Of Local Interest

Does this qualify as a wargasm?

Dramatic increases in defense spending since 2001 has helped prop up the state's soft economy and perhaps averted an economic free fall.

The money has been used to build helicopters for the Army, provide armor plating to Humvees, and make cruise missiles and smart bombs for various military branches. But the contracts go beyond war equipment. One of the largest single contracts went to a Phoenix-based firm to provide private health care coverage for military members and their families.

"This could have been a much deeper recession for Arizona without these dollars," said Dennis Hoffman, an economics professor and director of the Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University."We know we've lost jobs in semiconductors the last three to five years, so these injections have helped buffer what has happened there and in the overall manufacturing sector."