ABSTRACT
The world today faces many grave problems - including escalating armed conflict and regional poverty, climate change, resource depletion and increasing inequality. Such challenges are important in themselves but also exacerbate national and global insecurity. For over a century, and especially during the Cold War and up to the present day, achieving superiority in technology and innovation in military operations has become a predominant theme in industrialised countries. The development of atomic bomb showed that Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) held a pivotal role in supporting political and economic power. The Gulf War of 1990–1, in which the USA played a leading role, demonstrated a range of new advanced military technologies which would become central in 21st-century warfare, as well as shaping ideas about building security. It is not just the physical and biological sciences that have been instrumental in the development of warfare. Hence, this chapter has focused on several clearly emerging themes from increasing global militarisation of SET.
