War and Technology

Often times when you combine the words war and technology, you get warnology. I mean you get discussions about how technology makes it easier for us to kill each other. Better weapons and so on. But that's hardly the only potential effect of technology on war.

Consider this article, from Salon, on the recent advances in information technology on war.

"Pedro Meyer, a veteran photographer who has embraced digital technology, points out that in 2005, technologists expect more than 60 billion pictures will be snapped on cellphone cameras alone. "Imagine what the number will be 10 years from now?" he asks. What will this ubiquitous documentation do to our will to fight wars? How will wars change if people can always see what's on the front? Will they become cleaner, or dirtier? Will we have fewer atrocities, or more?

. . . The lesson from Abu Ghraib, or from Nick Berg, is that you never know what technology can reap. Digital cameras were never meant as a tool for documenting torture, and the Web was not invented as a way for fanatics to broadcast pictures of their murders. But here we are. "They've become tools of war," Winslow says."

The article is well worth checking out, and the background issues are well worth thinking about.