Nature Of Warfare Essay

Technology was somewhat revolutionised from the mid-nineteenth to the end of the twentieth-century and is often considered contingent in the transformation in the nature of warfare in the same time period. However, when assessing the extent to which the deployment of new technology influenced the nature of warfare, it is first necessary to define what exactly the ‘nature of warfare’ refers to: the duration, organisation of forces, intensity, experiences of civilians and outcomes of each war. Indeed, one must bear in mind that, as well as technology, other factors are also thought to have influenced the nature of warfare and sometimes been decisive in deciding the outcome of the war: for example, respective economic might, public support, tactics, …show more content…
Regular gunshot wounds and gases such as mustard gas utilised in World War Two still ensured there was a chance that those shot/gassed could survive (providing the wound was not near arteries or organs and troops kept their gas mask at hand) but the extreme heat of ‘ordinary’ napalm bombs (800-1,200°C ) as well as its ability to take out a large number of people at once meant that Vietnamese troops had to be very tactical to lessen the Americans’ ability to use it.
The invention and progression of nuclear warfare in the Cold War (1945-1991) changed the nature of warfare by changing the conventional battlefield and altering it from wars fought by opposing sides to a war with little involvement from actual soldiers. Although both sides fought in proxy wars such as Vietnam and Korea, the war is known for little actual fighting between the two in battlefields and the experiences of both soldiers and civilians was changed forever as both lived in fear of a nuclear bomb being detonated or dropped on their country at any