All the Local Weapons Manufacturers (That We Know Of)
More than 10,000 bombs are made here, actually.
While none of us working on this newsletter believe in the geopolitical borders that divide us from our neighbors, many of us are rather fond of living here. Some of us have lived here our whole lives and hope never to leave. We do find a certain dissonance in what we love about this place versus what the rest of the world thinks of when they think “Minnesota.” But our home is known for some good things, too. Festivals on frozen lakes, for instance. George Floyd Square, and a strong network of mutual aid groups. The movement to Stop Line 3. A thriving puppetry community. The WNBA Lynx. A men’s basketball team, too, presumably.
But we propose now an alternate signifier of our state: the military contractor. Because the more we’ve looked into the “state” of the military-industrial complex (MIC) here, the more we’ve realized just how saturated this place is with war profiteers: companies who benefit financially from, and are therefore invested in, perpetual warfare, whether or not they deal directly in weapons.
Here is what we know about these military contractors, which are neither abstract nor far away but very real, and very close. Note: All of this is public information, collected through research done using free and accessible websites. For the sake of keeping this post to a reasonable length, we are focusing mostly on these companies’ complicity in Israel’s genocide on Gaza. These weapons creators have also contributed to murder and terror all around the world, including in the U.S. In future posts, we will work to uplift the experiences of more of our siblings around the world (including here) who are also experiencing the brutality of imperialism.
(A map of military contractors in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area, which we found on @stopweaponsmn.)
As far as we can tell, there are eight major* military contractors with headquarters or significant operations in Minnesota:
*Companies with at least $4.63 billion in yearly revenue from defense contracts, with the exceptions of Chandler Industries and 3M.
1. BAE Systems (in Fridley, with plans to relocate to Maple Grove)
According to the Minnpost in 2023, "With nearly $3 billion in open federal contracts, BAE Systems in Minneapolis is one of the top military contractors in the state, producing small arms, ordinance and marine equipment as well as providing the Navy with ship repair.” BAE Systems has a long-standing partnership with Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturers such as Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. BAE upgrades Rafael’s MK-38 Typhoon gun system, a remotely controlled weapon system installed on the Israeli military's unmanned “Protector” drones, which have been used to fire at Gazan fishermen, who are already restricted by Israel to severely limited fishing areas, on an almost-daily basis. Rafael is also the company responsible for designing Israel's Iron Dome missile defense.
BAE has been linked to the Israel military technology company Elbit Systems, as well.
Additionally, BAE sells shells that contain white phosphorus, which Israel has illegally fired on Palestinians. It supplies its Silver Bullet product, a kit to convert standard artillery shells into "precision-guided munitions" (or “smart bombs”), to the Israeli company IMI Systems.
As the database Investigate (a project of The American Friends Service Committee) shows, BAE has clearly and directly contributed to the war crimes Israel has committed against Palestinians, both before and after October 7, 2023. It has profited enormously from each escalation of Israel’s siege on Gaza, as well as from Russia’s war on Ukraine. As of February 2024, the company was valued at $48 billion, and it anticipated a 10-12% increase in sales throughout 2024.
BAE is the 7th largest military contractor in the world. It employs approximately 550 people at its Fridley facility.
2. Chandler Industries (in Blaine and other locations across Minnesota)
Chandler is a Tier 1 supplier whose contractors include Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It manufactures air-to-ground weapons systems, ship-based weapons systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, land vehicles, and aircraft weapons pylons.
Unlikely most of the other companies on this list, Chandler is a relatively small, Minnesota-based company—small enough, apparently, to receive a $3.4 million loan from the Small Business Association for duress during the COVID-19 pandemic, which in 2021 was forgiven in full.
3. General Dynamics (in Bloomington)
According to the American Friends Service Committee:
“General Dynamics supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used in Israel’s assault on Gaza…General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes the metal bodies for the MK-80 bomb series, one of the primary aerial munitions Israel has used to bomb Gaza…General Dynamics is also the only company in the U.S. that makes 155mm caliber artillery shells, which have been used extensively to attack Gaza…General Dynamics also partnered with Flyer Defense to develop an armored patrol vehicle that Israel is testing.”
General Dynamics has two facilities in Bloomington, where employees manufacture Advanced Mission Computers and Weapons Management Systems for Naval Aircraft, including the FA-18 Superhornet, which is the aircraft that the U.S. is using to attack and kill Houthi fighters in the Red Sea.
General Dynamics is the 6th largest military contractor in the world. It employs approximately 900 people at its Bloomington facilities.
4. Honeywell** (in five facilities across Minnesota)
Honeywell has a long, shameful history of war profiteering, which rose to dramatic heights in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Christian-led activist group “The Honeywell Project” staged mass direct actions to protest Honeywell’s manufacturing of the cluster bombs used in the Vietnam War. (We’ll cover The Honeywell Project in more depth in future posts.) In at least partial response to the scale and longevity of these protests, Honeywell “dropped” its military contracts in 1990, but this victory was limited at best: the military contracts were transferred to a new spin-off company compromised of Honeywell’s shareholders, Alliant Techsystems, Inc. (ATK), which made bombs at the same Plymouth, MN, location where Northrop Grumman now makes tank munitions. Northrop Grumman bought ATK, which by then was called Orbital ATK (after a 2014 merger with Orbital Sciences Corporation), in 2018.
Honeywell itself quietly resumed manufacturing products for the military again in recent decades. It now manufactures inertial measurement units (IMUs), which control the precision of targeted weapons, for the U.S. military. Honeywell manufactures 85% of the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons in the U.S.
