Throughout U.S. history, broad citizen-led peace movements have played influential roles in generating political pressure, changing war-promoting policies and constraining militarism. These movements have helped elevate new solutions to security challenges, such as guiding the formation of the United Nations after World War II and sparking U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control in the 1980s.
We surely need a bigger, bolder American peace movement today, with a broader agenda that includes support for democracy and the redesign of our country’s peacebuilding and development policy architecture. The new movement we envision will also unite in shaping how policymakers and the public approach a range of rising conflicts — from looming wars in the Caribbean and Pacific, to a new nuclear arms race, to domestic instability in American cities and towns. The time to (re)build that movement is now.
2025 has been a historically bad year for the peace community in the United States and beyond. U.S. military spending is fast approaching $1 trillion per year, while global funding for peace efforts — previously estimated at 0.5 percent of all military spending — is being slashed to even lower levels. The renamed U.S. Department of War increasingly talks about projecting more “lethality.” At the same time, key institutions like the U.S. Institute of Peace are being dismantled. And the U.N. system is increasingly sidelined or paralyzed in the face of raging wars and atrocities across the world.
The United States now appears on the brink of a larger war with Venezuela; yet, the extent of Congressional and public debate and mobilization regarding such a war has been paltry, compared, say, with the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003. Globally, a new nuclear arms race is taking shape, and leaders are contemplating a resumption of dangerous weapons testing, ending a 30-year moratorium. And at home, the vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum are concerned about growing politically-motivated violence.
U.S. peace organizations have mounted some important public responses, such as the growing “Call to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race” petition. Peace activists have most certainly contributed to the broader protests against growing authoritarianism and deployments of military forces on U.S. streets. But for the most part, the American peace movement does not have the broad reach or message to mobilize action that can garner political attention and counter the march toward more militarism at home and abroad.
Building blocks exist for the future peace movement
It was not long ago that peace activists showed great ability to mobilize public action and debate. In early 2003, millions of people joined protests against the Iraq War in hundreds of cities around the world and in the United States. This included hundreds of thousands of people marching in New York City on Feb. 15, 2003. As one of us (Cortright) has documented, these protests exerted pressure on President George W. Bush in those early months of 2003 (including compelling more engagement with the U.N. Security Council), shaped longer-term policy shifts (including the eventual withdrawal of forces), and contributed to President Barack Obama’s election in 2008.
In parallel with activism, peace studies and practice grew significantly in recent decades. There are now over 200 peace and conflict studies programs at colleges and universities across the U.S. Peace research and training have become more sophisticated, with support from institutions like the U.S. Institute of Peace. With data and evidence, we developed a better understanding of the causes of violent conflict, ways to de-escalate and resolve conflicts, and the keys to build sustainable peace over time. Scores of civil society organizations have emerged to support this work, many of them now connected through the Alliance for Peacebuilding.
As peace work has become more mainstream, though, it has become more professionalized and technocratic in nature. In some ways, this has led to silos and the creation of an “elite class” of peace professionals, disconnected from grassroots activism and political mobilization. That dynamic — and the need to change it — is becoming clearer to many of us in this moment of profound disruption. The many Americans who have studied, researched and engaged in enhancing peacebuilding work and related efforts on climate change, democracy and human rights can provide building blocks for a future American peace movement. To do so, they will need to better connect with traditional peace churches, associations and activist groups.
Building the movement we need
Based on the research on effective social movements, we see three keys for (re)building the American peace movement we need now.
1. Develop and promote a winning message. An effective peace movement for this moment needs a broad message that speaks to the militarization happening abroad and at home. It should also make the essential connection between sustainable peace and genuine democracy, and articulate the distinct value of making investments in peace at all levels of society. Movements need visionary goals, such as a world without nuclear weapons, but also practical, achievable policy objectives, such as halting the development of new nuclear weapons. And they need to frame that message in terms of values and choices with which individual supporters can connect. Notably, according to a recent poll, the vast majority of Americans — including MAGA supporters — would support investing in peacebuilding to help end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Media communications, including savvy use of new technologies, will be key to framing and promoting that message when ready.
2. Unite a broad and more diverse coalition. As noted, there are significant building blocks for the peace movement if existing groups can break down silos and come together around a shared vision and agenda. Beyond that, there needs to be outreach and engagement with a wider swath of citizen organizations (think Rotary Clubs, with their tradition of promoting peace), religious communities and veterans groups who can be allies in this work. And, as we have learned more acutely over recent years, there needs to be greater engagement and cooperation with Black, brown and Indigenous communities who have traditionally been underrepresented in American power structures and have rich experience of driving political and social movements.
3. Engage in institutional politics. The movement needs to utilize political systems to incentivize specific policies that can reverse militarism and enable investments in future peace. This work is most effective when it avoids partisanship and focuses on a specific policy agenda. The emerging campaign to prevent a new nuclear arms race can point to the strong bipartisan support that assured the success of the arms reduction agreements negotiated by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The Global Fragility Act, which mandates increased U.S. support for conflict prevention and peacebuilding, was passed in 2019 with solid bipartisan backing, although its implementation has been hindered by bureaucratic and political challenges.
We are aware of several promising ways in which peace groups are already grappling with the imperative of renewed activism and are contemplating action in cooperation with others to counter authoritarianism and protect U.S. democracy. One of us (Quaranto) is co-leading a new project with the Alliance for Peacebuilding to chart a vision and agenda for rebuilding the U.S. peace and security policy agenda. These broader initiatives could be combined with specific policy campaigns — such as avoiding armed conflict in the Caribbean and preventing the resumption of nuclear testing — as the basis for building the kind of inclusive American peace movement we need for today and tomorrow.
