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military-industrial complex
'Up in Arms': Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Launches New Campaign Against Bloated Pentagon Budget
"If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want," said Ben Cohen, "the American Dream can become a reality again."
Jun 14, 2025
Joined by retired military officers and national security experts, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen on Thursday launched a campaign targeting the nearly $900 billion Pentagon budget and the $100 billion spent on nuclear weapons and "to get our country to start funding the American Dream instead of the death of millions of people."
Standing near Union Station in Washington, D.C. beside a towering sculpture showing what $100 billion looks like, supporters of the Up in Arms campaign—a planned four-year public education and advocacy project "to bring common sense to the Department of Defense and the country's budgetary bottom line"—chanted, "Money for the poor, not nuclear war!"
"There will be no peace, there will be no security, until we start using our resources to provide for the needs of our people at home and around the world," Cohen said at the event. "And we have the money to do it, at no additional taxpayer expense. If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again."
The peace group Ploughshares, which moderated a press conference for the launch of Up in Arms, said that the faux-$100 billion installation could be the tallest protest structure ever erected in Washington, D.C.
"This is a structure that represents the $100 billion that our country spends each year on nuclear weapons," Cohen said while standing in front of the tower and embracing Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the peace group CodePink. "Fifty percent of that is for a whole new generation of nuclear weapons."
"Ice cream not bombs!" Benjamin said next. "Ice cream not nuclear weapons!"
The $100 billion figure includes spending on modernizing the nuclear arsenal, supporting its infrastructure, and addressing legacy issues like nuclear waste.
"Congress could make it easier for Americans to buy homes and save on gas or they could tackle the opioid epidemic–but those are clearly NOT their priorities," Up in Arms says on its website. "We have all the money we need to create a good life for all Americans. For half the money we spend on nuclear bombs, we could stop poisoning kids with lead, provide funding for public schools, and make childcare affordable."
Former U.S. military officers-turned-peace defenders Dennis Laich, Lawrence Wilkerson, Ann Wright, Karen Kwiatkowski, William Astore, and Dennis Fritz, as well as FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and former CIA officer Ray McGovern, are taking part in the Up in Arms campaign.
"We're here today to say we don't want our money spent this way, we want our money spent… on things that keep people alive, not on things that kill people," said Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and current member of the Eisenhower Media Network and Veterans Against Genocide.
"We're up in arms and down on these damn nuclear weapons," she added, "and We the People have to be able to go to each one of these congresspeople and say, 'We don't care how much money you're getting from all of these companies that make a killing out if killing with these nuclear weapons.'"
Laich, a former U.S. Army general also with the Eisenhower Media Network, noted that the U.S. military budget "is larger than the next 10 countries combined, and what do we get for it?"
"Since World War II, we tied in Korea, we lost in Vietnam, we won the first Gulf War, we lost in Iraq, and we lost in Afghanistan," he said. "They always say we have the greatest military on earth; I don't buy it."
President Donald Trump is proposing a record $1 trillion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2026 while backing legislation that would dramatically slash spending on vital social programs in order to fund a massive tax break that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations.
On Friday, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—which earned the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—published an analysis showing the world's nine nuclear powers spent a combined baseline $100 billion on their arsenals last year, an 11% increase from 2023. The United States alone accounted for well over half of that amount.
Cohen is a longtime anti-war activist. Last month, he was arrested after disrupting a Senate hearing, shouting, "Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the U.S." as he was hauled off by police.
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War Profiteers Benefit as Nuclear Weapons Spending Soared Above $100 Billion Last Year
New analysis reveals that global nuclear weapons spending "could feed all of the 345 million people currently facing the most severe levels of hunger globally, including starvation, for nearly two years."
Jun 13, 2025
The world's nine nuclear-armed nations spent more than $100 billion on their atomic arsenals last year—up 11% from 2023—with the United States accounting for both the largest share and biggest increase in expenditures, a report published Friday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reveals.
The new ICAN analysis identifies a $9.9 billion increase in global nuclear weapons spending in 2024, with the U.S.—the only country to ever carry out a nuclear attack on another nation—spending $56.8 billion, more than the combined expenditures of the eight other countries with nukes. In addition to the U.S., Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have nuclear arsenals. The $5.3 billion annual spending increase by the U.S. was also more than any other nuclear power.
All that spending on doomsday weapons padded the profits of major arms makers. According to the report:
In 2024, at least twenty-six companies working on nuclear weapons development and maintenance held significant contracts for their work. These companies earned at least $43.5 billion in the year and hold at least $463 billion in outstanding contracts. In 2024, new contracts worth around $20 billion were awarded to these companies. The companies identified in this report paid lobbyists in France and the United States more than $128 million to represent their interests last year. They also had 196 meetings with high-level U.K. officials including 18 with the prime minister's office in 2024.
"Nuclear-armed countries could have paid the United Nations' budget 28 times with what they spent to build and maintain nuclear weapons in 2024," the report states. "They could feed all of the 345 million people currently facing the most severe levels of hunger globally, including starvation, for nearly two years."
Noting that "98 countries have signed, ratified, or acceded" to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), ICAN—which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the landmark accord—asserted that "it is up to each government, and the citizens of that country, to decide which path they will choose."
