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There has always been a need for military weapons, whether in the past or present. According to the Wikipedia definition, a weapon is “a tool which is intended to or is used to injure, kill, or incapacitate a person, damage or destroy property, or to otherwise render resources non-functional or unavailable. Weapons may be used to attack and defend, and consequently also to threaten or protect.” From the dawn of time, man already had invented weapons of all sort for survival. Weapons were used to protect and achieve self-interests as it gave humans a sense of security.
- Weapons are used to defend one’s territory or state.
- Weapons are used as deterrence, preventing attacks from other tribes or states.
- Weapons are used as an instrument of influence, to compel and gain compliance from enemies or other warring states.
- Weapons are used as a sign of prestige and independence.
These are some of the reasons why the technology of military weapons is always ever-increasing, and that with the advance of technology in this area, stimulates a growth of globalization in the world.
In the ancient times, namely the Medieval period, there was significant advance in weaponry which revolved around 2 major areas. They were the knights and castles. A Medieval knight was mounted on a horse and was an armoured soldier. They were associated with prestige, nobility and royalty, as they were often distinguished as being from a higher social class than the other infantry soldiers. Castles were built as a natural barrier to help defend and attack their enemies from. All these weapons were invented for the sake of conquest. During the Medieval period, many wars took place, with the most significant being the Holy Crusades. Thus, it is clearly shown that in the past, namely the Medieval period, there was already weapon advancement going on. Now, I will explain more about the Renaissance age, and the advance in technology of their weaponry.
The Renaissance age marked the beginning of combustion based devices in warfare. It has the most long-lasting effect as it involved the introduction of cannons and firearms to the battlefield. Until today, these are still a core of our weaponry, although now much more advanced. Cannons were used mainly to attack castles and other defence, a task that was equally well suited to undermining or non-explosive weapons. The development of cannons did have an important effect as it soon made existing castle designs obsolete. Firearms like the musket and the bayonet also made close-contact fighting of the Medieval ages not necessary as people could just shoot out an enemy using gunpowder in the firearms instead of physically taking out the enemy.
From the American Revolution through the beginning of the 20th Century, human-powered weapons were finally excluded from the battlefield. Sometimes referred to as the Age of Rifles, this period was characterized by the development of firearms for infantry and cannons for support, as well as the beginnings of mechanized weapons such as the machine gun. World War I marked the entry of fully industrialized warfare, and weapons were developed quickly to meet wartime needs. Many new technologies were developed, particularly in the development of military aircraft and vehicles. World War II however, marked the most frantic period of weapons development in the history of humanity. Massive numbers of new designs and concepts were fielded, and all existing technologies were improved between 1939 and 1945. Ultimately, the most powerful of all invented weapons was the nuclear bomb. After World War II, with the onset of the Cold War, the constant technological development of new weapons was institutionalized, as participants engaged in a constant race to develop weapons and counter-weapons. This constant state of weapons development continues into the modern era, and remains a constant draw on the resources of most nations. Above paragraph taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon
In the present day, the world military spending in 2003 increased about 11%, this is a significant and incredible rate of increase, even more so that it preceded by an increase of 6.5% in 2002. it has reached a remarkable spending of $956 billion. High-income countries account for 75% of the world military spending but only 16 per cent of world population. The combined military spending of these countries was slightly higher than the aggregate foreign debt of all low-income countries and 10 times higher than their combined levels of official development assistance in 2001. As shown in the figure above, the nuclear weapons stockpile has increased significantly over the years. All these figures show is that military weapons have a significant impact in our lives as it brings about globalization and the oneness of the world, which has similar motives for attaining military weapons, nuclear weapons in particular.
I have shown the technological advances made in military weapons over the past 2000 years or so. It is evident that this high level of technology attained has increased globalization all over the world. As mentioned in the previous “definitions” post, the definition of globalization is when there are rapid advances technology that are increasingly binding people and the biosphere more tightly into one global system. Thus, the development of technology in the military weaponry area has pulled people together with a common goal and interest of attaining weaponry for self-gain. In other words, the development of technology in the military weaponry area is increasingly binding people together more tightly into one global system which is that of the protection self interest. The common goal of self protection and gain has pulled the world together. The technology of military weapons shrinks the world as it does not require any close contact to have war. For example, a nuclear weapon in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon
http://www.weaponsblog.org/images/nagasaki_nuclear_bomb.jpg
TECHNOLOGICAL EXPERT
ISABELLE
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