Make Money Not War | A World Transformed

Rabbi Shimon Silman

There are still wars being fought in the world, until the swords into plowshares (SIP) prophecy is completely fulfilled. But as we have pointed out in earlier articles, ideally countries fight only “just” wars--for self-defense or to uproot evil from the world, such as antiterrorist or police activity.

In the old days, military money would be spent on producing weapons and supplying them to a nation’s armed forces to make the war more destructive. However, military leaders now realize that money can be put to more effective uses than buying weapons. What we are now observing is the transformation of this military money into peaceful uses—within war itself!

The US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual states that money can be used in place of ammunition, a statement that has been repeated by former US Military General David Petraeus who said, “Depending on the situation, money can be more important than ammunition.”

They are talking about using money as a “non-kinetic force” that can win the hearts and minds of the local population by stimulating the economy through infrastructure development, job creation, and business stimulation. This is a new approach to fighting the War on Terror—substituting economic aid for military action right in the middle of the war! This brings about a partial cancellation of the war by placating the local population, as opposed to fighting the war militarily in opposition to the local population.

Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, for example, sets out protocol for direct military spending across a wide array of development-style projects, including school-building, infrastructure development (roads, electricity, pipelines, etc.), and agricultural support.

While money is being used to target civilian life with investment, the other side of the coin is that it’s being used as an instrument of security and protection for the invading troops, saving lives. Indeed, money is described as a “force multiplier” that can reduce the number of deaths of the international forces in the War on Terror. A correlation was first observed with the monies that US troops distributed to the Iraqi people in the Persian Gulf War in the months after the invasion. These were the confiscated monies and assets from the government of Saddam Hussein, e.g. the bundles of money found hidden in the homes of officials that were “returned” to the population with the aim of providing emergency relief and reconstruction. Evidence at the time indicated that as these monies ran out, the deaths of soldiers rose steeply: in November 2003—when cash payments from Hussein’s funds stopped being made—the number of dead US soldiers rose to 81 (compared to 31 in September 2003, and 42 in October 2003).

In the past war was used as a means for territorial expansion and economic gain. Now economic gain is used as a replacement for weapons, as a means to reduce warfare—what the Rebbe King Moshiach Shlita described as phasing out the state of warfare.