliver them. Much of this work is carried out by private corporations, which are financed by a vast web of financial institutions around the world.

While diplomats and lobbyists are preparing for the renewal of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and peace activists are preparing for a closure of European nuclear bases on april the 3th, the arms industry is making money of developing new nukes. These are the biggest profiteers making new NATO nukes:

For the US

Honeywell is one of the biggest global arms companies, although only 10% of its profits comes from arms. Honeywell produces equipment for simulated nuclear explosions. Such simulated explosion are essential to develop new nuclear weapons.

The verdict will be slow in coming. There are several things to be optimistic, shall we say, “hopeful,” about when it comes to confronting the corruption, fraud, waste, and deceit of war profiteers – and, not surprisingly, there are many reasons to doubt that we’ll see any real change after all. I am genuinely torn as to what to expect. If Obama follows through on his positive programs, life will be much more difficult for military contractors.

Police arrested eight adults and one juvenile on the 2 of July after they chained themselves together and blocked an entrance at Alliant Techsystems in Anoka, the action was done by a new group in the US against war profiteering called "Project to Stop the War Industry".

Twin Cities-based Alliant Techsystems, also known as ATK, is an aerospace and defence company with 50 facilities across the country, according to its Web site. The Anoka facility is at 900 Ehlen Drive.

From the 31 of March to the 4 of April in Santiago, Chile , there was an arms fair: FIDAE, is a fair that focuses on the aerospace defence

area. FIDAE also welcomes civilian exhibitors but essentially the fair has a military focus. This fair is one of the biggest and most important of its kind in Latin America and is a mayor event for the arms traders to make business in the region. This year's fair hosted

the 11th edition of the meeting of Logistic Commanders of the Air Forces of South America.

Tuesday, July 3 - Nine legal shareholders of Alliant Techsystems stock were denied entry to the annual shareholders meeting and arrested when they refused to leave. Images and report at: http://www.alliantaction.org

With this issue we celebrate the first year of the War Profiteers' News - an effort by War Resisters' International to provide resources for and about campaigns against war profiteering. We hope you find it a valuable resource.

One of the main sections of the newsletter is the “War Profiteer of the Month”. In this past year we have profiled:

a company providing services to the military - Sodexho;

ATK — Alliant Techsystems is a $3.1 billion advanced weapon and space systems company with approximately 14,000 employees and operations in 23 states. The company is the world's leading supplier of solid propulsion systems and the nation's largest manufacturer of ammunition.

Alliant Techsystems, Inc. supplies aerospace and defense products to the U.S. government, U.S.

On February 1st, a group of peace activists gathered in the undersized Hennepin County Courtroom in Edina, MN to once again face charges of "criminal trespass" for entering the property of Alliant Techsystems, a local war profiteer and notorious manufacturer and seller of indiscriminate and illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions, land mines, as well as rocket motors for delivery of nuclear bombs via missiles.

War and tensions imply a very profitable arms race for arms traders. Banks know this well, and are very keen to profit from it. The only problem is uncertainty, which the market doesn't like.