Swords into ploughshares

Short description: Converting weapons to peaceful civilian applications

This page 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.

Let Us Beat Swords into Ploughshares, a 1959 sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection The Starry Plough flag, with a sword in place of a ploughshare Hand-separated large candlestick church chandelier with brass wax drip tray – GDR around 1980 – Use of armoured steel and brass – Single piece – Weight 10 kilograms

"Beating swords into ploughshares" (or plowshares) is the conversion of military weapons or technologies for peaceful civilian applications. The phrase originates from Isaiah 2:4:

> 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. –

> --Isaiah 2:3–4

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: חֶרֶב ḥereḇ), a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The rest of the passage similarly equates spears with pruning hooks.

In addition to the original Biblical Messianic intent, the expression "beat swords into ploughshares" has been used by various pacifist movements.

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.

## Contents

* 1 Biblical references
* 2 Confucianism
* 3 Practical applications
* 4 In political and popular culture
* 5 See also
* 6 References

## Biblical references

Mosaic in the Beit Habad Gallery, Jerusalem, quoting Isaiah 2:4, with lion, spear and spade

Beyond the above usage in the Book of Isaiah, this analogy is used twice more in the Old Testament/Tanakh, in both directions. In Micah, it is recited word for word:

> 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.

> --Micah 4:3

In Joel, the opposite is said:

> Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”

> --Joel 3:10 or 4:10 in the Masoretic system.

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.

## Confucianism

James Legge's translation of Analects of Confucius includes a story of Confucius asking his disciples to list their aims, resulting in praise for the virtue of Yan Hui:[1]

> 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

Tokyo Tower, the second-tallest tower in Japan, is partially constructed from steel obtained by recycling US tanks damaged in battle during the Korean War.[2][3]

* After World War II, military surplus AFVs were sometimes converted into bulldozers, agricultural, and logging tractors, as seen in the American television series Ax Men.[4] Two are currently preserved at the Swords and Ploughshares Museum in Canada.[5][6] 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.[7] 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.[5]
* From the 1970s onward, several anti-war musicians have played guitars made from military surplus weapons. Jamaican reggae star Peter Tosh famously owned a Fender Stratocaster built around an M-16 rifle.[8] In the present day the Escopetarra, a guitar converted from the AK-47, is the signature instrument of César López, Souriya Sunshine, and Sami Lopakka of the Finnish death metal band Sentenced.[9]
* Nitrogen mustard, developed from the chemical weapon mustard gas developed in World War I,[10] became the basis for the world's first chemotherapy drug, mustine, developed through the 1940s.[11]
* Peaceful nuclear explosions, the application of nuclear detonations to civilian applications such as excavation and mining, explored by the USA (Project Plowshare) and USSR (Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy). However, the nuclear fallout and other contamination produced quickly rendered such programs impractical.
* 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.[12]
* 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.
* The ARPANET was built for the military to maintain communication among cities if certain major communication centers were destroyed. The concepts of packets and TCP/IP is the backbone for the modern-day internet.[13]
* The Modern Cellular Telephony Technology was built for the military to allow front line troops to communicate with each other as well as with base and headquarters. It provided automatic rerouting and switch between cells (i.e., roaming), the core of modern-day cellular technology.[14]
* The Plowshares movement (British, Christian, founded by Daniel Berrigan), Trident Ploughshares (British) and Pitstop Ploughshares (US, Christian) are peace movements, inspired by the book of Isaiah, in which participants attempt to damage or destroy modern weapons, such as nuclear missiles.
* The Megatons to Megawatts Program, agreed to in 1993 by the United States and Russia, successfully converted 500 metric tonnes of fuel from Soviet-era nuclear warheads into fuel for nuclear power plants over a period of 20 years.[15]

## In political and popular culture

* The Starry Plough, a flag associated with revolutionary Irish republicanism and socialism, features a sword as the plowshare.
* 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.[16]
* In his 1961 farewell address, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, when speaking about the military–industrial complex, stated:

> 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.[17][18][19]
* In their speeches at the signing of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty, Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin all referenced the saying in calling for peace.[20]
* In Ronald Reagan's address to the 42nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York.[21]

> 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?

* The 1992 song "Ashes In Your Mouth " by Megadeth[22] uses a reference to plows and shear to swords:

> 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

* The popular anti-war song "The Vine and Fig Tree" from the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp Songbook repeats the verse[23]

> 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.

