c) corporate wellfare for military industry

I would love to know where that came from. The vast majority of defense contractors do not make any money out of a war. Most of them provide long lead time platforms, such as vehicles and aircraft. Just because a war is going on does not mean that suddenly, the military dumps a bunch of money on the contractors heads and say 'I want all those vehicles replaced now!'. It takes a lot of time. They have already been paid for what is being used, and depending on how many are lost, will probably never get a contract to replace the vehicles destroyed.

The few companies that do get decent contracts out of something like this would be those like ATK - the ammo manufacturers. Will Raytheon get a huge contract to replenish the spent Tomahawks? Probably, but it won't be signed tomorrow. Boeing already has a huge contract for JDAMs, so those probably won't be pumped up unless this conflict gets really drawn out.

Basically, I think the general public is really mistaken about how much a war or conflict helps the defense industry.