Over the years as times have changed and technological advances have been made, the face of war has also changed. Before World War I, fighting was done with bayonets and muskets, which could only fire one bullet before being reloaded. Weapons like these made war very personal, because the two sides had to be within a close range to use them.

As technology has advanced, war has become extremely impersonal. We can now fire missiles into other countries hundreds of miles away. We can use airplanes to fly over and drop bombs on the enemy. The invention of guns that can shoot much farther and carry multiple bullets means that soldiers no longer have to look into the eyes of the people they kill. Instead of being out with the soldiers, generals can now sit safely miles away from the fighting and issue orders by phone. All of these technological advances, and more, take the personal feeling out of war because they make it so the people involved do not know who they are killing.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It could be said that this impersonal feeling helps because it doesn’t let the soldiers’ morality get in the way… But isn’t our morality what makes us human? Technology has taken the human element out of war. This is a terrifying thought to me. With all the “weapons of mass destruction” we have that could easily take out half the world (or more), I think the last thing the world needs is a loss of morality. I guess what I’m getting at here is that technology can save the world, but it can also very easily and quickly destroy it.