By Eduardo de Moraes Ponzoni, São Paulo

4^th Semester – System Analysis and Development

Along this article we are going to discuss the use of technology for military purposes. Before we begin, it is important to note that in this article we will not address any kind of arguments or questions about the real needs of the military, either moral or religious aspects, so that the content of this article is intended primarily to discuss and explore the use of technology in military.

According to the idea behind the military, when countries are governed under strict security concepts and maintenance of the military, the societies and citizen of these countries may be better served. As for the military, security is taken as the highest social priority, and its members are authorized to use force and fire weapons in defense of members of its citizen or society sovereignty.

Militarism is important to ensure that countries’ sovereignty and security of its citizens, and possibly the main reason for the use of technology by the military is seeking to be always one step ahead of its enemy, be it the army of a country, or a gang of drug dealers. From the point of view of society and technology, the importance of militarism goes far beyond that, once worldwide, the largest supporter of the scientific community remains the area of defense (military).

Technology Researches

Of course there are several important countries that do military research such as Russia, China, India and countries from Middle East like Israel, but according to the rank published in 2011 by the Global Firepower, the USA appears at the top of the list as the most powerful country in the world regarding war and military strength.

Just out of curiosity, the USA numbers in 2011 are pretty impressive, as they have a total of 1,477,896 soldiers on active duty, 1,458,500 in the reserve, 267,247 vehicles for landing combat, 18,234 warfare aircrafts and 2,384 warships and an annual budget for scientific and military technology researches of 692 billion dollars, distributed between researches on medicine, weapons, ballistics, equipment, training and soldiers.

The USA have a very strong and active department of defense that counts on a special agency for technology researches called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), whose mission is to maintain, improve, research and innovate USA’s military technology, aiming to enhance their national security and people’s life.

Established in 1958, the DARPA (originally named ARPA – Advanced Research Projects Agency), raised several projects and researches among technology, including the warfare weapons, ballistic missile defense, nuclear tests detection, surveillance sensors, radars, x-ray and gamma ray detections and electronic computers.

Two of these researches that became projects and that nowadays are definitely part of the lives of most people in the world are the GPS (Global Positioning System) and the ARPANET (known as the Internet’s mother).

Conclusion

Regardless of the needs of military technology, defense and protection in different countries, these needs have become ever larger, which leads the military to search for best practices, techniques and strategies to combat, making use of cold steel and martial arts systems and weapons from firearms for personal use, to tanks, planes and ships, and more recently, monitoring equipment for missile guidance and satellites, and that’s the role of technology in military.