Responding to Global Nuclear Weapons Spending and Biden’s FY2022 Budget

President Biden’s proposed budget for FY2022 has an increase in military spending over 2021. Pie chart courtesy of the National Priorities Project.

By Cherrill Spencer
Co-chair of the DISARM/END WARS Issue Committee

July 2021

The President’s proposed discretionary budget for the next fiscal year, which is being debated by Congress, disappointingly asks for even more money for the military – $756 billion – than is being spent this year. And a recent report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons on a year’s cycle of spending reveals the flow of money from governments to companies making nuclear weapons to lobbyists and think tanks. So we must continue our WILPF campaigns to defund the Pentagon. Please read on to find out how YOU can help.

Please volunteer to be a lead activist in your state to advocate for H.R. 2850

In our June eNEWS article "Congressional Pressure Necessary to #defund the ICBM Modernization Program and #movethemoney to Peace Programs!" we described our Disarm Legislative Action Campaign to move forward two significant pieces of weapons-cutting legislation that are stuck in committees of the 117th Congress. We’ve decided to ask you and members of several other peace organizations working with us to continue phoning our targeted Congressional Representatives to ask them to co-sponsor HR-2850 and HR-2227, past our original endpoint of June 30. You will use the list of reps, background information, and call script linked to in the June eNews article.

We are working with Nuclear Ban US (www.nuclearban.us) to encourage more activists to make these important phone calls and we are looking for volunteers to be a lead activist in each state. Lead activists will find other activists to increase the number of phone calls about HR-2850. Write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org if you want to become a lead activist in your state (more populous states like California can have more than one lead activist).

Write emails to support HR-2227: Sample letter and nuclear weapons spending info available

We know that congresspeople prefer to hear from their own constituents about topics of importance to the constituent, so we have a sample letter on page 7 of this Call for Peace resource guide #12 for you to copy, revise and send to your rep asking them to co-sponsor HR-2227.

If you would like to add further information on nuclear weapons spending to use in your letters, ICAN's new report “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” unveils one year of the cycle of spending on nuclear weapons from countries to defense contractors to lobbyists and think tanks and back again.

In 2020, the report estimates that nine countries spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, $27.7 billion of which went to a dozen defense contractors to build nuclear weapons. Those contractors then spent $117 million lobbying policy makers and up to $10 million funding think tanks writing about nuclear weapons to ensure they can continue to line their pockets with nuclear weapon contracts for years to come. The exchange of money and influence, from countries to companies to lobbyists and think tanks, sustains and maintains a global arsenal of catastrophically destructive weapons.

Please read this detailed report (or at least its executive summary) at: www.icanw.org/2020_global_nuclear_weapons_spending_complicit to find your favorite piece of data to include in your letter to your representative.

Breaking the Nuclear Weapons Complicity Cycle

We must break this nuclear weapons complicity cycle by pressuring the nuclear weapons manufacturers to switch to other products

Our collaborating organization Nuclear Ban US has assembled a host of useful materials for activists to use to pressure the 30 companies who make nuclear weapons for the US government – with our tax money – to desist. Visit their website and look around it to find sample op-eds, letters to corporations, links to wealth advisors who will help you divest your nest-egg from nuclear weapons companies, and so on. You can find these helpful resources at: treatyawareness.us/pressuring-the-nuclear-weapons-profiteers/ and treatyawareness.us/pressuring-the-profiteers-links-for-the-chat/

Caption: Summary of the nuclear weapons complicity cycle. Courtesy of ICANW.org

Commemorate the 76^th anniversary of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings

Last August many WILPF branches held events and engaged in activities to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. We hope many WILPFers will continue this sad tradition on the 6^th and 9^th of August this year, as a way of reminding ourselves why we work so hard to abolish nuclear weapons. See last year's solidarity event information. And here are resource materials from last year that can help you plan for activities this year. And if you still have your peace cranes all branches received last year (here’s a video on how to fold a crane) you could consider joining a global effort called #CranesForOurFuture: The Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace and Nuclear Threat Initiative invites you to join with leaders, cultural influencers, and families around the world in crafting origami peace cranes. The CranesForOurFuture Campaign will be announced mid-July and will culminate with partners sharing pictures of their cranes on social media, along with your wishes for a brighter future, on August 6-9, the Peace Weekend between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries. Sign up for this campaign here.