Whatever Happened to Hand to Hand Combat?

Whatever happened to hand to hand combat?



Throughout history, mankind has greatly excelled in the advancement of technology. Warfare technology by no means was spared by such advancements. In ancient times wars were fought with swords and horses, now they are fought with rifles, bombs, missiles, airplanes, tanks, etc. It is rare for anyone to engage in physical hand to hand, fist to fist, or even knife to knife, combat. Rather, technology has made it such that one can take part in violence from long distances, possibly from hundreds of miles away in the case of satellite guided missiles.




Now it is obvious that war is a dangerous thing and takes lives. Few wars, if any at all, actually end without a certain number of casualties. Robin M. Williams Jr. writes that “the central fact of combat is danger to life and limb; armies exist to fight, fighting means casualties,” (Williams, p 186). However as time has gone on technology has changed the means of fighting drastically. Weapons have become more violent and more efficient when it comes to doing damage.




Technology has also changed the strategies and even reasons for going to war. In fact it is possible to say that the definition of the word has changed because of technological advancements. The Cold War was a constant struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union for technological supremacy. They were competing in a war for nuclear supremacy. Like any conventional war it struck fear into the public. Americans lived in constant fear of the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union, and in turn built bomb shelters and lived in constant skepticism that the people around them could be Communists.




Marshall McLuhan states that “War and fear of war have always been considered main incentives to technological extensions of our body,” (McLuhan, p 51). McLuhan suggests that people use technologies as extensions of themselves to overcome certain limitations; the phone is the extension of the ear and mouth, the car is the extension of foot. In the case of war it is possible to suggest that the rifle is the extension of the fist, or furthermore the nuclear weapon is the extension of the entire army.




Technology is used to project the means of fighting further and further away from the person. The fear of bodily harm and the fear of casualties has propelled the advancing of weaponry. A country is often viewed as a military threat if they hold any number of nuclear weapons they hold (or is speculated to hold). The reason given for invading Iraq was the speculation that the country held weapons of mass destruction. Go a little further back in history; the Cuban Missile Crisis is another example of an international event driven by the fear of technology.

The end of WWII can be marked by the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not only was there a struggle between powers to create the atom bomb, but the devestation caused by the dropping of the atom bomb was greater than any army could have done in the same amount of time. The atomic bomb projected the fighting so far away from the person that there were virtually no offensive casualties and a massive amount of defensive casualties.


It seems as though we as people have created a difficult predicament for ourselves. On one hand, we have developed a means of fighting in order to keep our own people safe. Gain technological superiority and you are sure to win. On the other hand, the development of such technologically advanced weapons has created more fear. What will happen if nuclear weapons are actually used? Who will use them first? If nuclear weapons are used will it be the end of the world?




References
Greenwood, Ted. "Why Military Technology is Difficult to Restrain." Science, Technology, & Human Values 15.4 (1990): 412-29.

Martin, Brian. "Science, Technology and Nonviolent Action: The Case for a Utopian Dimension in the Social Analysis of Science and Technology." Social Studies of Science 27.3 (1997): 439-63.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Routledge, 2001.

Williams, Robin M.,Jr. "Field Observations and Surveys in Combat Zones." Social psychology quarterly 47.2 (1984): 186-92.