War starts here

On Monday 2nd March, members of the European Antimilitarist Network and hundreds of activists from across the British isles rose early and prepared for a mass blockade of Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) - Burghfield Lockdown. Burghfield is one of the sites where the British government builds and maintains the nuclear warheads that are fundamental to the Trident nuclear weapons system (alongside Aldermaston, seven miles down the road). The activists were aiming to stop work at the base for the day by nonviolently blockading all of the entrances. Working in small affinity groups, they gathered at strategic points around the base, and all but shut the base by sitting in the roads, many locked together using chains and 'lock on tubes' – in fact, it seems work at the base that day had already been cancelled because of the action, something the protesters counted as an immediate success!

Position paper originating at the women’s workshop at the Counter Summit “No new Wars - No to NATO”

Newport, 1 September, 2014

As women of the No to War, No to NATO international action network we join in wholehearted condemnation of NATO as an aggressive, expansionist, nuclear armed military alliance. Its creation fostered decades of Cold War, its continued existence has perpetuated armed conflicts and wars, and its intention is clearly to assure long-term worldwide control by the USA and its allies in the interests of global corporate capital.

Hiroshima Remembrance Day , August 6 2014, 11 am. The blockade at the Lutzerather Gate of the Büchel nuclear base was cleared at about 6.30 am this morning to allow vehicles entry to the nuclear weapons base. Of the 12 activists blockading the gate, one could not be immediately removed because he had locked himself to the gate with a bike lock around his neck. The police had to lift him and open the gate with him still attached. After attempts to break the lock, the police were forced to cut the gate itself in order to remove the protester. He and two other activists without ID were arrested and taken to Cochen police station, one of them is under-age. All the other blockaders were let go after their personal details were recorded.

International activist enter water of the Spanish military to denounce military expenditure and infrastructure, pointing out that “War starts from here: let's stop it from here!”

Today, on 14 April, the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS), 40 antimilitarist activists from groups coming from Britain, Germany, the United States, and from several Spanish cities and the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, took part in a nonviolent direct action at the Navy Base (Arsenal Militar) of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. They visualised the global threat posed by military spending with a huge banner marked with yellow marks along which to “cut” definitively military spending and military infrastructures, penetrating military water by 200m. The activists approached a quay where the war ships Tornado and Meteoro of the Spanish navy where moored, in front of which they let two helium balloons of a diameter of 2m rise marked with antimilitarist symbols.

September 2, 2013: Activists from all over Europe today blockaded the two gates of AWE Burghfield, starting at 5:15am. For almost an hour, all vehicle access to AWE Burghfield was blocked, until police cleared a lock-on blockade of six Finnish activists on The Mearings to the south of the main gate. Later, a blockade of Scottish activists and another blockade of Belgian activists were cleared to the east of AWE Burghfield, near construction gate. Up to the time of writing, 22 activists have been arrested by police, and one blockade on The Mearings leading to the main gate of AWE Burghfield is still in place.

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By John LaForge

BÜCHEL AIR FORCE BASE, Germany -- Over 750 people converged here at the country's largest air base – although U.S. bases at Spangdahlem and Ramstein are far bigger -- to condemn the retention of 20 U.S. nuclear weapons, in open violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in a show of popular rebellion 150 hearty war resisters blockaded all nine base entrances for 24 hours. It was the first time in 16 years of resistance to the base's use of U.S. H-bombs by Germany's Tornado jet bombers that the compound had been completely closed to traffic by a protest.

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based on a piece by Cecil Arndt

In different countries, war and militarisation take on very different meanings and have different effects, depending not only on the presence or absence of direct acts of war but also on country's political, economic, and social circumstances, and its history and traditions. As these factors define not only to the types, levels, and effects of militarisation but also the ways in which it can be effectively resisted, the scope of this article is inevitably limited; it can only provide a Western, European, largely German perspective on the use of direct action to oppose the militarisation of youth, although it explores possibilities in other countries nonetheless.

Militarisation, in whatever form it takes, must be understood as always being directed at young people. The militarisation of youth relies not only on their direct recruitment into the armed forces, but on the widely growing intrusion of the military into the lives and minds of people of all ages. This intrusion influences individual daily routines, preferences and choices, as well as general perceptions. The common theme is the normalising of war and the military.

About 180 US nuclear bombs are still being stored in Europe for use by NATO in the event of a nuclear strike, although it is not clear who against. 20 of these nuclear bombs - left over from the Cold War - are deployed in Büchel in South Eifel (Rheinland-Pfalz), Germany.

Article written for Friedensforum

In 2016 the UK government will finalise the decision to build a new nuclear weapons system to replace the present Trident system (http://actionawe.org/the-trident-system/). The nuclear submarines that carry Trident are getting old, so the government has pledged to finalise contracts to replace them in 2016 in order to build a new generation of nuclear weapons at an estimated cost of £76–100 billion. This is more than the current planned public spending cuts of £81 billion. If the contracts go ahead, the warheads would be designed and manufactured at AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) Aldermaston and Burghfield, in Berkshire, about 50 miles west of London ( http://actionawe.org/awe-burghfield-maps-gates/ ).

INTERNATIONAL ANTI-MILITARIST CAMP 12. - 17. SEPTEMBER 2012 AT THE GÜZ ALTMARK/GERMANY DISCUSSIONS AND ACTIONS AGAINST THE COMBAT-TRAINING-CENTER OF BUNDESWEHR AND NATO

Howard Clark and Penny Stone at the opening of the international seminar War starts here in Luleå, Sweden, 2011.

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