WHAT WAR IS GOOD FOR.
AI generated images.
Exoskeleton - a device used to help soldiers fight wars and also to help rehabilitate them when they are disabled from doing so. Irony at its best.
They say that every cloud has a silver lining and that appears to apply to war as well. Of course, it doesn't apply to the poor souls who die as a direct result of it but, for those who don't, there have been extraordinary benefits. The reason for this is the massive amount of money that opposing sides spend to make sure the other side doesn't win, leading to huge advancements in medicine and technology. In time these may eventually have come about, but they have done so much faster thanks to war.
Look at the huge amount of money designated for 'defense' by first world countries in any year and it is jaw dropping. I use the term 'defense' because, apparently, no one calls it their 'war' budget. 'Defense' implies that they will use the money to protect their territory and citizens, even if a country instigates a war claiming it will prevent another one.
I was prompted to make this a subject for my latest blog when I was watching the news one night. While I've always been aware how much money and innovation are involved in war, there was one particular use of technology in this particular bulletin, that appalled me more than usual and that was the use of exoskeletons.
Prior to the bulletin I had seen exoskeletons in happier news items where they were being used by the disabled to help them function normally. These were posts online from hospitals and the like. I had foolishly assumed that the invention of the exoskeleton had been motivated by humane considerations, until the aforementioned news bulletin informed me that exoskeletons had been enlisted to help soldiers overcome fatigue and continue to fight in Ukraine. Isn't that just great? Pushing a soldier to their limit.
I then began to do some research with the help of AI Overview, and it appears that as early as 1890 a Russian, Nicholas Yagn, patented a device that used compressed gas bags to store energy to help people walk and run, however, further research suggested that he was designing it for the infantry although it was never built. Later in the 1960's both the Americans (funded by the Army) and Russians were working to develop them separately to enhance movement, gait and lifting capabilities.
The exoskeleton the Americans came up with wasn't viable because of extreme weight and control issues. The first successful one was developed by the Mihajlo Pupin Institute in Serbia at the end of the 1960's and in the USA by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the early 1970's but it took until the early 21st Century until they were ready for the market thanks to further advancements in technology, most likely due to developments in materials technology and computers.
Happily, one of the first applications was for gait rehabilitation in stroke and spinal cord patients. My faith in humanity was, therefore, partially restored but let's face it, military funding was pushing for the technology as early as the 1960's and in Russia in 1890 a man was developing it for the infantry. War is motivational and it is also where the money is.
SOME INVENTIONS THAT HAVE COME ABOUT FROM MILITARY INVESTMENT:
(Sources: AI Overview and Wikipedia.)
Let's start way back. Napoleon offered a cash prize to anyone who could invent a way to preserve food for his armies on the march, which resulted in early canning methods. It's a pity that he decided to march as far as Russia because most of his army starved or froze to death aided by disease and enemy attacks despite his foresight.
Penicillin. Although discovered in 1928, too late for WWI, Penicillin came into its own in WWII when the US War Production Board funded it and ramped up its production to treat wounded Allied soldiers. A Scotsman had originally discovered it and in 1941 British scientists Howard Florey and Norman Heatley went to the USA with the Penicillin mold strain to seek help from American pharmaceutical companies as the British lacked the capacity to mass produce it. This was true trans-Atlantic cooperation and the war helped make it happen.
Epi-pens were developed by the military to let soldiers antidote themselves if they came into contact with nerve agents.
Radar was developed by the British military before WWII to detect enemy aircraft. Microwaves were an accidental result of an engineer working on military radar magnetrons that produce microwave radio signals when he noticed a candy bar in his pocket melted.
Synthetic Rubber was another one that came about during a war when the Japanese in WWII cut off the Allies supply of natural rubber from Asia and the USA Government forced a research boom to invent synthetic rubber for tires and boots.
Aircraft. While I doubt that Wilbur and Orville Wright were motivated to build the first airplane for any other purpose than to actually fly, their success in creating a flying machine in 1903 prompted them to find ways to commercialize their design. No doubt they sought private investment, but their greatest success came from Government and military buyers. The US Army officially purchased the 1909 Wright Military Flyer in 1909. Much of the company's revenue relied on government contracts, flight school tuition, and exhibition flying rather than broad private market adoption. The latter was because the brothers "...tied themselves up in decade-long 'patent-wars' against rivals like Glenn Curtiss." (Source: The New York Times.)
Aircraft were first used in the Italo-Turkish war in 1911, first in reconnaissance and then bombing. By 1914 in WWI aircraft became mandatory military equipment. "Aircraft shifted from primitive, unarmed scouting vehicles into weaponized tools for dogfighting, ground attack, and strategic bombing." (Source: Brittanica)
"During WWI aircraft manufacturing, fuel, and pilots were completely dedicated to military reconnaissance, bombing, and fighter combat. Routine civilian or commercial passenger travel by airplane did not exist as an industry." (Source: Air and Space Museum.)
Drones. Now I come to that latest addition to aerial warfare, the Drone. The first I heard of drones was about fifteen-years ago when smart phones were allied with gyroscope sensors, quadcopters with built-in cameras and powered by lithium batteries. I didn't know all these components. I just knew them as drones with cameras built in. Drones are classified as unmanned aircraft used for carrying bombs or surveillance. A quadcopter is just a variety of drone more suited to commercial and recreational use. So, the fun things you can now buy to buzz the neighborhood with and invade privacy came about as a result of wars. Happily, they can now also be used to deliver your shopping and take-away.
Or, if they're the armed ones, to kill you. Right now, Russia and Ukraine are going at it with drones - the unmanned aircraft ones, I imagine. You can be sitting in your apartment in either country and not be safe. Israel and Hamas are also using drones, and the media are streaming it into our living rooms. It's becoming harder and harder to watch the news in a day and age when mankind should have grown out of war. We are so capable of invention and putting those inventions to remarkably good use, but most seem to come about because of our taste for aggression or fear of it.
In Summary.
The advancement of our 'civilization' has come in great part from our lack of it yet I don't think that there's one of us who would give up the benefits of Penicillin, Air Travel and the nifty gadgets that have made our lives easier, but it's always good to remind ourselves how many of them owe their creation to war.
END
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