The Silence After the Shutdown

The Great Splitting Reshaping Labor, Capital, and Value of Human Work

The Budget Is a Lie

There’s a circuit board inside a Russian drone.

It’s not so different from the one in your phone or your laptop. In fact, if you could hold it, you’d likely see the logos of companies from California, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea.

This isn’t a theory. It’s a fact, pulled from the wreckage in Ukraine.

In a single attack in October 2025, over 102,000 Western-made components were found powering Russian missiles and drones.

We are not just observers of this war. Through the devices we use and the economy we participate in, we are, uncomfortably and often unknowingly, entangled in it.

The Global Assembly Line of War

The breakdown is as surreal as it is terrifying:

• Attack Drones: 100,688 foreign parts.

• Cruise Missiles: 405 foreign elements.

• Hypersonic Missiles: 192 imported components.

The sourcing reads like a United Nations of war: U.S. sensors, British flight computers, German connectors, Swiss microcontrollers. Even geopolitical rivals like China and Taiwan collaborate on the circuit boards of Shahed drones.

This isn’t a sanctions failure. It’s the signature of a global economic system that has perfected a simple, brutal equation: War is more profitable than peace.

The $2.7 Trillion Addiction

In 2024, the world spent a record $2.72 trillion on its military. This isn’t an unfortunate necessity; it’s a thriving industry.

While millions march for peace, the balance sheets of defense contractors surge with every conflict. Lockheed Martin, RTX, and a handful of others captured $771 billion in Pentagon contracts in just five years. Russian arms firms saw revenues jump 40% because of the war in Ukraine.

The war machine isn’t a ghost in the machine. It is the machine.

The Invisible Hand in Your Community

You might think this is a problem "out there." But the machinery of war is woven into the fabric of our own towns.

• In Vermont, the heart of Bernie Sanders' progressive America, the F-35 jet program supports 1,600 jobs.

• In Woodstock, New York—the symbol of peace and love—the largest employer makes components for F-16 fighters.

This is no accident. Defense spending is deliberately spread across congressional districts to make it politically untouchable. It supports jobs, funds schools, and builds communities. We have built a comfortable life, in part, on the backbone of global conflict.

Are You Invested in War?

Perhaps the most unsettling question is the most personal: Is your money funding this?

If you have a pension or a 401(k), there’s a very good chance you own stock in defense companies. These stocks reliably go up when the world becomes more dangerous. This creates a perverse, silent incentive: our retirement savings grow best when the world is on the brink.

How can we demand peace when our financial security is bet on war?

The Impossible Choice: Your Phone or Their Missile?

The core of the problem is that the line between our daily tech and their weapons has vanished. This is the "dual-use dilemma."

• The same GPS that guides your favorite ride-sharing apps guides a missile.

• The same AI that diagnoses disease powers autonomous drones.

• The same semiconductor in your smartphone is in a battlefield radar.

We can’t shut down one without crippling the other. We are trapped in a system where innovation for life is inherently innovation for death.

A Path Off the Battlefield

So, what do we do? The solution isn’t just better sanctions—it’s rebuilding the economic incentives themselves.

It means:

• Diversifying our towns so a community’s survival doesn’t depend on building bombers.

• Creating "conflict-free" investment options so our savings aren’t tied to global instability.

• Redirecting our best minds from military applications to solving humanity’s greatest threats: climate change, disease, poverty.

The Ukrainian battlefield data is a stark mirror. It shows us that we have built a world where peace is bad for business.

The circuit board in the bomb is our circuit board. The choice is now ours: do we accept an economy that runs on conflict, or do we begin the difficult work of making peace the most profitable choice for all?