The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, is calling on the world’s nuclear powers to stop ratcheting up tensions as a new report shows a surge in nuclear weapons spending. In a recent interview, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance was weighing “how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored.” The U.S. currently has nuclear weapons deployed in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands, while Russia has recently deployed warheads to Belarus. ICAN said, “The NATO countries hosting U.S. nuclear weapons should admit to their citizens that they have these inhumane weapons on their soil without their say. … [No country] should be demonstrating their willingness to join in the killing of millions of people.” On Monday, Stoltenberg visited President Biden at the White House and spoke at the Wilson Center think tank, where he boasted of NATO’s increased weapons spending.

Jens Stoltenberg: ”NATO creates a market for defense sales. Over the last two years, more than two-thirds of European defense acquisitions were made with U.S. firms. That is more than $140 billion U.S. worth of contracts for U.S. defense companies. So NATO is good for U.S. security, good for U.S. industry and good for U.S. jobs.”