Transforming
The Swords Of Russia Into Ploughshares
Swords
Into Plowshares: Annual Report
By
Rabbi Shimon Silman, Director of the Rabbi Yisroel Aryeh Leib
Research Institute on Moshiach & the Sciences, Professor of
Mathematics, Touro College
Seven
years ago this week (the week of
Parshas Mishpatim, 5752), a well known conference took place in
New York City at the United Nations between the leaders of the
major nations of the world — President Bush, Yeltsin, and
leaders of other major military powers. In this meeting a joint
resolution was made to begin the reduction of armaments and to use
the resources and technology to further the development of
economic conditions in the world, to increase food production, and
to benefit mankind in general.
This
meeting and this resolution probably escaped the attention of most
of us, or perhaps it was simply passed off as political rhetoric.
But the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach, who sees deeper into things,
talked about it the next day at the farbrengen of Shabbos
Parshas Mishpatim, 5752. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach said that
this announcement by the leaders of the nations of the world —
that they intend to reduce their military operations and increase
food production in the world — is the beginning of the
fulfillment of the prophecy of Yishayahu HaNavi, the Prophet
Isaiah, thousands of years earlier, that in the times of Moshiach
the nations of the world will “beat their swords into
plowshares.”
The
Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach continued that this was the direct effect
of Melech HaMoshiach on the nations of the world, and the Rebbe
Melech HaMoshiach discussed at length the steps leading up to
this. That is, the spreading of the wellsprings, the
spreading of Chassidus and Yiddishkeit throughout the world, and
especially the spreading of Sheva Mitzvos B’nei Noach
among the non Jews, eventually lead to the collapse of the
atheistic government in Russia and ultimately to the global
resolution to “beat swords into plowshares.”
Of
course, this resolution and proclamation was not just a single
isolated event, but the beginning of a process that will continue
at an accelerated pace until the prophecy is completely fulfilled
with the true and complete Redemption. Over the past seven years
there have been thousands of examples of the transformation of
military technologies into peaceful applications.
At
the annual Moshiach & Science conferences of the Rabbi Yisroel
Aryeh Leib Research Institute on Moshiach and the Sciences we
frequently report on what’s new in “Swords Into Plowshares.”
Our first report on this matter was in 5753, by the man in
the United States in the best position to talk about it, the man
at the forefront of research into military technology, namely, the
well-known Lubavitcher Chassid, Dr. Naftali Berg, z’l,
Director of Research of the Advance Technology Office of the Army
Research Center at the Pentagon. Dr. Berg spoke about how military
technology at the Pentagon is being transformed to be used for
peaceful purposes. [The full text and tapes of his lecture are
available from the RYAL Institute, 718-604-4700, RYALinst@aol.com.]
One
example Dr. Berg cited is Dual Use Technology, a new program
initiated by the current administration of the United States
government to include research for the sake of peaceful ends along
with every instance of military research.
This
brings us to the main theme of this paper, the transformation of
military technology to be used for peaceful purposes in
Russia, the most militant of all the nations in recent
history.
The
development in the area of turning “swords into plowshares”
that has been recently taking place in Russia goes beyond anything
that is happening in the United States. The background for this
achievement is as follows:
A
few days after the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach announced that the
prophecy of Yishayahu that “they shall beat their swords into
plowshares” has begun to be fulfilled, President Yeltsin and
President Bush sat down together at Camp David and made a plan to
establish the International Science and Technology Center in
Moscow, a center for the development of scientific projects for
former military scientists in Russia to work on transforming the
Russian military science and technology such that it may be used
for peaceful ends.
Over
the next two years this goal became a reality. By 1994 there was a
functioning institute of science and technology in Moscow funded
by the United States, Russia, Japan, and the European Union. These
countries invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the
project. The first executive director of the institute was an
American named Glenn Schweitzer, who wrote a book called “Moscow
DMZ: The Story of the International Effort to Convert the Russian
Weapon Science to Peaceful Purposes,” documenting the
institute’s accomplishments during its first years.
The
first point I want to make about the International Science and
Technology Center (ISTC) is that whereas with respect to the
United States, Dual Use Technology was considered a very good
development, for the ISTC in Russia, Dual Use Technology was not
good enough. While the Pentagon may be required to pursue a dual
use policy rather than a pure military policy, it, nevertheless,
maintains its interest in advancing military technology. Thus Dual
Use Technology may be the best we can hope for in America until we
see the complete Redemption when there is no more war and no more
swords, no more military and no more weapons.
