short history essay example

short history essay example

The Evolution of Modern Warfare: A Short History Essay

1. Introduction to the Evolution of Warfare

In recent years, the development of techniques to mitigate asymmetric warfare has aroused interest in primitive or asymmetric methods of combating well-armed forces. Those techniques promise significant operational and tactical benefits. But, once again, it is unlikely that more accurate throwing sticks or better fighting sticks have diminished the appetite of people for war. The development of new solutions will not and cannot end the interest of people in inventing new ways to achieve the political and economic objectives of their leaders. Contemporary conflict presents a unique synthesis of challenges, more complex and more interesting than those of bygone eras. It is an age worth the investment of great minds in new ideas. The study of warfare by interdisciplinary teams offers unique promise of progress. There is no other way to evolve intelligent concepts, suitable for prosecution and control, of warfare which is now too dangerous in every dimension, too nut to be conducted with the minds of the best thinkers.

At a superficial level, the evolution of warfare is as simple as one would expect. It begins with people fighting one another with rocks, sticks, and digging implements. They learned how to craft better weapons, how to organize groups to cooperate in warfare, how to plan and execute operations, and how to employ new technologies. From the caves to the First World War, the tools of warfare have evolved at an accelerating pace. Those of the last half-century or so – nuclear weapons, television coverage, so-called “smart” weapons, and digital communication – have spread the technology and techniques of war to places and groups that previously had virtually no hope of killing people by the millions.

2. Ancient Warfare: From Swords to Sieges

In ancient Greece, warfare was an underlying principle of life. Greeks searched for a more perfect society and the concept of freedom from tyranny. The reality was a continual state of war. The Greek warriors and the self-government of their cities allowed Greece to resist outside invasion for a time. But their freedom had a price: they were almost always at war with one another. In 431 BC, war erupted between the two leading Greek states, Athens and Sparta. This war proved to be a long and expensive mistake – for all the states involved – as well as a harbinger of the potential for destruction warfare that was on the horizon.

The earliest civilizations were in constant conflict with one another because they fought over the same resources: land and fresh water. Bronze and iron weapons augmented the reality that the fate of nations was inextricably linked to the outcome of warfare. Cities had to be defended, and the best fortifications – city walls and moats – were huge impediments to an attacker’s desire to seize the city. Cities soon learned that sieges could only be successful if the surrounding countryside could be denied to the defenders. Consequently, the prominent siege tactic was not to starve the city, but to attempt to take the city as quickly as possible by tower or tunnel. In truth, siege warfare was a game of cat and mouse, and the balance between architectural aggressor and defender shifts throughout the history of the ancient world.

3. Medieval and Renaissance Warfare: Knights and Gunpowder

Occurrences of great “columns” or long lines of stubbornly advancing troops could easily sight enemy positions and blow them to smithereens near the start of a meeting. High explosives had the happy knack of blowing up the most complicated – a well, trench, or even an impromptu fort. With high explosives expanded to fill the bill, we could return to charge our measured attack; once more, the human machine could do what it did best.

Artillery, nevertheless, initiated that trend was not firing at the infantry, but other cannons. It is an interesting reflection on trends in the sociology of military institutions. Artillery was, until recently, the first purely defensive weapon advanced enough to force a rethinking of tactics or strategy. Shortly after a breakthrough in offensive technology, a new defensive measure was discovered: entrenchments.

In years past, a nobleman had a castle that he lived in, the same as a man built a house. With the invention of gunpowder and the long-range artillery that led to, iron, masonry, and deep earth formed a new “Maginot Line” that prestigious regiments and dukes had to use until it lost battles left and right.

As the exchange of gunfire became more frequent, the longbow and the knight’s lances increasingly decided battles. The cannon, the arquebus, and other hand firearms, which got their start in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were the wave of the future. Slowly at first, then more and more rapidly, how to defend became of increasing importance.

4. Industrial Revolution and World Wars: Technology and Total War

Following the American Civil War (with its more than 600,000 dead), artillery and automatic weapons enhanced the lethality of the Industrial Revolution’s economy terminal of war. In World War I, 60,000 British soldiers died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and Germany and French forces attacked, respectively, at Stalight and Verdun, in part to hold down coalition forces confronting the German opponents on other fronts. Within fifteen years, World War II saw millions of Russian and German casualties at the Battle of Stalingrad, a quarter million British and over one hundred thousand American bomber crewman and gunners, carpet bombing resulted in hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilian deaths, and the Japanese resistance to an invasion was acceptable to many involved in planning for an invasion.

The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century had a tremendous impact on the conduct of war. Destroying the industrial war-making capabilities of a nation became as important as annihilating its military forces. The Franco-Prussian War, at the outset of which Von Moltke noted the importance of mobilization schedules, marked the end of relatively small and not particularly bloodthirsty professional armies. France raised over a million men to oppose the German forces, and the Union and Confederacy in the American Civil War, the Russians and the Austrian barque monarch, Napoleon’s French army and his coalition foes all raised armies of more than half a million men each. The ancient metaphorical “clash of arms” was replaced by cable-strung razor-sharp area-effecting rapid fire rifles.

5. Modern Warfare: Nuclear Weapons and Cyber Warfare

Cyber weapons can not only attack the enemy’s communication and control system but also wreak chaos on a country’s economy by disabling its banking and trading systems. However, a country’s war history does not establish a measure of victory in a future war. In the modern era, the organization and mobilization of the people are indispensable to winning a war. Ideology has also played a significant role. Peaceful capabilities and avoidance of war also constitute a part of a country’s strategy, based on a balanced structure of diplomatic, economic, military, as well as information tools.

A new breed of arms has appeared in the 21st century: these are nuclear weapons and cyber warfare. The menace of nuclear weapons’ capacity to destroy whole cities, and even countries, in a single blow caused a great wave of concern. The most recent solution arrived in 2017, adopted “by 122 countries at the United Nations but opposed by all countries with a nuclear arsenal, was the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The principal idea behind the piracy of cyber warfare is to destroy the enemy’s will instead of killing the enemy’s troops. The disruption of the enemy’s ability to wage war can also be beneficial.