Talking of rocks, I remember low level scraps between youths and border guards in previous years where the Palestinian boys used slings with rocks like David and Goliath. That weapon has a very long history in the region.
This is what President Eisenhower was warning us about when he talked about the "military-industrial complex." A series of forever wars that existed for no other reason than to benefit corporations and billionaires.
Boeing and Raytheon are military contractors, and the US has characteristically kept itself in or around global conflict in order to continue handing out multi-billion dollar contracts to these companies (and more like them.) Weapons/Platform manufacturing and sales is a large portion of our economic output.