Essays

With the new and advanced weaponry invented by Science wars have and can become more devastating and destructive. History is a witness of this — the mass massacre and large scale devastation, even affecting the future generations with deformities and diseases. The ogre of the atomic bomb dropped at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan in World War II by the U.S.A. still sends shivers in our veins.

Public memory though short, but this act, most callous and inhuman in the history of wars, can anytime be repeated if there escalates a situation of that magnitude on the international front. The nightmare must still be haunting the minds of the people of Japan. H.G. Wells a great thinker of modem times has rightly said, 'War is a horrible thing, constantly more horrible and dreadful, unless if ends, it will end the human society'.

Can we allow such an end to come to mankind? Does our conscience not revolt against such warfare? Should it not arouse the international consensus against such atrocious and inhuman act on the part of any country in the world against another?

Modern warfare is no doubt fought by soldiers, but it has become more and more a war of machines. Soldiers still have occasion to exhibit their valour and sense of sacrifice but if they are short of machine power, they are bound to fail.                                                                            

Moreover the war of today is not only a war at the war ' front or in the field of war. The war of today affects the civilian population as well. A bomb dropped on a military installation can also destroy by it the civilian life neighboring it. In this way the modern war is not fought only on the battle field but is carried deep into the hearths and homes of people who have remotely nothing to do with it. 

Again to quote H.G. Wells — 'Hundreds and thousands of men uniformly dressed carrying diverse deadly weapons

go to the theatre of war killing those whom they do not know and who have done them no wrong and those who stay at home rejoice of the murder of men'. Hundreds of bombs were dropped over England by Germany every night during the World War II. But that was more than fifty years back.

During this half a century great advancement has been made in the striking power of bombs and they can now devastate the whole country and annihilate a whole nation. And we feel proud to say what a scientific advancement have we made. Now there are remotely controlled missiles and rockets, which when launched target areas where innocent children may be studying in the school.

Then even more than that, a modern war can turn global and total. It is not one country alone which may be fighting.

There can always be their allies who may also side with them and be made targets by the enemy. Moreover, the modern war is fought on land, in water and in the sky.

Countless weapons of destruction have been brought into existence by science. Submarines, magnetic mines, tanks, long range missiles, even poisonous gases can form the part of wars now, if ever fought. Total destruction can be the ultimate result and it is because science has made great advancements.

The annihilating power of the atomic and nuclear weapons has far increased. The hydrogen bomb is much more destructive. The Inter Continental Ballistic missile has a maximum range of 5000 miles.

And if the world of today may ever suffer a warfare the potentiality and possibility of biological warfare cannot be ruled out. Gases even more lethal have been found. The killing power of the weaponry has far exceeded. Science is advancing — that is what we happily and proudly claim.

Science has created a situation where, in the event of full scale warfare, may God forbid, the whole world may face extinction. Who would remain, who would survive and who would be the victor and who the vanquished — nothing can be said. The world at large would be sitting, as if on a volcano.