By Werner Lange, Ohio Peace Council, July 14, 2025
On the last day of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly recently held in Dayton, delegates unanimously adopted Resolution 497 which, among other belligerent assertions, emphasized “that only peace through strength can lead to lasting peace”. That is a fatally flawed and dangerous delusion. Peace through strength translates into the militaristic fallacy that “if you want peace, then prepare for war”. Preparation for war, which succinctly summarizes the overarching theme of the entire five-day Assembly, leads to war, not peace. NATO is not alone in that operational mobilization and development of war resources.
Plans are well underway to create a military-industrial-nuclear nexus in Ohio. With a massive AI weapons manufacturing plant (Anduril’s Arsenal-1) south of Columbus, a modernized nuclear fuel facility (Centrus Energy’s low-enriched uranium plant) on the heavily contaminated grounds of the former Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, and use of Wright-Patterson airbase in Dayton (as well as Rickenbacker by Columbus) as a deployment hub for the newly developed weapons, this trinity of military sites is designed to convert Ohio into the heart of new nuclear military industrial complex.
Centrus’ Piketon plant delivered its first supply of enriched uranium (20 kilograms) to the Department of Energy in late 2023; by 2028, this private corporation largely funded by federal dollars plans to vastly expand operations to house hundreds of centrifuges capable of producing 6,000 kilograms of enriched uranium 235 annually for the US military. Extensive radioactive pollution near the Piketon facility caused a local school to close, and the cancer rates in Pike County are the highest in Ohio. In a deeply disturbing report filed in April 2025 under the heading of “Land of Leukemia and Lymphoma”, local residents filling the auditorium of Piketon High School were asked if they had a family member contract cancer, die of cancer, or if they knew someone in the area who did. Nearly all stood up. The fallout is destined to continue if uranium enrichment expansion in Piketon proceeds as planned.
Anduril, founded in 2017, has the stated mission of “transforming defense capabilities with advanced technology”, i.e. peace through greater strength. Its Project Thor, when and if fully operational, intends to put a whole new generation of sophisticated lethal drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles into mass production at Arsenal-1, to be built in Pickaway County. Its founder, billionaire Palmer Luckey, who seems obsessed with war against China, claims to have chosen Ohio, instead of his native California, as the ideal production site due to its shamelessly cooperative and compliant politicians.
Much of the detail in nefarious deals cut by these merchants of death with local and state politicians has flown under the radar, and the public richly deserves full disclosure. Production at Arsenal-1 is expected to begin by mid-2026, precious little time for the greater expectation of peace through justice and truth to manifest itself.
Given the warmongering overtones voiced explicitly against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea at the Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, it did not come as a great surprise that an unprovoked military attack upon one of these so-called “Axis” nations came within a month. Without authorization by Congress and in violation of international law, the US bombed Iran on June 22, proving once again that peace through strength results in war. Yet the power of the people is greater than the people in power. And if there was ever a time to prove it, that time is now.
