Swords to ploughshares

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Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich^[1]

Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications. The plowshare is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit mankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword, a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The common expression "beat swords into plowshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups. The term's origin is a number of biblical quotes:

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say "I am strong." — Joel 3:10
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 & Micah 4:3

One of the longest-running and most intricate efforts in this vein has been the project to develop power sources out of nuclear weapon technologies. Nuclear fission has been applied to many civilian purposes since its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but nuclear fusion requires further research before it can become practical to the same degree.

1 List of notable cases
2 References in popular culture
3 Quotes
4 References
5 See also

[edit] List of notable cases

The Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares statue at United Nations headquarters, New York.

Radar was initially developed for detection of incoming bombers, now used in commercial airliners. The microwave oven is also a consequence of this technology
The Internet in its initial design was for military communications. Developed by DARPA USA defense research.
Public key cryptography was developed by GCHQ for military communications. Now strong encryption is in general use, such as for financial transactions
Jet engines were developed for fighter craft by Britain and Germany during the Second World War
The Space Race was based on technology, in particular rockets, designed for nuclear warfare
The first computers, Colossus and ENIAC were developed for codebreaking or the calculation of ballistic trajectories; many of their predecessors were designed to assist in military codebreaking
Roman roads were designed for the rapid transport of troops, but were used by civilians for millennia afterwards
The Global Positioning System (GPS) was developed under the United States Department of Defense for military navigational purposes. The system has been released for free civilian use, e.g. in land, sea and air navigation, cartography and land surveying.
Cyanoacrylate was developed in an attempt to produce synthetic gunsights for airplanes during World War II, but was too sticky to be useful. It is now commonly sold as super glue.
Active sonar was developed during World War I to facilitate the discovery of enemy submarines, which led to medical ultrasonography.
Facial tissues such as Kleenex were originally created while attempting to develop better gas mask filter membranes.
In several former Soviet republics, large stocks of a rocket fuel component, mélange, (a mixture of nitric acid and nitrogen oxides that would have otherwise posed significant a environmental hazard) were recycled into fertilizer by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. [1][2].
Old M20 recoilless rifles are being used as part of a avalanche control system used by the U.S. National Park Service.

[edit] References in popular culture

The popular anti-war song "The Vine and Fig Tree" repeats the verse ^[2]

"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 game of Magic: The Gathering includes a card called Swords to Plowshares that removes a creature from the game, granting additional life to creature's controller, i.e. effectively converting warriors to non-violent life points.
Until the nations turn their swords into plowshares — Heal The World by Michael Jackson (1991)
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. — Finale of the musical Les Misérables

The Don Henley song The End of the Innocence contains the line: They're beating plowshares into swords, for the tired old man that we elected king.
The Stephen Stills song Feed the People includes the line: Turn your swords to ploughshares everywhere, and feed the people.
The phrase beat their swords into plowshares is the motto of the World Ploughing Association.

[edit] Quotes

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will end up plowing for those who did not." -Anonymous
And they'll beat swords into ploughshares and ploughshares into swords, and so on and so on, and back and forth. 'Sort of An Apocalypse', Yehuda Amichai, 1958