Of
course, United States, Europe, and Japan would not be interested
in pumping millions of dollars into Russia to finance scientific
projects which could be used for military purposes as well as peaceful
purposes. They would be interested only if the projects had
strictly peaceful applications with no possibility of their being
used for any military purposes. These were the only kind of
projects that the ISTC considered.
I
would like to give some examples of the projects — and the
scientists involved — that the ISTC sponsored. The author Moscow
DMZ estimates that when the Russian Military machine was fully
functioning, there were approximately one million scientists,
engineers, and technicians working for the Russian military. It
was estimated that after the fall of the Communist government,
about 60,000 of these had to be targeted for international science
and technology projects. These were the ones who were most
volatile and dangerous. They were scientists and engineers who if
approached (as many of them were) by Arab or far eastern countries
to work in those countries to promote their nuclear technology
programs, they would be the ones most useful to those countries.
In other words if a low level technician took such a job he could
not cause much harm, but if a high level technician or scientist
took such a job, his participation would be very beneficial to
their projects and thus a threat to world peace.
Contributing
to the threat was a financial element. At the time, Russian
scientists and engineers desperately needed employment; once their
military contracts were cancelled a lot of them had no source of
income. In fact, it was found that many top Russian scientists
were earning a lower salary than bus drivers, making them easy
prey for Arab countries to entice them to join their nuclear
projects.
Of
the 60,000 scientists it was estimated that 30,000 were in
aeronomical science, 20,000 in nuclear science, and 10,000 in
biological science. A third of them — about 20,000 — remained
employed by the Russian military. Another 15,000 got jobs in the
commercial sector. The remaining 25,000 were the ones that the
ISTC took on.
Nuclear
scientists who specialized in the design of nuclear weapons were
put to work at designing safer nuclear reactors. In disregard for
nuclear safety, Russia is notorious for having poorly designed
reactors. The accident at Chernobyl, which was the most dramatic
of all the nuclear accidents, was not the only one. There were
many, many incidents of radiation leaks. Parts of Russia are
contaminated by radiation. Nuclear waste was not dealt with in any
safe way. A lot of times it was just dumped into rivers. Many ISTC
projects involved putting these nuclear scientists to work
designing safer, better, and more efficient nuclear reactors, and
to clean up those areas of Russia that had been contaminated.
Chemical
and biological specialists, i.e. specialists that were trained in
biological and chemical warfare, were given projects to work on
pollution. While in the United States pollution is already pretty
much under control, in Russia it has always been disregarded. They
never concerned themselves with it. Now the chemical and
biological specialists are working on chemical and biological
pollution problems.
Aerospace
specialists have been working on projects ranging from designing
special environmental observation aircraft to projects involving
researching nuclear propulsion technology for the exploration of
Mars.
In
addition to the International Science and Technology Center,
there is an American organization called the Defense Enterprise
Fund, financed by the Pentagon, which is dedicated to helping
Russia transform its military industry into peaceful purposes. One
of its projects is to help construct a $200 million factory to
produce silicon for computer chips in Krasnoyarsk-26, a Russian
“nuclear city” whose scientists have been unemployed since the
shutdown of most of the nuclear facilities there. (New York Times,
11/18/98)
The
magazine Science reported on one particular biological
weapons installation called Vector in the Russian city of Novo
Sibirsk which was transformed into a pharmaceutical research
organization now called the State Research Center of Biology and
Biotechnology. Whereas before they had the top Russian biological
scientists working on devising biological weapons to kill people,
now they are doing research on viruses, collaborating with the
United States Center for Disease Control, contracting
internationally to produce pharmaceutical drugs and the like. The
same scientists and the same technology which was once used to
produce biological weapons is now being used to produce drugs and
to research cures for diseases.
From
the small sample of “Swords Into Plowshares” phenomena that we
have considered, we see that the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach’s
declaration that the prophecy of “Swords Into Plowshares” has
already begun, along with all the other aspects of the Redemption,
is the reality of the world. As a professor of Physics from China
recently noted at the beginning of his article on the
transformation of military technology to peaceful uses in China,
“The transformation of military technology to peaceful uses is
now the state of the history of the world.” The same applies to
all other aspects of the Redemption as well. We need only to open
our eyes to see the reality as it is.