One of the world's largest weapons developers, General Dynamics provides broad support to the Israeli military, the US military, and the US federal government's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants. General Dynamics has multiple facilities in Massachusetts, including just outside of Boston in Dedham, Quincy, and Taunton.
As reported by AFSC Investigate, General Dynamics sells 2000-Ib MK-84 bombs to Israel. Considered a "Vietnam-era" weapon, these 2000 pound bombs have a "30 meter kill radius" from the site of detonation, producing indiscriminate killing and injury when used. Israel dropped 2000lb MK-84 2000 lb bombs repeatedly during its assault on Gaza in May 2021, after the Biden administration authorized the sale of $735 million Mark 84s, along with GBU-31 JDAM kits, and GBU-39 bombs, to replenish Israeli stocks of these weapons. General Dynamics also provides Israel with MK-82 500-lb bombs, BLU-113 5,000-lb “bunker buster bombs", the GD 883 engines used in Israel's 65t Merkava 4 battle tanks, and the gun systems used in Israeli fleets of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets.
AFSC Investigate highlights that Israel has used these General Dynamics weapons in its "attacks on densely populated civilian areas, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza," further noting that "The human rights community, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’tselem, and United Nations commissions have ruled these attacks to be human rights violations, collective punishment, and at times war crimes." (See: here, here, here, here, here, here, here.)
General Dynamics has received $219.61 billion to date through U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for the provision of products and services to the US military, including $139.98 billion from sales to the US Navy, $65.71 billion from sales to the US Army, and $8.34 billion from sales to the US Air Force. As reported by AFSC Investigate, General Dynamics produces "M1 Abrams," which are the the main battle tank of the US Army, and builds ships and submarines for the US Navy. General Dynamics’ corporate stock consistently rises in response to escalations of military conflicts worldwide, reflective of the (accurate) view of its stockholders that more killing and more destruction is good for business.
Indeed, General Dynamics spent $277 million from 1998-2021 lobbying US elected officials for more war, more destruction, and of course, more US weapons purchases from companies like GD. Here in Massachusetts, the company’s lobbying efforts yielded benefits in 2013 and 2017 when Massachusetts senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey fought to protect and then to expand federal funding for a General Dynamics “battlefield communications” project at the company's site in Tauton MA, a project worth hundreds of millions USD. As Politico reports:
In her first year in the Senate [2013], Warren joined other members of the Massachusetts delegation in fighting proposed cuts to the Army’s Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program, a battlefield communications network known as WIN-T that the Government Accountability Office has cited for unplanned cost increases and performance deficiencies. The Pentagon was seeking to shift $128 million away from the program to pay for Afghanistan war costs — a reprogramming request that was blocked by the congressional defense panels following a lobbying campaign orchestrated by General Dynamics.
In 2017, Senators Warren and Markey successfully fought for the inclusion of additional funding for the same General Dynamics “battlefield communications” project in congress’s FY 2017 defense appropriations bill. Later in 2017, Senator Warren visited General Dynamic’s site in Tauton MA, where Warren “viewed a demonstration of the U.S. Army's battlefield communications network” she had repeatedly fought to fund in congress. Warren stated about her visit to GD’s Tauton site:
WIN-T is the backbone of our Army's communications and data system. By connecting commanders to troops by both satellites and radio, it makes a real difference on the ground. I'm proud that it is manufactured right here in Taunton by General Dynamics. It's just one example of the great work being done here in Massachusetts that will directly prepare American soldiers all over the world to meet current and emerging threats.
General Dynamics has received $4.80 billion to date through contracts with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Through these contracts, General Dynamics has provided broadscale support to DHS, ICE, and CBP's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants. As reported by AFSC Investigate:
General Dynamics is the primary contractor for DHS’ Automated Biometric Identity System (IDENT), “the central DHS-wide system for storage and processing of biometric and associated biographic information.” DHS uses IDENT to store, match, process, and share biometric and biographic information on over 230 million unique individuals. IDENT is an essential tool used by CBP and ICE, as well as local and state law enforcement, to track, monitor, and detain immigrants. It was the key technology that facilitated the Secure Communities program, directly responsible for an estimated 450,000 deportations between 2008 and 2014 alone.
