Webinar: Profiteers of Armageddon: Inside the Nuclear Weapons Lobby

Join Bill Hartung and the War Industry Resisters Network during the September 16 – 22 international week of action for this in depth look inside the nuclear weapons lobby. Find out why the current massive nuclear weapons buildup and modernization proceeds unhindered despite the threat that it poses to the U.S. itself by increasing the danger of nuclear holocaust — to say nothing of the vast resources that are diverted to the nuclear weapons industry.

In this webinar, Bill Hartung lays out some of the key components of this nuclear buildup (a new generation of nuclear armed bombers, missiles and submarines), such as the new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, the Sentinel, as documented in his recent report for the Quincy Institute. He then peers behind the curtain to examine the numerous ways that the companies that get the contracts to produce new nuclear weapons actually shape U.S. nuclear policy in conjunction with government bureaucracies, members of Congress, and key communities that derive economic benefits from the perpetuation of this nuclear-industrial complex.

The combination of the influence of members of Congress whose states host the big contractors, vast campaign contributions to members of Armed Services Committees, the revolving door between Congress and the contractors, and armies of contractor lobbyists make up a formidable engine of support for these new weapons and a U.S. nuclear posture based on them. For instance the 11 major contractors for the new Sentinel ICBMs currently employ 275 lobbyists, the vast majority of whom come from influential positions in government.

Don’t miss this opportunity to take this deep dive inside the nuclear weapons lobby and to consider the struggle over our nuclear policies between special interests and the public interest.

William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute. He focuses on the arms industry and US military budget and was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011) and the co-editor, with Miriam Pemberton, of Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Paradigm Press, 2008). And Weapons for All (HarperCollins, 1995) is a critique of US arms sales policies from the Nixon through Clinton administrations.