Research Paper on Technology Revolutionizing Military Operations

Introduction

The advancement of technology has been instrumental in the working and practice of military activities. Notably, the deployment of technology in militaristic operations came out of various needs, which prompted most of the military organizations to incorporate technological methods in their work. In the context of military procedures, technology has changed the manner of working primarily. In essence, the technical approaches have been used to simplify and develop the operations, sophisticating the military activities. However, the application of the tech activities in the military has come with multiple effects, both positive and negative. The current phase of technological implementations in the military also exhibits the journey that has transpired for years. Militaristic technology has come a long way, as its history states.

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Research posits that military activities have developed to depend majorly on technology. In essence, there are multiple areas through which military operations and technology interact, as well as the effects that accompany the interaction. In the course of the explanation, the text will address four significant points. First, the document will explore the needs for the use of technology in military operations. Second, the article will illustrate the history of technology use in military activities. Third, it will address the ways through which soldiers and other military personnel use technological methods and equipment in the missions. Lastly, the document will explain the effects that come with the deployment of technology, as well as the concerns of using the technological material and methods in military operations.

Military Technology

The incorporation of technology in military procedures occurred for several reasons. Cyberwarfare is one of the most extensive reasons for the need to deploy militaristic technology. The Department of Defense (DOD), among other things, has the responsibility of safeguarding the documents and information about the nation's affairs. However, the evolution and development of cyber warfare dictate that such data might not necessarily be safe in the event of a lack of technical skills from the military forces.

Noteworthy, most governmental institutions have applied technology in the capture and storage of federal information (Munn & Branch, 2018). However, the storage of the data, which primarily relies on technological methods, makes it a target for most cyber malicious activities that also use the internet, a facet of technology, to launch attacks to the information. Such a move corrupts the governmental data, making hardly usable.

Cyberwarfare uses technology, only that the use is more inclined to harmful intentions than it serves positive purposes. Unfortunately, most of the military activities, which also serve to safeguard governmental data, previously lacked the technical competency to address the threat of cyber warfare (Munn & Branch, 2018). The DOD has since sought to update the technical skills of its workforce.

Notably, most of the military leaders are in the course of attaining technology achievement certifications that will help them understand the notion of cyber warfare. The accreditation serves to support the military personnel enforce and create safeguards that will help mitigate cyberattacks on governmental data. Specifically, the training seeks to help such staff develop strategies that will help reduce the attacks on the governments.

Gilli & Gilli (2019) cite globalization and the need to safeguard against the replication of military equipment as the major forces that have created the need for the deployment of technology in military activities. However, the two ideas work separately. Globalization, which entails the simplification of global interaction, offers most nations the opportunity to catch up with the advanced states, as much as military development is concerned. The idea of globalization created the need for developed nations to catch up with the military expansion of the advanced countries. Such a phenomenon was apparent in the advancement of Germany and the Soviet Union that was under the leadership of Stalin. Such nations would quickly deploy imitation, reverse engineering, and espionage to replicate the military advancement of the developed states.

Notably, military development has shaped global politics since time immemorial, with the most military-developed countries controlling a significant percentage of the factors that dictate the political face of the world. The ease of imitation of military equipment and activities, hence, came as a considerable setback to the prestige and military superiority of the developed nations (Gilli & Gilli, 2019).

The current situation of global military developments makes it hardly possible to imitate the military advancement of the developed states. Most of the advanced nations resorted to technical frameworks in the development of their military tools and the procedure of militaristic activities because such an implementation would make it hard for the developing nations to imitate their workings. In the lenses of the less advanced countries, making the imitation process close to impossible only left one option of catching up. The alternative involves the lengthy process of deploying technology in military operations.

Significant factors have been instrumental in the history of military technology. Such aspects include the global wars that have involved military intervention (Dunstan, 2018) and the nature of soldiers over time (Fourie et al. 2018). Dunstan (2018) captures American history in global wars, exhibiting how each war provided vital lessons in preparation for the subsequent warring procedures. While the idea of bombing occurred earlier than the notion of military technology, its process has significantly shifted since the incorporation of technology in military activities. One of the earliest integrations of technical skills in the military started in the 1920s, just before the First World War. Notably, the United States had encountered multiple bombing shortcomings in the Great War and was poised to correct its mistakes in the subsequent wars.

