Converting weapons to peaceful civilian applications
This article is about converting military technology. For the American veterans' NPO, see Swords to Plowshares. For the Bible verse where the term originates, see Isaiah 2.
Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. –
The ploughshare (Hebrew: אֵת’êṯ, also translated coulter) is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit humankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword (Hebrew: חֶרֶבḥereḇ), a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use.
In addition to the original Biblical Messianic intent, the expression "beat swords into ploughshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups.
A past example from the period 1993 continuing to 2013 is the dismantling of nuclear weapons and the use of their contents as fuel in civilian electric power stations, the Megatons to Megawatts Program. Nuclear fission development, originally accelerated for World War II weapons needs, has been applied to many civilian purposes since its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including electricity and radiopharmaceutical production.
Biblical references
Beyond the above usage in the Book of Isaiah, this analogy is used twice more in the Old Testament/Tanakh, in both directions:
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”
This is the opposite of what Micah says in Micah 4:3 (see below).
He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
An expression of this concept can be seen in a bronze statue in the United Nations garden called Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a gift from the Soviet Union sculpted by Evgeniy Vuchetich, representing the figure of a man hammering a sword into the shape of a plowshare.
At last came Yen Yuan, who said "I should like to find an intelligent king and sage ruler whom I might assist. I would diffuse among the people instructions on the five great points, and lead them on by the rules of propriety and music, so that they should not care to fortify their cities by walls and moats, but would fuse their swords and spears into implements of agriculture.
— "Chapter V, Section III: His Immediate Disciples", Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean (1892)
Practical applications
After World War II, military surplusAFVs were sometimes converted into bulldozers, agricultural, and logging tractors, as seen in the American television series Axe Men.[2] Two are currently preserved at the Swords and Ploughshares Museum in Canada.[3][4] French farmers sometimes used modified versions of the obsolete FT-17 tank, and similar vehicles, based on the T-34 tank, remain in widespread use in the former USSR.[5] A British agricultural engineer and collector of classic tractors, owns a Sherman tank that was adapted to plow Lincolnshire's fields in response to the shortage of crawler tractors.[3]
Nitrogen mustard, developed from the chemical weapon mustard gas developed in World War I,[8] became the basis for the world's first chemotherapy drug, mustine, developed through the 1940s.[9]
Swedish aid organization IM Swedish Development Partner launched Humanium Metal, using metal from illegal handguns to create everyday objects. The first product announced was headphones by Yevo.[10]
The Global Positioning System was originally developed to enable more accurate strikes with long-range weapons by the United States, but its purpose was later expanded to include civilian applications such as personal navigation assistants.
Twelve-term US Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul wrote a book entitled Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity, in which he discusses growing up during World War II and living his life through war after war.[12]
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
For his first and second inaugurations, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the oath of office with his hand on two family Bibles, opened to Isaiah 2:2–4.[13][14][15]
Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences world-wide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien than war and the threat of war?
Melting down all metals, turning plows and shears to swords
Shun words of the Bible, we need implements of war
Chalklines and red puddles of those who have been slain
Destiny, that crooked schemer, says the dead shall rise again
And everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid,
Everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the ploughshare,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward.
Don’t stop after beating the swords
into plowshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into plowshares first.
The marketing slogan used by the fictional Globotech Industries in Small Soldiers, serving as the introduction to the movie, and foreshadowing the central plot of smart ballistic missile guidance microprocessors being mistakenly used in children's toys.
A "Swords into Ploughshares" badge was worn by Christian peace groups in East Germany. Wearers of the badge who refused to take it off were barred from educational and work opportunities by the state.[21]