Lawrence Wittner

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (better known as NATO) is in the news once again thanks to a NATO Summit meeting in Chicago over the weekend of May 19-20 and to large public demonstrations in Chicago against this military pact.

NATO's website defines the alliance's mission as "Peace and Security,"...

Many people might be surprised to learn that the May Day celebrations that occurred around the world in 2012 were born more than a century ago out of a struggle by American workers for the eight-hour day.

The late 19th century was a particularly hard and brutal time for working...

On April 17, 2012, as millions of Americans were filing their income tax returns, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest study of world military spending. In case Americans were wondering where most of their tax money -- and the tax money of other nations --...

Is it possible to cope with the immense dangers posed by the rapid consumption of the world's resources? In The Race for What's Left (Metropolitan Books, 2012), Michael Klare claims that it is -- but only through a significant change in behavior.

Klare is the author of 14 books, the...

On February 8, 2012, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act (H.R. 3974). This SANE Act would cut $100 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next ten...

As I'm not a famous politician, movie star, or athlete, people might well wonder how I -- a mere historian and academic -- ended up writing my recently-published autobiography, Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual. In fact, sometimes I wonder about it myself.

The...

Conservative politicians often portray the United Nations as a powerful monster, poised to gobble up the United States and other countries and put them under alien rule.

The reality, of course, is quite different. When it comes to international peace and security, the United Nations is notably lacking in power....

Are American politicians out of sync with the public when it comes to foreign policy? There is considerable reason to believe so.

Throughout the scramble for the GOP presidential nomination, the major candidates have certainly been rabidly nationalistic. In a key foreign policy address on October 7, 2011, Mitt Romney...

The Democratic Party's leftwing -- comprised, for the most part, of labor, peace, racial justice, women's rights, and environmental organizations, as well as unaffiliated progressive activists -- faces some difficult choices in 2012, when it will be dealing with numerous election campaigns.

Many progressives feel a keen sense of disappointment...

While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for centuries international conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon.

The...

If current polls are correct, Mitt Romney seems likely to become the 2012 Republican presidential candidate and the next president of the United States. Therefore, we should carefully examine his first major foreign and military policy address -- delivered on October 7 at the Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina --...

Can international diplomacy cope with the nuclear dangers that now threaten global survival? In The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (Metropolitan Books, 2011), Mohamed ElBaradei makes the case that it can -- if national governments would make a good faith effort to support it.

ElBaradei served from...

Should the U.S. government be building more nuclear weapons? Residents of Kansas City, Missouri don't appear to think so, for they are engaged in a bitter fight against the construction of a new nuclear weapons plant in their community.

The massive plant, 1.5 million square feet in size,

In the midst of the current stampede to slash federal spending, Congress might want to take a look at two unnecessary (and dangerous) "national security" programs that, if cut, would save the United States over a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next decade.

The first of these is...

Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.

According to a recent report from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures grew to a record $1.63 trillion...

Although people can be educated in a variety of ways, experience is a particularly effective teacher. Consider the Japanese, who today are certainly learning how dangerous nuclear power can be.

Of course, the Japanese people also have had a disastrous experience with nuclear weapons -- not only in 1945,...

Recently, when commentators have bothered to notice the American peace movement, they have pronounced it dead. But this is far from the case.

Admittedly, it is remarkably fragmented. Certainly, it contains no organization that plays a role comparable to NOW in the women's movement, the NAACP in...

The discussion of the Tucson tragedy should be familiar, as we witness similar massacres in U.S. schools, shopping centers, and other public places played out periodically. Each time, the NRA and other gun apologists tell us that the easy accessibility of firearms, including assault weapons, had nothing to do with...

Apocalypse Never (Rutgers University Press, 2010), by Tad Daley, is a new book that deserves wide circulation, for it is a spirited, ringing call for nuclear weapons abolition -- including why it is imperative and how it can be achieved.

According to Daley -- a former member of...

With U.S. Senate ratification of the New START treaty on December 22, supporters of nuclear disarmament won an important victory. Signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev last April, the treaty commits the two nations to cut the number of their deployed strategic (i.e. long-range) nuclear...