The gyro-stabilized bombsight represents the initial technology that the United States military would add to its procedures. The technical advancement would allow the military to drop bombs from heights as high as 20,000ft. The technology was instrumental in the US's victory in the First and Second World Wars.

However, the gyro-stabilized bombsight failed to meet its expectations due to the overreliance on the autopilot strategy (Dunstan, 2018). Subsequently, the United States military has deployed the idea of stealth in its activities. However, the reliance on aeronautical meant that the forces would need to use radar camouflaging technology that would enable its planes to evade the vigilance of the countries to which their missions would lead them. Such a phenomenon was evident in the 1980s in the era of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Harvey.

Fourie, Mariotti, & Inwood (2018), contrarily, use the nature of soldiers to capture the evolution of military technology. The writers use the demand and supply logic to explain the bias in the process of selecting military personnel and soldiers. The characteristics of the soldiers that took part in the First World War (1914-1918) differ with that of the military men in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). For instance, soldiers in the Boer War were averagely taller than those in the First World War due to the significant dependence on human expertise in the early times. Such a difference in the characteristics implies that in the Anglo-Boer War, the soldiers hardly relied on technology to conduct the war. Instead, they depended on the most physically fit men to take part in the warring venture.

Besides, the impacts of the two wars were also different. The difference in the period for which the wars lasted was hardly any different. While the Anglo-Boer War lasted for three years, the First World War, which also involved the British, transpired for four years. However, they left different impacts on the people that took part in and felt the impact of the wars. The Anglo-Boer War, for example, left 7000 Boer and 22,000 British soldiers dead (Fourie, Mariotti, & Inwood, 2018).

The war also resulted in the mortality of 27,000 Boer children, women, and men that died in the British concentration camps. Contrarily, the First World War left 7 million civilians and 9 million soldiers dead. Apparently, there lies a vast difference in the mortality rates resulting from the two wars. The principal explanation for the mismatch in the number of deaths is the variation in the use of technology, with the First World War deploying technical competency that would require little effort to cause immense damage. The two wars also imply that the deployment of technology in combatant activities started early in the twentieth century and has been progressing since.

Currently, combatants deploy technical knowledge in various military activities. The major military powerhouses across the globe include the United States, China, among others. However, China and the US are the primary nations whose military superiority outmatches the other nations. Between the two countries, the technology uses in the military, which is also a subject of competition, narrows down to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as AI-enabling techniques (Johnson, 2019). Such technologies include robotics, 5G networks, quantum computing, data analytics, machine learning, and autonomy. The United States has fostered a close relationship between the Silicon Valley and its Department of Defense. Notably, the Silicon Valley hosts multiple firms that deal with the development and advancement of technologies.

The use of AI-inclined technologies extends to various sectors of the government that depend on the military. Such departments are responsible for the provision of national security (Johnson, 2019). They apply AI-dependent technologies in multiple frameworks, including physical, digital, and political security. In digital security, the military deploys technology to conduct speech synthesis, data poisoning, automated hacking that is sponsored by the government, checking impersonation, as well as spear phishing. In physical security, technology helps combatants control micro-drones, especially in the event of swarm attacks. In political security, technology is vital in coercion, deception, and surveillance. Authoritarian states primarily use the political use of technology.

In the case of the battlefield, the military uses many technological processes. The primary battlefield use of technology is the network-centric warfare that depends on the internet for communications. For example, surveillance and reconnaissance help combatants evaluate the situation of the mission destinations, in the effort to determine the next step (Bousquet, 2017). The decision that military leaders reach after surveillance also depends on technology to reach the execution departments. In essence, the transfer of commands and controls from the military commanders depends significantly on the use of technical methods that help in the dissemination of the information. The military also uses radio calls and phones in the transfer of information across departments and combatants.

The current military technology use also gives a glimpse of probable future uses of the frameworks. For instance, fieldable atomic clocks are instrumental in sensor developments, which are vital radar, navigation, and communication systems. However, the use of atomic clocks would be highly constrained by the lack of compensation for the dilation of tim...