“Move the Money from War to Peace, Global to Local” Panel at WILPF Congress on August 21

A B1-B bomber assigned to the 7th Bomb Wing at Ørland Main Air Station in Norway, March 2021. Photo courtesy of US Air Force.

By the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

August 2021

On Saturday, August 21 at 1:45 pm PDT / 3:45 pm CDT / 4:45 pm EDT the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee will sponsor a panel “Move the Money from War to Peace, Global to Local.”

Speakers on this panel will describe the extent of global spending on war, with particular focus on nuclear weapons, and the military/industrial/financial complex that continues to fund “endless” wars along with the U.S. Congress. This enormous amount of money should instead be used to meet human needs and to restore and repair the earth. Speakers will also provide strategies activists can use to push down the military budget.

Cherrill Spencer, a co-chair of the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee, will use ICAN’s new report “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” to show how unconscionable amounts of money are being spent by many nations on their military budgets (a brief introduction was given in the July 2021 eNEWS article "Responding to Global Nuclear Weapons Spending and Biden's FY2022 Budget").

Ingeborg Breines will speak about “Time to Try Friendship with Russia? Neighbors as Friends not Enemies.” She will highlight how the US, through NATO, gave four B-1 bombers to the Norwegian military that can carry nuclear bombs and how this has galvanized the Norwegian peace movement. This show of force is to impress Russia that NATO and the US will “defend” the security of the Arctic and their claim to oil and valuable, needed raw materials as the ice cover continues to melt.

Breines is a distinguished Norwegian peace campaigner, and author and editor of publications for UNESCO notably on gender issues, education, conflict resolution, and a culture of peace. From 2006 to 2016, she was on the board of the International Peace Bureau, the last seven years as co-president and has close relations with international and Norwegian peace organizations: the Norwegian UN Association, WILPF, the Forum on Development and Environment, the Peace Alliance and the Hardanger Academy of Peace, Development and Environment. She is senior advisor to the Secretariat of the Nobel Summits and board member of the Academic University for Nonviolence, Beirut.

The various strategies we can use to beat down military spending will be described by our collaborators in NuclearBan.US: Executive Director Asha Asokan and Co-Founder Vicki Elson. Nuclear Ban US’s mission is to contribute to the total elimination of nuclear weapons and advocate for the use of all those wasted human, financial, and political resources to finally and seriously address the climate crisis and global inequality through a Green New Deal. And one of our Nuclear Age Peace Foundation collaborators will share the ongoing progress in our legislative phone campaign (see the June 2021 eNews article "Congressional Pressure Necessary to #defund the ICBM Modernization Program and #movethemoney to Peace Programs!”).

We will also provide a new toolkit so Congress attendees can take part in these various strategies in the next few months. Our “Move the Money” session at the 34th Triennial WILPF Congress will equip you with the impetus, facts, and tools to get money moved from the war economy to the peace economy.

Register here for the WILPF US 34th Triennial Congress.