* The song "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley (1989) uses the Joel inverted version of the phrase:

> 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

* "Heal the World" by Michael Jackson (1991):

> Create a world with no fear
>  Together we'll cry happy tears
>  See the nations turn
>  Their swords into plowshares

* Finale of the 1980 musical Les Misérables:

> 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.

* The name of a card in Magic: The Gathering, a popular trading card game.[24]
* A poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai:

> 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.

* Guns into Plowshares, a 1997 sculpture by Mennonite artists Esther Augsburger and Michael Augsburger
* 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.[25]

## See also

* Anti-war movement
* Atomic gardening
* Atoms for Peace
* Economic conversion
* Escopetarra
* Guns vs butter
* Project Plowshare
* Plowshares movement
* Religion and peacebuilding
* All flesh is grass

## References

1. ↑ Confucius (2012) (in en). Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean. ACLS Humanities E-Book. ISBN 978-0-486-12292-2. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb09336.0001.001.
2. ↑ Fackler, Martin (30 December 2008). "Tokyo Tower goes from futuristic hope to symbol of the good old days". https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/world/asia/30iht-tokyo.1.18997227.html.
3. ↑ "Day 259/365 of Steel - Tokyo Tower" (in en-US). 2023-11-28. https://steelexplained.com/day-259-365-of-steel-tokyo-tower/.
4. ↑ Templar, Simon (11 October 2015). "Civilian Shermans: after the war – they went to work...". https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/civilianshermans-after-the-war-they-went-to-work.html. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Spoelstra, Hanno. "Shermans into ploughshares". http://web.inter.nl.net/users/spoelstra/g104/ploughshare.htm. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
6. ↑ "The Swords And Ploughshares Museum". http://www.calnan.com/swords/. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
7. ↑ "BBC NEWS – Monitoring – Media reports – Ukraine turns tank into tractor". 19 October 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/2341811.stm. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
8. ↑ "More Than Music: Peter Tosh And His M16 Rifle Guitar". http://diply.com/reggae/article/tosh-m16-guitar. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
9. ↑ UNODC. "UNODC Perspectives No. 3 – Escopetarra: Instrument of peace". https://www.unodc.org/newsletter/en/perspectives/no03/page008.html. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
10. ↑ United States Department of State, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance; United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (May 2004). "Introduction to Industry Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention". cwc.gov. http://www.cwc.gov/assets/pdf/outreach_industry_publications_cwc004.pdf.
11. ↑ Gilman A (May 1963). "The initial clinical trial of nitrogen mustard". Am. J. Surg. 105 (5): 574–8. doi:10.1016/0002-9610(63)90232-0. PMID 13947966.
12. ↑ Kleinman, Zoe (2018). "Illegal guns turned into headphones" (in en-GB). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42599566.
13. ↑ "ARPANET on Wikipedia". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET.
14. ↑ "Cellular Communications". https://www.thenmusa.org/armyinnovations/cellularcommunications/.
15. ↑ "Megatons to Megawatts program will conclude at the end of 2013 – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)". https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=13091.
16. ↑ Paul, Ron (17 July 2015). Swords into Plowshares. Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. ISBN 978-0996426503.
17. ↑ United Press International (UPI) (20 January 1973). "Protestors' shouts mar inaugural ceremonies". https://www.upi.com/Archives/1973/01/20/Protestors-shouts-mar-inaugural-ceremonies/9270282371459/.
18. ↑ "These Are the Bible Verses Past Presidents Have Turned to on Inauguration Day". Time. https://time.com/4639596/inauguration-day-presidents-bible-passages/.
19. ↑ Ross, Scott (21 January 2013). "Obama's Inaugural Bibles: Lincoln, MLK". http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/Inuaration-Day-Bibles-and-Passages-186343462.html.
20. ↑ Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Office of the Federal Register. 1979. pp. 518–520. https://books.google.com/books?id=j_5-9zWaBI0C&pg=PA518.
21. ↑ "Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Archives". UTexas.edu. 1987-09-21. http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/092187b.htm. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
22. ↑ Concepts, Lucid Design. "Megadeth" (in en-US). https://megadeth.com/.
23. ↑ "Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp Songbook". Fredsakademiet.dk. http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/abase/sange/greenham/song9.htm. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
24. ↑ "Swords to Plowshares". https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=271.
25. ↑ "Object : Swords into Plowshares badge, GDR 1980". 1970-01-01. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/CXrfizyzQP2YFgx-BniBBw.

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