He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.- Isaiah 2:4
The enormous amounts of money, time, resources, and human labor and ingenuity wasted annually in military expenses is mind-boggling. Maintaining a foreign policy based on hegemonism and domination brings destruction across the world, and decay at home.
The concept of “beating swords into plowshares” is now more relevant than ever. This transformation represents a strategic pivot of the military-financial-industrial complex towards producing high-tech products crucial for such fields as infrastructure, manufacturing, fusion research, and space science.
Simply in monetary terms, the enormous sums wasted since the 2001 beginning of the “Global War on Terror” could have built a U.S. nationwide network of high-speed rail, continental water management based on the proposed North American Water and Power Alliance, numerous nuclear power plants, experimental (or by now, commercial) fusion reactors, and enough space modules to begin serious permanent work on the Moon.
We don’t have those things today, and it’s because of bad choices made over decades, and the cultural errors that allow those foolish decisions to be made.
As President Eisenhower remarked in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft, from those who hunger, and are not fed, those who are cold, and are not clothed.… It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
The productive capacity currently creating the weapons being lavished upon Israel in its military operation to expel the Palestinians of Gaza could instead be called upon to develop the canals, desalination, irrigation, and energy infrastructure of the Oasis Plan, winning a war against the desert and underdevelopment.
The time is ripe for a worldwide recalibration of values, for a shift in the policies guiding national and social decisions. It is time to foster and act on the freedom to do good!
Use this mass-distribution leaflet on retooling the military-industrial complex for peace.
The Swords to Plowshares Act of 2024
Toward this end, the LaRouche Organization is proud to announce The Swords to Plowshares Act of 2024. This draft legislation is an outline of legislation that Congress should pass to address the urgent security and economic crises facing the United States and the world.
The $17 trillion the United States has spent so far in the 21st Century on military weapons systems and mobilization for wars is far in excess of its needs for defense. This has certainly played a role in massive federal debt the U.S. has accumulated, which now totals over $34 trillion.
These investments have not resulted in benefits for the countries they have been deployed into, but rather have wreaked death and destruction widely, including tragic effects for many American service members and veterans. In addition, this money has not resulted in any substantial productivity increases in the U.S. economy, and in many cases has not even produced significant numbers of jobs as so much production has been sent overseas.
Therefore this draft legislation aims to redirect the monies currently going toward useless wars instead into the actual economic development of ours and our allies nations.
Turn the Military-Financial Complex to Useful Production
While the military-industrial complex is widely-known, what remains little understood is the role that Wall St. and finance plays in pulling its strings. The LaRouche movement has published the following preliminary report detailing the incredibly integrated relationship between all of the major defense contractors and their largest stockholders—a spot held by one of only a handful of the largest Wall St. mega-speculators in each and every case.
Use this report to understand the true nature of the military-industrial-financial complex, and how, instead of an arm of blood-stained financial profits, its vital capacities could be turned to peaceful production.
Eisenhower’s 1953 ‘Chance for Peace’: War Producers Can Retool for Humanity
On April 16, 1953, just three months after his inauguration, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, on “The Chance for Peace.” Behind the scenes, Eisenhower was arranging for an armistice to end the Korean War, which would ultimately be signed July 27, 1953, although it left Korea divided in two.
His words embody the notion of "Swords to Plowshares." And possibly even more importantly, they truly show that there is another America—one that would, and could again today, choose the path of peace over endless war.
During this period, Eisenhower was looking for something more profound—an enduring peace based on “our firm faith that God created men to enjoy, not destroy, the fruits of the Earth and of their toil.” In presenting his view, Eisenhower laid bare his belief that the factories that produced for war could be turned into productive facilities which would produce the necessities of human existence and peace. The statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche referred to that phenomenon as “retooling” facilities for productive purposes.
This article presents some quotes from Eisenhower’s momentous April 1953 speech, delivered by a Five-Star General who, after having led the Allied forces in Europe as Supreme Commander during World War II, had declared on Jan. 10, 1946 before the Canadian Club, Ottawa.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
- Eisenhower, April 16, 1953