In addition to supporting DHS to organize biometric data on 230 million individuals for the purpose of identifying and targeting migrants, General Dynamics provides US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with a "Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS)" which CBP uses to surveil the movements of migrants near the US-Mexico border. AFSC Investigate reports: "Since 2013, General Dynamics has provided CBP with its Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS) on the U.S.-Mexico border. These consist of tower-mounted pairs of day and night cameras that feed video to a dedicated CBP facility, enabling 'Border Patrol to survey large areas ... as they detect, identify, and classify incursions at the border'.”
Moreover, General Dynamics has supported the US Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in its enforcement of the grotesque and ongoing US policy of separating migrant children from their parents. AFSC Investigate reports:
Since 2015, General Dynamics has provided services related to “unaccompanied children”, ORR’s case coordination system(which monitors children as they move through the system) and infrastructure services for children shelters. Children separated from their families were placed in detention facilities and later put under the care of relatives (even very distant ones) or the foster care system ... immediately following Trump’s zero-tolerance policy (which includes family separation), General Dynamics began advertising job positions to assist in the children’s detention process, including bilingual case workers, data entry clerks, and a position to monitor cases as they move through the system.
Master entity: General Dynamics
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BAE Systems and General Dynamics have collaborated to "Modernize US Army Heavy Armored Vehicles," and have also collaborated to "manufacture new military bridges."
The Brandeis Crown Center for Middle East Studies bears the name of the late Henry Crown, a Chicago-based financier whose family made their (as of 2005) $3.6 billion dollar fortune through ventures including owning a 20% stake in the US weapons developer General Dynamics. As Bob Feldman reported in 2005: "From its investments in Pentagon war contractors like General Dynamics and U.S. real estate, the Crown family has accumulated a family fortune of $3.6 billion, according to a recent Forbes magazine estimate. A portion of the Crown family’s surplus wealth was apparently recently shifted to Brandeis University in Massachusetts in order to establish the 'Crown Center for Middle East Studies'."
General Dynamics CFO Jason Aiken spoke at Citigroup's 2018 Global Industrials Conference.
In 2017, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey along with his colleague MA Senator Elizabeth Warren successfully fought for additional funding in Congress’s FY 2017 defense appropriations bill for a “battlefield communications” project worth hundreds of millions USD at General Dynamics’ site in Tauton, MA. General Dynamics spent $277 million from 1998-2021 lobbying US federal officials, likely including Warren and Markey, for more war, more destruction, and of course, more weapons purchases from companies like GD.
Elbit Systems and General Dynamics have collaborated in the production of armoured vehicles (see: here and here).
In 2013 and 2017, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren fought to protect and then to expand federal funding for a “battlefield communications” project worth hundreds of millions USD that was under development at General Dynamics’ site in Tauton, MA. As Politico reports:
In her first year in the Senate [2013], Warren joined other members of the Massachusetts delegation in fighting proposed cuts to the Army’s Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program, a battlefield communications network known as WIN-T that the Government Accountability Office has cited for unplanned cost increases and performance deficiencies. The Pentagon was seeking to shift $128 million away from the program to pay for Afghanistan war costs — a reprogramming request that was blocked by the congressional defense panels following a lobbying campaign orchestrated by General Dynamics.
In 2017, Senator Warren along with her colleague Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey successfully fought for the inclusion of additional funding for the same General Dynamics “battlefield communications” project in Congress’s FY 2017 defense appropriations bill. Later in 2017, Senator Warren visited General Dynamic’s site in Tauton MA, where Warren “viewed a demonstration of the U.S. Army's battlefield communications network” that she had repeadely fought to fund in congress. Warren stated about her visit to GD’s Tauton site:
WIN-T is the backbone of our Army's communications and data system. By connecting commanders to troops by both satellites and radio, it makes a real difference on the ground. I'm proud that it is manufactured right here in Taunton by General Dynamics. It's just one example of the great work being done here in Massachusetts that will directly prepare American soldiers all over the world to meet current and emerging threats.
