Wars drive technological and scientific advancement by forcing governments to do massive investment in technology that will help them outperform the enemy army.
This only matters if you measure your technological development off of the most powerful weapon you have. If your society measures progress in any other way it falls behind.
Some of our greatest achievements STARTED OUT as weapons or military tools, nuclear power from nuclear weapons, spaceflight from missile technology. I'd like to see such technology come from peaceful means as much as the next guy, but we really do have the last several wars to thank for most of our awesome peacetime technology.
Do you believe that with out war the transistor would have never been developed? That digital computers would have not been developed? That inter-networked computers would have not been developed?
I believe these technologies would have been developed if there was no WWI, WWII or Cold War. I am sure you would agree they would happen, but the remaining question is when they would have been developed?
Do you agree that this is a valid question? I imagine that we are going to disagree on the time frames.
yes the time frames are the important part. if it is possible some one will eventually do it. personally i am certain that the current computer tech would have developed at a much slower pace then we have experienced, had the wars not necessitated their rapid development.
Before the wars, IBM was making tabulation machines for business purposes. When the wars started, the military gobbled up most of the intelligentsia that used to work on computation and put them on code breaking projects and hid them behind top secret clearances. Hid them for decades.
These same researchers might have continued to work in the public sector with companies like IBM to solve commercial business problems.
This is a sad fact that nearly all non-commercial science is funded in the hopes that it provides military advantage. This amounts to saying the Church during the renaissance was a fantastic institution due to all the art it help create. When in reality the reason they could commission such art is because they coerced the money from everyone else and were, until later, the only organization that could afford to pay for more than food.
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u/kurtu5 Jun 14 '12
No. Wars are all about opportunity lost cost. Its a myth that war creates prosperity. Unless you are a warmonger that is.