ABSTRACT
War may not be the mother of invention, but it surely is its most reliable spur. Armed conflict is the crucible of modern states that, in turn, require expensive state-of-the-art arsenals to accomplish their sovereign and, for their citizens, often inscrutable purposes. This chapter talks about a scientific mindset of "technification" that is applied with daunting tenacity to the ancient and versatile art of killing. Even in Vietnam a high firing rate did not necessarily imply that soldiers always were aiming at their human targets. Finally, the chapter investigates the fleeting opportunity in the early post-cold war era to channel a chunk of defense money to civil purposes. Yet it was not until the First World War slaughters on the Somme, Ypres, Verdun, and Paeschendele that it became obvious that the machine gun was a superb scythe that could butcher European boys just as quickly and easily as it did swarthy tribesmen.
