Two of the largest defense contractors raised their 2026 forecasts in the same week, and the interesting material was on the calls rather than in the tables.
RTX reported second-quarter Raytheon sales of $8.27 billion, up 18 percent, with backlog at $289 billion; the stock rose 7.7 percent [1]. Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control segment reached $4.1 billion, up 20 percent, on products including PAC-3 interceptors and Precision Strike missiles - both in use in the Iran war. Lockheed's backlog rose 38.3 percent, from $166.5 billion to $230.4 billion, and its stock rose 10.6 percent [1].
RTX's chief financial officer, Neil Mitchill, described the customer mix: 'About half of Raytheon's bookings in the first half, $10 billion, came from international customers' [1]. The other half is the US government.
The more striking description came from Lockheed's chief executive, Jim Taiclet, on how the buying is being done: 'The government is giving us a lot more flexibility than they traditionally would have done... so that we can be faster' [1]. He attributed the pressure to a named source: 'That's what I hear from the deputy secretary every time we get together and beyond: faster, faster, faster' [1].
Flexibility in defense procurement is a specific thing. It means fewer of the procedural steps that exist to test price, competition and need.
There may be good reasons to move quickly in a war; the same reporting notes more than 50,000 rockets and missiles consumed since 2022 across Ukraine and Iran operations [1]. What the executives describe, in their own words, is a customer asking for speed and a supplier being given room - against a combined backlog above half a trillion dollars [1].