General Dynamics spent $277 million from 1998-2021 lobbying US federal officials - likely including Senators Warren and Markey - for more war, more destruction, and of course, more weapons purchases from companies like GD.
General Dynamics has received $65.71 billion to date through US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for the provision of products and services to the US Army.
General Dynamics has received $139.37 billion to date through US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for the provision of products and services to the US Navy.
General Dynamics has provided broad-scale support to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's brutal regime of tracking, detention, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants, which includes the separation of children from their parents at the US/Mexico border. As reported by AFSC Investigate:
General Dynamics is the primary contractor for DHS’ Automated Biometric Identity System (IDENT), “the central DHS-wide system for storage and processing of biometric and associated biographic information.” DHS uses IDENT to store, match, process, and share biometric and biographic information on over 230 million unique individuals. IDENT is an essential tool used by CBP and ICE, as well as local and state law enforcement, to track, monitor, and detain immigrants. It was the key technology that facilitated the Secure Communities program, directly responsible for an estimated 450,000 deportations between 2008 and 2014 alone.
General Dynamics has received $4.82 billion to date through contracts with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Through these contracts, General Dynamics has provided broadscale support to DHS, ICE, and CBP's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants. As reported by AFSC Investigate:
General Dynamics is the primary contractor for DHS’ Automated Biometric Identity System (IDENT), “the central DHS-wide system for storage and processing of biometric and associated biographic information.” DHS uses IDENT to store, match, process, and share biometric and biographic information on over 230 million unique individuals. IDENT is an essential tool used by CBP and ICE, as well as local and state law enforcement, to track, monitor, and detain immigrants. It was the key technology that facilitated the Secure Communities program, directly responsible for an estimated 450,000 deportations between 2008 and 2014 alone.
Along with supporting DHS to organize biometric data on 230 million individuals for the purpose of identifying and targeting migrants, General Dynamics has provides US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with a "Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS)" which CBP uses to surveil the movements of migrants near the US-Mexico border. AFSC Investigate reported: "Since 2013, General Dynamics has provided CBP with its Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS) on the US-Mexico border. These consist of tower-mounted pairs of day and night cameras that feed video to a dedicated CBP facility, enabling 'Border Patrol to survey large areas ... as they detect, identify, and classify incursions at the border'.”
Linda Hudson who spent 13 years as a corporate officer and company president at General Dynamics is currently teaching a class on "leadership decision-making" at the Harvard Kennedy School. Jeff A. Davis who currently serves as the Head of Communications of General Dynamics was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in 2008. Other General Dynamics employees and former employees with ties to HKS include Robert Hallagan and Nikos Mourkogiannis.
In 2015, General Electric’s Intelligent Platforms division secured a contract worth approximately $100 million to supply General Dynamics UK with "a diverse range of embedded computing subsystems for British Army’s SCOUT Specialist Vehicle (SV) platforms." GE has also held other contracts with General Dynamics, through which GE supplied General Dynamics with component parts for a broad array GD's military products (see for example here, here and here).
MassMutual is a shareholder in General Dynamics.
RTN, a bank originally founded to serve Raytheon employees, states on its website that it "is proud to serve the employees of General Dynamics," further noting that General Dynamics employees get access to "no-cost virtual financial education seminars" at RTN.
The Susan and Barry Tatelman Foundation held shares in weapons manufacturer General Dynamics, collectively valued at $35,592.00 as of 2007.
General Dynamics has received $8.34 billion to date through US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for the provision of products and services to the US Air Force.
UMass Amherst has hosted General Dynamics at the university's career fairs.