Additionally, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, no corporation has been linked to a greater number of “Superfund” toxic waste sites than Honeywell. As reported in March 2024, Honeywell is trying to get an exception in Minnesota from a new ban on products containing "forever chemicals.” Studying Honeywell thus provides further evidence of the ecological devastation wrought by these companies: they’re poisoning our backyards in the name of making products that will murder people directly and also indirectly, by poisoning the soils and waters abroad.
Honeywell is the 23rd largest military contractor in the world. It employees approximately 1,870 people at its Minnesota facilities.
5. Lockheed Martin (in Eagan), and its subsidiary company ForwardEdge ASIC (in St. Paul)
Lockheed Martin is the largest military contractor in the world, receiving more U.S. federal funding than all of K-12 education. In recent months, it has sold sold fighter jets, transport planes, and hellfire missiles to Israel for the siege on Gaza. It also partners closely with IDF-allied corporations such as Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Tadiran, and Rafael. Its fully-owned St. Paul subsidiary company, ForwardEdge ASIC, began researching and designing microelectronics for Lockheed Martin’s defense systems in 2023. Governor Tim Walz has worked hard to incentivize Lockheed Martin to stay in Minnesota.
Lockheed Martin and ForwardEdge ASIC have promised to hire dozens of new employees from local colleges and universities in upcoming years.
6. Northrop Grumman (in Plymouth)
Northrop Grumman serves as the prime contractor for and currently maintains the B-2 stealth bomber fleet for the U.S. Air Force. It also supplies the Israeli Air Force with the Longbow missile delivery system for its Apache attack helicopters and laser weapon delivery systems for its fighter jets. Northrop Grumman stands out for its military contracts dedicated to creating Precision Guidance Kits (PGKs), which “help the Army convert its inventory of standard artillery shells into smart, precision-guided artillery shells,” according to the Star Tribune. Its flagship manufacturing programs at its Plymouth facility include guided projectiles and precision weapons, medium and large caliber ammunition, and automatic cannons.
Northrop Grumman is the 3rd largest military contractor in the world.
7. Raytheon Technologies (now renamed “RTX”), and its Minnesota subsidiary Rosemount Aerospace (in Burnsville)
Raytheon, which rebranded itself as “RTX” in 2023, develops and manufactures radars, electro-optical sensors, and other military electronics systems. Its Minnesota-specific subsidiary company, Rosemount Aerospace, has received $400 million in military contracts—which somehow still pales in comparison to the $25.3 billion that RTX Corporation has received.
Raytheon/RTX is the 2nd largest military contractor in the world.
8. 3M (in St. Paul)
3M is a multinational corporation headquartered in St. Paul. A major employer of tens of thousands of Minnesotans, it describes itself as applying “science and innovation to make a real impact by igniting progress and inspiring innovation in lives and communities across the globe.” Such abstract language masks not only its complicity in global imperialism and ecological devastation, but also its manufacturing of military products used in tanks, aircrafts, unmanned weapons systems, protection equipment, and communication gear.
In addition to the eight major military contractors mentioned above, we can add to the list at least a dozen smaller ones, including…
American Precision Avionics (in Duluth), a wire supplier to the aviation industry…
Cirrus (in Duluth), an aviation company…
Cummins (in White Bear Lake), which makes military engines…
Greystar Electrons (in Duluth), which supplies aviation wiring to clients like Boeing and Lockheed Martin…
International Automated Systems (in Blaine), which makes military grade storage units…
Minnesota Wire (in St. Paul), a privately-owned local company that deals majorly in the world of military grade wire…
PaR Systems (in Shoreview)…
Polaris (in Roseau), which creates off-road combat vehicles…
SteinAir (in Faribault)…
Superior Aerospace (in Fridley)…
Tanis Aircraft (in Glenwood)…
and Vista Outdoor (in Anoka), the parent company of three dozen outdoor and ammutions brands.
Boeing, the 5th largest military contractor in the world, also has offices in Minnesota, although it doesn’t appear to have major operations here presently. And that’s not to mention Amazon, which sells the surveillance technology it uses on its warehouse workers to the IDF, which the IDF uses to more efficiently surveil and murder Palestinians. Just in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Amazon has facilities in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Maple Grove, Shakopee, Lakeville, and St. Cloud.
We’re sharing this research with you for several reasons.
One is that we hope it helps create a clearer picture of the vast landscape of Minnesota war profiteering.
Another reason is that, if you live here, it is unlikely that you are separated by more than a degree or two from people who work for, or are otherwise invested in, these companies. You might work for one of them yourself, and if so, it’s understandable if you had no idea until now that they even had military contracts. While some of these companies—BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman—shout their military codependence from the rooftops, others—3M, Honeywell—are quieter about it, allowing them to keep marketing themselves as wholesome Midwestern employers and manufacturers of Post-It notes and respirator masks.
We challenge you to sit with these hard truths, and to talk about them. We have to believe that it matters who we work for, and what we invest in, and what we choose to live alongside. And, equally, what we reject and fight against. Of course, to a certain extent, all of us—regardless of where we do or don’t work—are complicit in the systems we live within, as there are no choices inside them that don’t involve some amount of moral compromise.
And still, there are choices. Look out for next week’s post, the second installment in a three-part series profiling the breadth of Minnesotans’ war resistance tactics in the past, shown through photographs, articles, and ephemera. If you missed it, you can read Part 1 here.
**Speaking of Honeywell…
…look what we saw in June’s Space Junk newsletter!