As of March 19, 2026, this conflict is still moving fast. Reuters and other current reporting make it clear that Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran have widened this into a regional war, while fighting in Lebanon has displaced hundreds of thousands and killed hundreds in just the past few weeks.
Over the last 20 years, the pattern is hard to ignore. The people living in these places are the ones who absorb everything—the deaths, the displacement, the destroyed infrastructure, and the long-term economic collapse. Meanwhile, arms manufacturers and security contractors keep seeing their profits go up every time things escalate. What keeps showing up in the record isn’t so much outright ownership of resources, but control—military access, blockade power, and the ability to decide whether people can reach their own land, water, gas, trade routes, and markets.
And now we’re hearing phrases like “our partner Venezuela” coming out of the Trump administration. That kind of language needs to be called out. In January 2026, U.S. forces carried out a large-scale military operation inside Venezuela, captured its sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, and removed him from the country. Critics—including international law experts—have described that as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. Maduro himself called it a kidnapping.
So when officials now turn around and describe Venezuela as a “partner,” it raises an obvious question: partner under what conditions? Because what followed that operation doesn’t look like a neutral relationship. It looks like something shaped by force, pressure, and a government expected to fall in line with U.S. demands.
Major U.S.-led wars in the same 20-year window
According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan have caused more than 940,000 direct deaths, including over 432,000 civilians, and displaced around 38 million people. Brown also estimates U.S. spending and obligations at over $2.89 trillion for Iraq and Syria and more than $2 trillion for Afghanistan, with total post-9/11 war costs around $8 trillion before even factoring in future interest and long-term veteran care.
Iraq Body Count puts documented civilian deaths from violence since the 2003 invasion between 187,499 and 211,046. In Yemen, the UNDP estimated the war would lead to 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021, most of them indirect, and cost the country about $126 billion in lost economic growth.
Civilian impact, in plain language
Across all of these conflicts, the civilian pattern is the same. Large-scale killing. Mass displacement. Homes, schools, hospitals, roads, power systems, water systems, and even media offices destroyed. And then what follows is years—sometimes decades—of economic collapse.
In Gaza, World Bank and OCHA reporting describe extreme unemployment, widespread destruction, and only a fraction of hospitals still functioning. In Lebanon, the 2024 war pushed an already fragile economy even deeper into crisis. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, the damage didn’t just end with the fighting—it turned into long-term hunger, rebuilding struggles, and institutions that never fully recovered.
Who actually made money from these wars
The clearest financial winners here are not the people living in these war zones—it’s arms manufacturers and military contractors.
SIPRI reports that Israel’s top three arms companies hit record revenues in 2023, driven by demand tied to the Gaza war. In 2024, Elbit Systems alone reached $6.3 billion in arms revenue and secured more than $5 billion in new Israeli defense contracts after the Gaza campaign began.
Globally, SIPRI’s 2025 summary lists the biggest arms companies by revenue as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics. Lockheed reported $71 billion in 2024 sales and $75 billion in 2025. RTX reported $80.8 billion in 2024.
On the government side, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced possible sales to Israel in 2025–2026 that include $6.75 billion in munitions packages, $660 million in Hellfire missiles, $510 million in guidance kits, and $3.8 billion in Apache helicopters.
Resources and control—what this really looks like
Israel: Again, over the last 20 years, the pattern is hard to ignore. The people on the ground absorb the damage, while control over resources becomes the real issue.
This isn’t just rhetoric—it’s been documented by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). UNCTAD has reported that Palestinians have effectively been denied access to their own oil and natural gas resources in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the Gaza Marine gas field and the Meged oil and gas area in the West Bank.
Their findings go further: these restrictions contribute directly to chronic economic deficits and long-term suppression of Palestinian growth.
In other words, it doesn’t matter what resources exist on paper if people aren’t allowed to access them. That’s the pattern—not always ownership, but control over who gets to use what, and whether an entire population is allowed to build a functioning economy at all.
United States: The strongest documented case for the U.S. isn’t ownership of local resources—it’s control through military presence and access.
The U.S. Fifth Fleet operates across the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean, and key chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal. That’s not ownership—it’s strategic control over global shipping routes and access.
And again, the same pattern shows up. The societies caught in these conflicts absorb the deaths, displacement, destroyed infrastructure, and economic loss, while defense contractors see increased revenues during escalation.
So the most consistent outcome isn’t ownership of resources—it’s control. Military presence. Restricted access. And the power to decide who gets to use land, water, energy, trade routes, and markets—and who doesn’t.
