ABSTRACT
Following the discussion of Clausewitz, the chapter traces the expansion of war after the eighteenth century, in particular during the two world wars of the twentieth century and the impact of technological change on the conduct of those wars. The end of World War Two came suddenly with the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that brought the world into the nuclear age. Changing nuclear weapons technologies and the evolution in nuclear strategy that accompanied them dominated much of the Cold War, and we will examine the elements of and changes in the strategy of nuclear deterrence from 1945 to the present. Although nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) still threaten our survival, continued technological innovation has produced a generation of “smart weapons,” especially in the United States, that limit casualties and have revolutionized conventional warfare. “Smart weapons” depend importantly on the introduction of information and communication technologies and make use of sophisticated computers. As a result, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the prospects and dangers of cyberwar (information warfare) and cyber attacks.