ICAN asserted that the stakes are higher than at any time in a generation.
"With two major wars involving nuclear-armed states in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as nuclear tensions escalating between India and Pakistan and on the Korean Peninsula, the risk that nuclear weapons could be used in combat is widely regarded as the highest it has been since the Cold War and possibly ever," the group warned Friday in a separate statement. "In response, the nuclear-armed states are clinging to the doctrine of deterrence which is based on brinkmanship and the threat to use nuclear weapons, exacerbating the risk of conflict."
Susi Snyder, ICAN program coordinator and report co-author, said Friday that the global crisis of nuclear proliferation and out-of-control spending can be solved, but that "doing so means understanding the vested interests fiercely defending the option for nine countries to indiscriminately murder civilians."
"The good news," she added, "is a majority are going in another direction. Ninety-eight states, supported by over 700 civil society organizations, have either signed, ratified, or directly acceded to the... TPNW that came into force four years ago."
This year's ICAN report highlighted the "hidden costs" of nuclear weapons.
"It's an affront to democracy that citizens and lawmakers in countries that boast of their democratic credentials are not allowed to know that nuclear weapons from other countries are based on their soil or how much of their taxes is being spent on them," ICAN policy and research coordinator and report co-author Alicia Sanders-Zakre said. "It is time for these democratically elected leaders to heed the call of their people to remove nuclear weapons from their countries and work for their total elimination."
Responding to the report, Oliver Meier, policy and research director at the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, said, "At a time when better transparency and accountability of nuclear weapon states range high on the agenda of many non-nuclear weapon states, the absolute secrecy and lack of engagement on the costs of Russian and NATO nuclear sharing arrangements are an anachronism."
"In democratic societies, legislators and other stakeholders must have opportunities to review these arrangements, including relevant expenditure," he added.
The day before ICAN published the report, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, was joined by retired military officers and national security experts in Washington, D.C. for the launch of Up In Arms, a four-year campaign "to bring common sense to the Department of Defense and the country's budgetary bottom line."
"There will be no peace, there will be no security, until we start using our resources to provide for the needs of our people at home and around the world," said Cohen. "And we have the money to do it, at no additional taxpayer expense. If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again."
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In Bonanza for Arms Industry, Trump Announces Record $142 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis
"I like him a lot," Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a prolific human rights violator. "I like him too much."
May 13, 2025
In what the White House described as "the largest defense sales agreement in history," U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a deal for prolific human rights violator Saudi Arabia to purchase $142 billion worth of arms from a dozen different American companies.
The White House unveiled the sale as Trump visited Saudi leaders including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom's capital city of Riyadh on the first leg of a Mideast tour, with stops also scheduled in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A fact sheet published by the executive office said the arms sale involves "air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization, and information and communication systems upgrades."
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince."
Reutersreported that military-industrial complex titans including Lockheed Martin, RTX—formerly Raytheon—Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics are involved in the deal. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia reportedly discussed the potential sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom, but it remains unclear if the Trump administration will allow the transfer of the highly advanced warplanes.
The agreement is part of a broader Saudi commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States, which the White House said will "strengthen our energy security, defense industry, technology leadership, and access to global infrastructure and critical minerals."
Trump and his relatives, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, enjoy close personal and financial relations with the Saudi royal family, which has poured billions of dollars into their business ventures.
During a signing ceremony, Trump—who apparently fell asleep during the proceedings—joked that the Saudis should invest $1 trillion.
Business leaders including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is also the de facto Department of Government Efficiency chief—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, CitiGroup CEO Jane Fraser, and the heads of investment firms including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Blackstone Group also traveled to Saudi Arabia.
Critics including congressional progressives and anti-war groups have long opposed U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which stands accused of a litany of human rights violations including bombing and starving civilians in Yemen, massacring African migrants, and the 2018 murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, Congress passed three bipartisan bills aimed at blocking an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner in the U.S.-backed war on Yemen, the United Arab Emirates. Trump vetoed the legislation. His successor, former President Joe Biden, paused U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE but subsequently lifted the freeze despite pleas from human rights defenders.
The record arms sale comes amid Trump's effort to broker a diplomatic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The president is no longer demanding that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a precondition for a civilian nuclear cooperation deal, a move that reportedly alarmed Israel's far-right government.
Trump lavished praise on the Saudi monarchy in a rambling speech in Riyadh on Tuesday, hailing bin Salman as an "incredible man."
Trump gushes over MBS: "We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger and nobody like the gentleman right before me. He's your greatest representative. And if I didn't like him, I'd get out of here so fast. He knows me well. I do. I like him a lot. I like him too much."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
"We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger, and nobody like the gentleman that's right before me, he's your greatest representative, your greatest representative," Trump said. "And if I didn't like him, I would get out of here so fast. You know that don't you? He knows me well."
"I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much, that's why we give so much, you know?" the president continued. "Too much. I like you too much!"
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he added.
Trump also announced that the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria and restore relations with the country's new government, a move the peace group CodePink called "good news."
"The bad news is he's making new arms deals with Saudi Arabia, jeopardizing diplomacy with Iran, and continuing to ignore the U.S. and Israel's genocide in Gaza as they drop bombs on hospitals," the group added.
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