About the Campaign

It is an absurd contradiction to speak of peace, to negotiate peace, and at the same time promote or permit the global arms trade. Is this war or that war really a war to solve problems? Or is it a commercial war for selling weapons in illegal trade and so that the merchants of death can get rich?” — Pope Francis


Divest from the War Machine encourages individual investors and our nation’s financial institutions to take action to reduce violent global conflicts and slow the hyper-militarization of our world by divesting from the U.S. War Machine, as well as companies invested in genocide and occupation globally.

Divestment from the War Machine means divesting (removing invested assets) from companies that derive their profits from U.S. military interventions, the global arms trade, Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the militarization of our streets.

Click here for the list of weapons manufacturers and military contractors from which we are divesting.

We are demanding that our universities, religious organizations, individual investors, retirement funds, mutual funds, and other financial institutions in the United States stop making a killing on killing.

Divestment allows us to:

  • Spark a vital public debate questioning the role of weapons manufacturers and military contractors in incentivizing and perpetuating conflict around the globe
  • Reveal how our financial and educational institutions play a role in enabling those companies and are thereby complicit in global militarism 
  • Inspire the public and investors to pressure these institutions to divest
  • Hold the arms industry accountable for its culpability in the death and displacement of millions of innocent people and condemn our government’s prioritization of military spending
  • Demand that diplomacy and aid, not militarism, be our country’s response to global conflicts and that our institutions invest in life-affirming programs

The United States’ preoccupation with expanding and protecting its military and economic interests has created a system of violence that targets the most vulnerable. This system prioritizes imperialism disguised as “defense” over human rights, military spending over diplomacy and aid, preparing for combat over preventing wars, and profit over human life and the health of the planet.

This divestment campaign calls for a radical reimagination of American priorities. Revoking the power of those who profit most from war-making is the first step in transforming our nation and ending the spread of violence, oppression, and death at home and abroad.

Divestment returns power to the public. Together, we will dismantle the war economy and demand that our nation uphold the rights of every human being to live in freedom and dignity, safe and free from poverty, danger, and despair, both at home and abroad.