{"id":654,"date":"2012-08-10T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T20:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=654"},"modified":"2012-09-04T22:23:50","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T12:23:50","slug":"another-graph-of-the-week-war-is-becoming-more-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/another-graph-of-the-week-war-is-becoming-more-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"(Another) graph of the week: War is becoming more dangerous"},"content":{"rendered":"
I recently had the pleasure of talking about military capability to the Australian Command and Staff College. One of the topics I wanted to cover was the impact of technology on warfare. The first thing that came to mind was Winston Churchill\u2019s musings on the Bronze Age from his History of the English-Speaking Peoples<\/em>:<\/p>\n While what is now our island was still joined to the continent another great improvement was made in human methods of destruction. Copper and tin were discovered and worried out of the earth; the one too soft the other too brittle for the main purpose, but, blended by human genius, they opened the age of bronze. Other things being equal, the men with bronze could beat the mean with flints. The discovery was hailed, and the Bronze Age began.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Putting Churchill\u2019s dodgy timelines to one side in favour of literary merit (Britain was disconnected from the continent by the English Channel long before the Bronze Age), this prose neatly captures the sometimes revolutionary impact on warfare of developments in technology. Reinforcing the point, two pages later Churchill summarises another technological revolution in military affairs\u2014and another sweep of history\u2014with a chillingly efficient sentence: \u2018Men armed with iron entered Britain from the Continent and killed the men of bronze\u2019.<\/p>\n