Theory
| This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
| This section is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. |
Technology has long been a part of warfare. Neolithic tools were used as weapons prior to recorded history. The bronze age and iron age saw the rise of complex industries in the manufacturing of weaponry. However, these industries also had practical peacetime applications. For example, industries making swords in times of war could make plowshares in times of peace. It was not until the late 19th to early 20th century that military weaponry became so complex as to require a large subset of industry dedicated solely to its procurement. Firearms, artillery, steamships, and later aircraft and nuclear weapons were markedly different from their ancient predecessors.
These newer, more complex weapons required highly specialized labor, knowledge and machinery to produce. The time and supporting industry necessary to construct weapon systems of increasing complexity and massive integration, made it no longer feasible to create assets only in times of war. Instead, nations dedicated portions of their economies for the full-time production of war assets. The increasing reliance of military on industry gave rise to a stable partnership—the military–industrial complex.
Read more about this topic: Military-industrial Complex
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The theory [before the twentieth century] ... was that all the jobs in the world belonged by right to men, and that only men were by nature entitled to wages. If a woman earned money, outside domestic service, it was because some misfortune had deprived her of masculine protection.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)