Endless US wars mean endless sales for well-positioned US arms makers, but military officials today are detailing a growing effort within the Pentagon to fund not just the weapons they intend to actually buy, but also weapons they figure other people might want to buy in the future.

The Pentagon's Special Defense Acquisition Fund (SDAF) is meant for exactly that, with officials saying it allows them to "prime the pump" and placing advanced orders for weapons from arms makers "so we can stockpile things when we know there's going to be an immediate rush or demand."

In practice a lot of this money is being thrown at the ISIS war, with the expectation that all the nations that have gotten sucked into participating in the US-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS are going to need to buy a bunch of American bombs to drop on ISIS.

Since the US is dropping much of its own substantial collection of bombs on ISIS, this SDAF is being used to put in a whole bunch of extra orders for such bombs and related parts, with the expectation that customers will show up eventually.