The increasing expenditures for militaries are concerning. Also, the ever enlarging alliances provide greater possibility of everyone being drawn into a wider war. Peace activism has been effective at quelling other conflicts. Surely, now is a time to organize but to be effective, wide coalitions of voices are necessary.
In war, people always suffer while a favoured few benefit by amassing immense wealth.
Evolving peace movement is how I see the millions of people from the Vietnam war protesters, who showed up for over and over for civil rights, women’s rights gay rights, now in the street again with people in their twenties using cell phones to mobilize in support of Palestinian people and sharing successful strategies. So, not new, but building on and evolving using new resources to meet new challenges.
Not a few faith-groups have some kind of commitment to an idealistic, spiritually pure ‘peace’ . Most of them (sometimes including my own faith group) prescribe a particular, rather saintly or miraculous, path towards peace. Your call for a more broad-based appeal is very welcome but its level of detail strikes me as still a bit too wonky.
I am toying with the use of an image of a multistranded ‘arc’ or ‘spectrum’ of violation and violence with darkness at the war end evolving into a rainbow as it approaches love and peace.
I propose that we focus on the one or two strands in our community where we have agency and apply ourselves less to an ideal vision and more to making sure we are moving closer to the rainbow end.
After the last election I suggested we form the Unity Party and take our motto from the 1st Tradition of AA: ‘Our common welfare should come first. Democracy depends on UNITY’.
As for global peace, the CIA has been involved since the 1950s in coups, murders, and interventions in many countries. Think Iran, the Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Brazil, South Vietnam, Chile, Bolivia, Iraq, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. Now we have a Department of War which should be called the Department of Murder. Congress is useless when the DOM can murder two men in a boat and get away with it.
‘Our common welfare should come first. Democracy depends on UNITY’ is a great motto to go with. Thank you.
So, what’s your message. “Bring Peace” and “stop war” and “bring em home” doesn’t work. Vietnam war went ten years and Iraq War even longer. No new ideas or just the same old cliches?
When politicians and the rich start sending their kids to war, I’ll start believing in noble causes.
Mike Hastie
Army medic Viet Nam
W A R = Wealthy Are Richer
While I read this, a few Buddhist monks from Texas are walking for peace on their way to Wash. D.C. May we all have a peaceful day! ☮️💖🙏
The following is a piece that I wrote that was published in the Kansas City Star in the past week.
As KC grows its nuclear weapons footprint, where are the Christians? | Opinion
I attended a training and gathering before a formal public hearing May 7 regarding the impact of nuclear weapons production in Kansas City. The federal government is allocating new money for our area to support production of the next generation of nuclear firepower. In the hearing, representatives of the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration shared the summary of an environmental impact statement. It was billed as an opportunity for the public to weigh in.
Attendance was not robust. In reports from attendees, and in my own case, many of us did not find out about these meetings until days or hours before — in my case, with an unrelated search on the web focused on nonviolence. Interesting. It seems the ball got dropped all around.
Media coverage? None identified, even from local news outlets. The formal hearing with the representatives? It was held at a remote community center and limited in space. Did the agencies’ intent play any role?
At both gatherings, I knew no one. At the hearing, there was one participant who identified as Christian clergy. There were a couple of others who provided evidence of their knowledge of the impact of nuclear weapons production. Others used many of these experts’ talking points. There were some emotional pleas to stop the production of nuclear weapons. No member of the public spoke in support of this expansion and its expense.
From my scope of the two encounters, painfully, it all seemed just a formality. At most, 60 or 70 folks showed up. In the 80-plus years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear holocaust has haunted us. One of the speakers at the hearing has invested over 30 years in research and civil action to expose the cataclysmic potential of this arsenal. The result? The nuclear weapon industry continues to grow and refine its lethality.
In Kansas City, a 1.7-million-square-foot complex is being constructed for offices and manufacturing. Dubbed the Kansas City Non-Nuclear Expansion Transformation or KC NExT project, it claims its purpose, in part, is to manufacture non-nuclear components used in U.S. nuclear weapons systems. What? Yes, the crafting is mind-numbing.
The country has spent tens and hundreds of billions on nuclear weaponry. Is that pro-life? What about the children? The hungry, the poor? And what about the planet? My gut tells me that, as in many military ventures, respect for life is not a guiding principle. Contrary to the slogan tagged to the bottom of the DOE/NNSA presentation slides — “peace through atomic strength” — my fear is that nuclear conflagration could come soon to a location somewhere in the U.S.A.
The 250 million-plus adults in the United States are apparently tolerant of this spending and violent potential, sought and engineered by the federal government. Maybe it’s the promise of mutually assured destruction that dampens our resistance, gives us solace, conditions our complacency. Whatever the case, there are not ample boots on the ground to demand that our nation terminate spending on the research, development and production of nuclear weapons. There never has been in all these 80 years.
What a feat has been accomplished that has instilled such fear, trust and obedience, even among the almost two-thirds of Americans who identify as Christian— many of whom call the United States a Christian nation. For all those years, even the Christian community in this country has been complicit in nuclear proliferation and pending genocide, not to mention its silence in response to so many other crimes against humanity that this nation has committed or supported in that time. In whose name?
Versed in the Jesus ethic, I wonder at how the church has not been out front from the beginning in standing against nuclear weaponry — and for that matter, against all war. To this day, where are the Christians? Even as few as 20 or 30 million of them showing up to share this message would likely make for a commanding statement calling to account the insanity of dependence on these weapons for protection. Such visibility, engagement and action could change the world — advancing peace, understanding and goodwill that the present Christian witness across the globe does not appear to be accomplishing.
Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and a noted critic of militarism, capitalism and preparation for war, is said to have proclaimed: “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” Those words speak reality to power in ways that we, yet to this day, appear not to have eyes to see nor ears to hear.