Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.

Benjamin Franklin, that sage of the American dawn, once spoke with the sharp foresight of a prophet: “Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.” These words reveal a truth that rulers often conceal and that peoples often forget — that the real cost of war is never counted when the cannons fire, but only when the smoke clears and generations are left to bear the weight. In the hour of conflict, passion blinds the eyes, and nations spend as though gold were endless. But when silence falls, the debts emerge like specters, demanding payment in coin, in labor, and in the broken lives of those left behind.

To say the bill comes later is to remind us that war is a borrower. It borrows from the treasury of the future, from the labor of children yet unborn, from the peace of generations who inherit the scars of battles they did not fight. Armies may march on credit, weapons may be built with borrowed wealth, and leaders may promise that the cost is manageable. Yet history shows that the reckoning always comes, and when it does, it is heavier than anyone imagined. Franklin, wise in matters of both money and mankind, saw this truth as clearly as he saw the spark of liberty.

Consider the American Revolution itself. The young republic, desperate for survival, borrowed vast sums from France and the Netherlands. The war was won, but the bill followed swiftly. Debt weighed upon the new nation, straining its fragile economy and fueling unrest that would shape its politics for decades. Victory was glorious, but Franklin knew its price: liberty had been bought with coin that the children of the Revolution would have to repay.

History repeats this lesson with grim consistency. After the First World War, Europe staggered beneath crushing debts. Germany, burdened with reparations it could not pay, sank into despair, inflation, and anger. That unpaid bill became the seedbed of the Second World War. Here Franklin’s warning proved prophetic: the cannons fell silent, but the debts of war — financial, moral, and social — came due with interest, dragging humanity into even deeper suffering.

Nor is the cost only measured in coin. The bill comes in widows who must labor alone, in children who grow without fathers, in fields left barren, in cities that must be rebuilt stone by stone. The bill comes in the hearts of soldiers scarred by what they have seen, in the divisions among peoples once united, in the bitterness that festers long after peace treaties are signed. These too are the debts of war, and they are always collected.

The lesson, then, is both ancient and urgent. Do not be deceived when leaders speak of quick wars, cheap wars, wars without sacrifice. Every war issues its invoice, and it is always greater than promised. The wise people count the cost before they fight, weighing not only the battle but the burden that will follow. For Franklin’s wisdom teaches that the future must not be mortgaged lightly, nor the lives of generations squandered for the pride or folly of the present.

Therefore, beloved, let this teaching guide you: in your own life, pay your debts as they arise, do not pass them to others. In your nation, demand honesty from those who speak of conflict, and remember that the bill will fall not on rulers alone, but on the people. Strive always for peace, for though peace has its price, war has a debt beyond reckoning. And if mankind would heed Franklin’s warning, then many wars might yet be avoided, and the children of tomorrow spared the burden of yesterday’s folly.