The Broken Rifle

Drones are changing the nature of war and our thinking about safety and security. The technical developments are moving incredibly fast and they pose fundamental questions.

The ancestral custodians of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, call their territory the heart of the world. This week the city of Santa Marta hosts the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.

US activists are mobilising against plans for automatic registration of potential draftees, warning of expanding militarisation and surveillance. In the latest Broken Rifle blog, Edward Hasbrouck examines how the proposal could strengthen draft preparedness, enable data misuse, and sustain future wars.

This article is the second in a two-part series. In Part I, Marah Frech traced the emergence of student-led protests across Germany against the possible return of conscription. Part II turns to the challenges this growing movement now faces, from marginalisation and co-optation to questions of intergenerational organising and its future direction.

Under the slogan “No to conscription and war preparations! The rich want war – the youth want a future!”, students across Germany have been protesting against the reintroduction of conscription. Marah Frech explores how students and young people across Germany are coming together in a nationwide wave of protests against proposals that could bring back compulsory military service, signalling a renewed resistance to conscription.

When bombs fall, people are forced to decide: do we repeat cycles of violence, or do we break free from them? In the face of the US invasion and the state of external emergency declared in Venezuela, we reaffirm this position: we will not choose between oppressors. Our compass is the protection of life, not loyalty to those who disregard it.

At first, no one really believed that Donald Trump was really serious about owning Greenland, using military force if necessary. But people became more alarmed after Katie Miller, the wife of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, published a meme with a map of Greenland in the colours of the American flag and the word “Soon”.

Marc Morgan of the Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente (MAN) recently visited Kosovo and shared a report with the WRI office. Below is a short extract from his report, exploring the work of human rights activist Shkëlzen Gashi, and a visit to the Museum of Independence, which among other exhibits features the work of a former Chair of WRI, Howard Clark.

The RSF militia is committing genocide in Darfur in western Sudan, in the course of its civil war with Sudan's military rulers. The RSF is armed by the UAE, a western ally in the Gulf which receives huge arms supplies from France, the US, the UK and others. UK military equipment sold to the UAE has been found in the hands of the RSF. The UK and other countries must stop arming UAE now and make concerted efforts to end the war and the genocide.

I didn't need to follow the news to know something was happening. From where I live, inside the belly of the beast, I could hear the warplanes and feel the quaking of the explosions.

This article, written by two participants from the Canary Islands in the Global March to Gaza, recounts the experience of a self-organised international mobilisation that brought together over 4,000 people from around the world to denounce the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. Through a non-violent and collective action, they reflect on the lessons learned, challenges faced, and future prospects of a global struggle for justice, dignity, and human rights.

Last week, on the first day of the 2025 Nato summit, Rotterdam harbour’s railways were shut down by action group Geef Tegengas. The group focuses on how logistical hubs act as bottlenecks of the industries fuelling war, genocide, injustice and ecological collapse. In this piece, one of the activists involved reflects on the group’s recent action.