Despite Ukraine, these aren’t boom times for American armsmakers

Camden, a small town in the backwoods of southern Arkansas, is having an unusual brush with the outside world. It is a quiet place. At this time of year there are more Halloween dolls tied to its lampposts than there are people in the streets. It also has a reason to keep its head down. The nearby Highland Industrial Park, which has a few manicured lawns amid thousands of acres of thick forestry, is home to the factories of some of America’s biggest weapons manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies. “It’s been kind of a hidden secret,” says Michael Preston, Arkansas’s secretary of commerce. Or as a local businessman whispers, “it’s a fear thing: ‘shhhh’.”