The president who promised to end forever wars and spoke of reducing nuclear weapons has succumbed to what David Wallace-Wells calls “impulsive warmongering.”
After bombing Iran for 12 days last June, the U.S. and Israel launched a massive military assault that has caused widespread damage in the region and major disruption in global energy markets. In January, Donald Trump sent military forces to capture and arrest the leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. The White House has proposed the largest military spending increase since World War II and plans to pay for it with draconian cuts in health care and other domestic social programs. Trump has refused offers by Moscow to preserve limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and wants to resume nuclear testing.
Opposing these policies and advocating for peaceful alternatives is essential to create a safer world. A more engaged global peace movement is needed to counter these threats and advocate for a more secure future.
Below is a four-point agenda for political action: End the war against Iran; prevent nuclear proliferation in the Gulf; halt and reverse the global nuclear arms race; and slash military spending levels.
Ending the war in Iran
Stopping Trump’s continued military aggression against Iran is an urgent priority. The war is increasingly unpopular. Recent polls show 58 percent of Americans opposed to the war, with disapproval of Trump’s presidency at a record high.
Although Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly rejected Democratic attempts to invoke the War Powers Act limiting U.S. involvement, some in the GOP have signaled that the statute’s 60-day deadline on May 1 could be a turning point. Some Republicans have indicated they will not support the war beyond that date if the president does not seek Senate approval or find a way to end the conflict. These rumblings of discontent, although faint, are an indication of mounting political trouble for the White House.
The president desperately needs a way out of the quagmire he has created for himself. He claims that Iran has been defeated and the war is over, but Tehran refuses to yield. The U.S. allowed the initial deadline for the end of the ceasefire to pass last week without taking further military action, but Trump repeated his odious threat to cause the “major destruction” of Iran’s civilian infrastructure.
As Trump flails about for a solution, opponents of the war must continue to demand an end to all further bombing and all U.S. military operations in the region, urging a withdrawal of American forces and negotiations for a solution to regional security issues and agreed limits on Iran’s nuclear program.
Protests against the war are increasing. On April 20, dozens of veterans and military family members demonstrated at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Members of About Face, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Military Families Speak Out and other groups unveiled antiwar banners in the Cannon House Office Building rotunda. They held red tulips out of respect for the thousands of Iranians killed by U.S. strikes. They conducted a flag-folding ceremony to honor the 13 U.S. troops killed so far in the war. Chanting antiwar slogans, more than 60 of the veterans and their supporters were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police.
That same day protesters gathered at the New York office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urging support for legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would block U.S. funding for additional weaponry and bulldozers to Israel. The Sanders resolution is gaining increased support among Democrats in Congress. The actions in Washington, D.C. and New York in recent days were among many protests against the war across the U.S., around the world and in Israel.
Opposition to the war has become a theme of the No Kings movement, which initially concentrated on saving democracy and opposing executive overreach. With Trump’s attack against Iran, the focus of the movement has broadened. Messages opposing the war and its costs were prevalent in the massive March 28 mobilizations. Posters for “healthcare not warfare” appeared frequently.
Antiwar themes need to be front and center as activists engage in the midterm elections. MoveOn, the Movement Voter Project and other organizations are already hard at work mobilizing support for progressive candidates. By participating actively in political meetings and campaign debates, opponents of the war can deliver a powerful message: If candidates want our vote, they must take a firm stand against Trump’s disastrous war.
Preventing proliferation in the Gulf
The stated purposes of the war have shifted constantly, but the most consistently emphasized goal is to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Trump has also mentioned other objectives, such as regime change and gaining control of Iran’s oil. If nonproliferation is the goal, the use of military force is the wrong approach. Most successes in nonproliferation policy have been the result of diplomatic bargaining, often utilizing targeted sanctions and incentives.
Iran’s nuclear program was effectively contained through the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which blocked Tehran’s pathway to developing nuclear weapons. (Details on how the JCPOA curtailed Iran’s nuclear program and the evidence of Iranian compliance with the agreement are available here.)
Although the U.S. State Department reported Iranian compliance with the JCPOA, Trump claimed falsely that Tehran was cheating and reneged on the deal in May 2018. The U.S. then imposed “maximum pressure” sanctions, leading to renewed enmity, prompting Tehran to enrich uranium to higher levels and laying the foundation for the current armed hostilities.
Iran made major compromises in the JCPOA, and it offered similar concessions in negotiations in June 2025 and February 2026. On the last two occasions, the U.S. and Israel began bombing just as conciliatory Iranian proposals were presented. Given Trump’s disdain for diplomacy, Iranians are understandably skeptical of the prospects for a negotiated agreement.
U.S. and Israeli assaults may have stirred an impulse among Iranian hardliners to play the nuclear card they have previously held in reserve but have not used. The tragic irony is that a war supposedly to prevent Iran from building a bomb may increase the propensity to do just that.
