Dear Friends,
Facts matter. How money is spent demonstrates values. While demands for social justice take to the streets in America and the most impoverished nations prepare for the storms of climate change and the tsunami of COVID-19 and the onslaught of famine, while social programs, health care needs, and social services in the world’s richest nation beg for funds to simply keep up, here are some relevant facts:
1. The US is 5% of the world’s population. It incarcerates over 24% of the world’s prisoners. Either a great many innocent people are being put in jail or the social order is excellent at producing criminals.
2. In the US African Americans are 5 times as likely to be jailed and in 5 states 10 times. Racism is a cancer.
3. The US will spend nearly $200 Billion on police and prisons this year with over 2.2 million living behind bars. Russia, with over 540,000 prisoners, will spend approximately 2.50 Euros per day for each of them while its European neighbors spend about 128 Euros per day per prisoner. France and Germany combined have less that 200,000 people incarcerated. The domestic values of the nations with over 94% of the world’s nuclear arsenals need fixing. Their moral compass does not bestow any legitimacy for them to threaten humanity with annihilation as a justification for their exceptional security interests as they perceive them.
4. The majority of the world’s malnourished children live in South Asia, where more than one third of the 450 million children of Pakistan and India live each day under the burden of malnutrition and easily preventable diseases. Yet, nearly $70 Billion dollars is spent for militaries each year. India spends in excess of $5 billion and Pakistan in excess of $3 billion for their nuclear weapons programs.
5. The nuclear modernization programs of the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, UK, Israel, North Korea, and France, will spend in excess of a $1 Trillion dollars in the next decade. The US program will expend in excess of $1.6 Trillion over the next three decades.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Worldwide we need a change from spending such enormous sums on militaries and focus on meeting real human needs. The wealthiest most powerful nations must lead in this effort. This means funding and using the skills of diplomacy and finding common ground, protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, and enhancing justice and the rule of law at all levels. The
current US Administration is consciously crippling the capacity
of the Department of State to realize a human security agenda and
bloating the coffers of military contractors.
At GSI we focus on the elimination of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are one of a number of interconnected issues, including racism, the destruction of the regenerative processes of the natural world and the climate, and crippling poverty. These and other critical issues fall under the umbrella of the pursuit of justice and compassion for all. This is the core of human security, which is the core of our work. Join us in this commitment to a safer, saner, sustainable future.
Warmly,
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Jonathan Granoff
President, Global Security Institute
Senior Advisor and Special Representative to the UN for the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates
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Here are some suggested sources which we believe help bring clarity to this historic moment:
A Webinar video hosted by Woman’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Arms Control Association on the “N
ew Nuclear Arms Race
”
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May 27: American Bar Association Dialogue:
UN Under Secretary General Nakamitsu and GSI President Jonathan Granoff, with Presentation of Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr. Granoff
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Watch an inspiring dialogue on "Matters that Matter," with United Nations Under Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu and GSI President Jonathan Granoff, Chairman of the Task Force on Nuclear Nonproliferation and President of the Global Security Institute.
The virtual event includes the presentation of the ABA International Law Section's Lifetime Achievement Award to Jonathan Granoff by Michal Byowitz, United Nations Messengers of Peace Michael Douglas and Jane Goodall weigh in with messages about the award.
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April 22: The First Earth Day
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April 22, 1970 was the first Earth Day. And GSI co-founder Senator Alan Cranston was at UC Davis to make it memorable:
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UN International Day of Conscience
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On 25 July, 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted
a resolution
establishing April 5 as the International Day of Conscience. The resolution was sponsored by the Kingdom of Bahrain.
On April 5, 2020, dignitaries and artists gathered virtually to celebrate the UN International Day of Conscience. Global Security Institute is proud to have participated in the organization of the event, along with two of GSI’s Advisory Board members and UN Messengers of Peace, Jane Goodall and Michael Douglas.
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Former President Mikhail Gorbachev on COVID-19
Former President of the Soviet Union and GSI Advisory Board member Mikhail Gorbachev has been writing and speaking on the implication of COVID-19 on our future, and the actions called for by this global emergency.
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T
he Pope and the Bomb: Beyond Deterrence
GSI President and three GSI Advisory Board members delivered speeches to a Georgetown Conference on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
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On January 31, 2020, experts gathered at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to address challenges and solutions to the current crisis in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, with reference to Pope Francis’s condemnation of current policies.
Pope Francis, in an address in Hiroshima November 24, 2019, declared that “the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home.”
This workshops addressed the current state of nuclear geopolitics, alternative approaches to nuclear disarmament, and moral and pastoral implications of the Catholic Church’s evolving position on deterrence and nuclear disarmament.
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On January 28, 2020, New York City Council held public hearings on two measures (
draft Resolution 0976
and
Initiative 1621
) which if adopted would oblige the city to divest its city pension funds from the nuclear weapons industry and establish an advisory committee to develop city action to further implement its status as a nuclear-weapon-free zone. GSI was proud to participate in the hearing and deliver testimony.
New York peace, climate and disarmament activists have been campaigning to build endorsement from enough council members for the adoption of these two measures.
They have been supported by GSI-sponsored project Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, a global campaign to cut nuclear weapons budgets, end investments in the nuclear weapons and fossil fuel industries, and reallocate these budgets and investments to support peace, climate and sustainable development.
Councilor Helen Rosenthal, who introduced the resolution, said that ‘Helping to fund nuclear proliferation (whether directly via investments in weapons manufacturers, or indirectly via Citibank and other financial institutions with ties to weapons makers) runs contrary to what this city and our 300,000+ municipal workers stand for. Our teachers, fire fighters, social workers, and so many other public sector workers have devoted their careers to making life better for their fellow New Yorkers. We cannot in good conscience assist in underwriting the catastrophic loss of life and environmental ruin that would result from a nuclear conflict.’ Councillor Helen Rosenthal
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