World Beyond War

World Beyond War has 32 chapters in 11 countries, along with 99 global affiliates. ¹

Goals

World Beyond War supports “closing all military bases” around the world, starting with bases located outside a nation’s own national borders. The organization’s website has an interactive map showing 867 military bases throughout the world. ²

WBW advocates for ending all foreign military aid. In August 2021, to protest Canada’s military aid support for Saudi Arabia, WBW painted red tank tracks on the private homes of Canadian Liberal Members of Parliament Peter Fragiskatos and Kate Young, as well as General Dynamics executive Danny Deep, to commemorate an airstrike on a bus in Yemen by Saudi Arabia that killed 40 children. Fragiskatos called the display “beyond unacceptable.” ³

WBW supports divestment industries and companies that create products and services used in wars. In 2019, WBW successfully supported an effort to get Charlottesville, Virginia to pass a resolution to “divest all public money from weapons companies, major war profiteers, and fossil fuel companies.” ^{4 5}

WBW supports demilitarizing the police. The organization claims that police militarization “does not reduce crime but does increase police killings.” ⁶

WBW supports the “3% Plan,” a proposal to divert 3 percent of U.S. military spending or 1.5 percent of global military spending (about $30 billion) to global food efforts. Allegedly, this sum of funds would end world hunger according to a 2008 report from the United Nations. ⁷

WBW supports permitting the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes perpetrated by the U.S. Military. ⁸

WBW supports efforts to subvert military recruitment in American schools. These efforts include advocating for changes to laws permitting the Pentagon to recruit in schools. ⁹

WBW supports an immediate ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Prior to the invasion, WBW had sent a letter to NATO urging the organization not to escalate tensions between Russia and Ukraine. ^{10 11}

WBW signed a petition supporting March on Washington for Gaza, a movement that supports an armistice in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. ¹²

Leadership

David Swanson is a co-founder and the executive director of World Beyond War, and a long-time anti-war activist. Across 17 books, Swanson has laid out the case for war never being morally justified under any circumstance. For instance, in 2016’s War is Never Just, Swanson argues against “just war theory,” stating that its justifications for war are “either unmeasurable, unachievable, or amoral, and the perspective taken too narrow.” He sits on the boards of the Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Veterans For Peace, Assange Defense, BPUR, Military Families Speak Out, Fields of Peace, and Peace in Ukraine Coalition. Previously, Swanson co-founded After Downing Street (later renamed Warisacrime.org) and Debtslavery.org, and has worked for RootsAction, Veterans for Peace, Free Speech for People, Democrats.com, the International Labor Communications Association (a component of the AFL-CIO), the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the 2004 presidential campaign of U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). ¹³

David Hartsough is a co-founder and board member of WBW. Hartsough is a Quaker and long-time peace activist who has joined peaceful protest movements throughout the world, including in Kosovo, the Soviet Union, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. In 1982, Hartsough co-founded Nuremberg Actions, a group that blocked weapons shipments to Latin America. In 2002, he co-founded Nonviolent Peaceforce, a global protest group. Hartsough has been arrested over 150 times for protests and activism. ¹⁴

Funding

World Beyond War has received funding from Home Rule Globally, Christopher and LuAnne Hormel of the Fire Monkey Fund of RSF Social Finance, the Jubitz Family Foundation, the Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the Vermont Community Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, Peaceworkers, the Wallace Action Fund, Bend the Arc, the Cove Charitable Fund, the James R. and Mary Jane Barrett Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the War and Peace Foundation for Education. ¹⁵

According to WBW, the organization was rejected by the Canadian government in its attempt to attain a charitable status that made its donations tax exempt because the government deemed WBW “unacceptably biased against war.” ¹⁶