Worsening the danger is Trump’s commitment to help Saudi Arabia acquire uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities. As Washington wages war to prevent Iran from enriching uranium, it is proposing to help Tehran’s rival develop a similar and more expansive nuclear capability. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated in a 2018 interview that if Iran develops a bomb, “we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
A nuclear arms race in the Gulf would be a nightmare for everyone, including Israel, which adds a compelling argument for ending the war and engaging in effective diplomacy to settle the dispute with Iran and contain nuclear programs in the region. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to prevent Saudi enrichment and impose strict nonproliferation guardrails on the proposed deal. These efforts deserve public support.
Halting the arms race
Nuclear proliferation is not just a concern in the Middle East. Dozens of disarmament groups in the U.S. and other countries recently joined together to issue a global “Call to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race.” The groups are urging a complete stop to the development and deployment of nuclear bombs and weapons systems on all sides, including the U.S., Russia and China. The organizations have unified around the message that “more nuclear weapons will not make the world safer.”
Disseminating the call and seeking additional endorsements from religious, scientific and social organizations are achievable action steps that can increase awareness of the nuclear danger. Building support for the call can prepare groups to oppose specific acts of nuclear development by the United States, such as the deployment of additional nuclear warheads on existing weapons platforms, and resuming nuclear explosions at the Nevada test site.
Activists are also demanding that Washington and Moscow formalize an agreement on maintaining current strategic weapons limits and begin negotiations for a new arms reduction treaty. They advocate for the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, as specified in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Slashing war budgets
The president and his Republican supporters in Congress are drastically militarizing the U.S. federal budget. Adjusting for inflation, Trump’s 2027 budget will increase military spending by more than 40 percent. Among the many alarming items in the new budget is a 65 percent spending increase on plutonium production to create 100 new plutonium pits for nuclear warheads per year.
Even before the proposed increase, military spending is higher now than it was at the peak of the Vietnam War. It is nearly twice what it was in 1961, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the military-industrial complex.
The new budget can be regarded as a vast corporate welfare system to further enrich arms contractors. The unparalleled increase in their financial power will enable arms builders to lobby the government for even more unnecessary weapons. It will also benefit members of Congress who receive contributions from weapons contractors to create jobs in their district. It’s a legalized form of corruption masquerading as national defense.
Decades ago, those who profited from war were branded merchants of death. Peace activists in the 1930s helped Sen. Gerald Nye of North Dakota convene widely publicized hearings on the munitions industry. The proceedings exposed the role of industrial and financial magnates in promoting the pre-World War I arms race, and fueled public disgust with capitalist greed. Perhaps an equivalent public disclosure of arms contractor corruption could be organized today.
Military spending expert Stephen Semler’s analysis of Trump’s 2027 budget illuminates America’s warped national priorities. Setting aside entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, which are funded by fixed formulas written into law and can only be adjusted through extraordinary Congressional action, Trump’s budget allocates 80 percent of discretionary spending either directly or indirectly to war: preparation for war, the consequences of past wars or militarized policing. If enacted, the new proposal would cut spending on domestic priorities and social programs by $300 billion.
On top of all of this, the White House has announced it will submit a $98 billion supplemental appropriation to continue the war on Iran and stock up weapons to fight similar wars in the future. The war supplemental will face stiff opposition in Congress, deservedly so. The budget debate provides an opportunity for activists to mobilize against further spending for war, and also to challenge the entire war-making budget. Small cuts here or there will not suffice against the monstrously distorted budget now before Congress.
If we add to the direct and indirect costs of war, the military’s share of the interest on the national debt, along with growing expenditures on prisons and immigrant detention centers, the amount of tax dollars devoted to the wars at home and abroad in Trump’s proposed budget would exceed $2 trillion per year, according to Semler’s analysis. Programs for public health, the environment, housing, scientific research, day care, nutrition and education are slashed to the bone. The Trump administration has built a garrison state that feeds weapons contractors and starves the rest of us. This is a tragedy of historic proportions, and it means there is nowhere to hide from the war machine and the surveillance state.
More and more people and organizations now have no choice but to pay attention to overspending on the Pentagon, and to fight back as if their lives and livelihoods depend on it. Because, increasingly, they do. Among the organizations working directly against the war machine’s spending splurge are People Over Pentagon, a coalition that includes Public Citizen, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Project on Government Oversight, the American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Poor People’s Campaign, a joint project of the Kairos Center and Repairers of the Breach.
Pressure is needed to demand a fundamental restructuring of federal spending priorities. Without a wholesale shift towards more balanced budgeting, millions of Americans will suffer from untreated medical conditions, inadequate nutrition and lack of access to economic opportunity.
The peace agenda is demanding and will require an enormous mobilization of political action from millions of Americans. The challenge is daunting, but the prospects for progress are real. Trump’s warmongering is increasingly unpopular. The prospects for political realignment in November are increasing. Millions of people have participated in No Kings protests. If the political energy against Trumpism can be harnessed for a concentrated campaign to stop war and militarism, a more peaceful future will be possible.
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