The War Industry's Endless Appetite For Enemies, And "The Evils of Revolutionary Violence"

An excerpt from, “US arms dealers witness ‘record profits’ from Israel’s year-long genocide in Gaza, war on Lebanon” The Cradle, October 10, 2024:

US arms manufacturers have outperformed major stock indexes this year in a rally fueled by Israel’s year-long genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the expansion of its war against Lebanon.

Stock funds with holdings in the US aerospace and defense industry – including companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris – saw their profits soar past expectations this year, outperforming the S&P 500 index.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2019 and 2023, Israel accounted for 2.1 percent of all global arms imports. During the same period, the US accounted for 69 percent of Israel’s arms imports, while Germany accounted for 30 percent.

As Washington retains its long-standing hold as the world’s largest arms dealer – controlling 42 percent of the global arms market – the country has also significantly boosted its military spending to assist Israel, blowing through at least $23 billion in one year.

Let us not be understood to deny, that wars, even as other gigantic evils, have not in some instances, been overruled for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. What would have be come of our world had not Infinite Wisdom in many cases, been able to bring good out of evil? But, we cannot too strongly reprobate that pestilent delusion, which even in our time possesses the minds of some good people, that war is the means for promoting Christian civilization. As well say, darkness promotes light, hatred promotes love, barbarism promotes refinement. Because in some instances, wars have been followed by eras of increased light and progress, persons jump to the conclusion that war is the cause of the increased light and progress.

This pernicious mistake is well exposed by Dr. Harris, the able professor of theology at New Haven. In his recent work upon Christ’s Kingdom, he says, “The progress of Christ’s kingdom is not to be promoted by force. Institutions founded on force shall be overthrown by force. Christ’s kingdom is founded on truth and love. Force moves in a different sphere from these. An epoch is not necessarily by violence. When an apple tree bursts into blossom and covers itself with sweet ness and beauty, that is an epoch in its growth. When this beauty passes away and the fruit sets, that is an epoch. But these epochs are peaceful, because all the organic forces in the tree are subject to its life and in harmony with each other, and the crises of its growth come peacefully as the natural expression of the life. So in the kingdom of God, if the spiritual life is full and unobstructed, its epochs come quietly as the blooming and fruiting of a tree. The old falls away because its work is done, and peacefully gives place to the new. The change is not less, the epoch not less glorious, because it is peaceful. Revolutions are not essential nor desirable in the great epochs of human progress. . . . The violence incident to an epoch in the growth of Christ’s kingdom is an evil. Because our own government was founded in a revolution, we are in danger of associating a revolution with glory, of thinking that the overturn of what has been established is in itself progress to something better. But the American Revolution scarcely was a revolution in the proper sense of the term. It perpetuated the principles and, with little change, the form of government to which the colonies had been accustomed. It only separated them from a distant nation. It only accelerated an epoch which was coming as the inevitable result of growth, only shaking the tree to hasten the fall of the ripened fruit. The benefits accruing are not the result of the revolution, but come in spite of the evils of revolutionary violence, because the change effected was the natural result of healthy growth. The immense majority of revolutions attempted by violence have been failures, and have hindered rather than helped the progress of society.”

Pages would be required for a full statement of the ways in which the war-system impedes the progress of Christianity. It is not denied that some warriors, both officers and soldiers, are devoted disciples of the Prince of’ Peace, but they are such in spite of the natural tendency of their employment, and of the war-system. Its natural tendency is to demoralize, to harden and to brutalize, to make savages rather than Christians of the millions who are devoted to it as a profession. And then its effects upon society at large ! It consumes the wealth needed for the development of the resources of the nations ; for establishing, endowing and sustaining institutions of education and religion ; for supplying the apparatus and appliances to promote the arts and sciences ; for sustaining great philanthropic and Christian enterprises. It withdraws a mighty host of men in the very prime and vigor of their powers from the pursuits of useful industry, and from those callings and professions that have for their end to enlighten the ignorant, to reclaim the vicious, to save the lost, to elevate man, and ennoble the State.

Says John Foster: “The stream of sentiment, of strong interest, of ardent feeling, in other words, the passion, the affection, which during the last half century has flowed into that river of blood, think if it had instead flowed through all the channels and streams of peaceful benevolence!” 

Nor is the influence of the war-system against Christianity of a merely negative character. It was Edmund Burke who said, “War reverses all the rules of morality.” Much more, then, it reverses all the rules and precepts of Christianity. The Sabbath and the sanctuary and all Christian institutions—upon these foundations of Christianity, the war-system looks with utter contempt, and it sweeps them away as if worthless dust.

Says Seeley, “Political feelings and religious feelings are equally outraged by war. It tramples on the sense of right and wrong and on the precepts of Christianity as mercilessly as it crushes the physical happiness of individuals.” 

We add, this is not all. It sows broadcast the seeds of a thick crop of vices and crimes. Profanity, intemperance, licentiousness are among its uniform results. It deranges, confuses, disorders all the legitimate occupations of the people ; it piles up taxes ; it converts business imto gambling and speculation ; destroys the sacredness of human life. Dishonesty, corruption, fraud in the community and legislative halls, bloated wealth and wide-spread poverty are the harvest which it yields. 

In a word, it breaks up the foundations of society, overturns and destroys what it has required the thought, the money and the labor of a multitude of Christians for long generations, it may be, to build and produce. Such have been the consequences of every great war that history records, even of those wars, the reason or end of which has been the most worthy.