War and Science and Culture

I think none of us, unless living off the grid, haven't seen a war taking shape right in front of our eyes. Whatever bragging rights the GenX, Millennials and the Baby Boomers had over GenZ and Gen-Alpha are disappearing soon. Over the past few years, conflict has become second nature in diplomacy. Maybe COVID-19 did mess up the wiring upstairs! Anyway, each time a new version of war or conflict is launched, other than the brouhaha over ‘boring’ issues like the cost of wars on human lives and rights, displacement of people etc, a large proportion of X-Men and X-Women(formerly known as Twitteratis) take a great deal of joy in a haughty display of the latest weapon systems they have, how good can their radars say ‘thhappa’ to enemy jets and how far their rockets fly.

Amidst all the death, destruction, debates and discussions, one thing I remain in awe of is the mind-blowing advancements in science we’ve made in saving and killing people alike. It’s sad, although not unexpected, that science and technology, along with having a good and benevolent side, have this ugly side to it as well.
As surprising as this may sound, this isn’t an artefact of the rise of the colonial era. It is much more primitive with respect to time and closer to human nature
No one who engages in the spirited examination of history, either from a scholarly perspective or purely as a hobby, is unaware of the famous saying that war and sex have largely served as the inspiration for most inventions by mankind. While this statement is a reductionist one at best and largely fails to account for the brilliant discoveries our species has made over the years over other necessities, it does underscore an important relation between War and Science. And that is what I’ll be examining briefly today, keeping the discussion about sex, much to the dismay of some readers, for some other day.

In the entire journey of our kind, and quite ironically, more so after the dawn of civilisation, there are two things we’re certain about. One is that we are an industrious lot. From fearing lightning to sitting in Faraday cages reading magazines, we’ve conquered our fears and imaginations. From the primordial urge of soaring in the skies like birds to modern jets breaking the sound barrier and from hunting with a spear to detonating a second sun, the advancements made by us, especially since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, are remarkable by all measures. The second thing is an ancestral remnant-the tendency and capacity for violence. Our history is rife with anecdotes and evidence of the animal-like nature present in man. One could argue that aggression, and particularly the kind that precipitates the development of animosity between groups, is like second nature.
If Francis Fukuyama is to be believed, all current wars and genocides trace their roots back to tens of thousands of years of our history, starting from the hunter-gatherer phase. Ancient cave paintings, archaeological evidence and historical legends, although at times controversial, point in this direction of war as a group effort. In GenZ parlance, our ancestors engaged a lot in cracking open a cold one(skulls) with the boys.

Psychological, Biological and Sociological reasons for these behaviours aside(although there’s much to read and learn there), a combination of these two traits has resulted in some unique innovations. While some have been limited to the theatre of war and conflict, some have seeped through the filter of time to transform into a cultural phenomenon.
A great example of the latter is the Kongming lantern. The aesthetic-loving public has colloquially named them as Chinese Lanterns and in recent years, they have been used quite liberally during Deepawali. But few know the history behind these lanterns. The most well-known story of origin goes back about 2000 years in China. A military strategist named Zhuge Liang, who was popularly known as Kongming, used the concept of hot air balloons-again supposedly to have been experimented with first in China-to send messages for help during military expeditions and conflicts. Due to their practicality and simple yet remarkable usage, it were adopted by other empires and generals of the region too. One of the most famous instances was the Battle of Legnica, when these Kongming Lanterns were used for military signalling and sending messages by the invading Mongol Army. Historians are of the opinion that this was the first introduction of the concept of hot-air balloons and Kongming Lanterns to the Western World. Well, the flow of knowledge hasn’t always been peaceful.
With the passage of time and the rising popularity of these ‘flying objects’ among the common public, and particularly children, these Kongming lanterns were ‘domesticated’ in festivals and cultural events. Much like kite flying. The history of kites is an interesting one and left as an exercise to the reader.

For more examples, one doesn’t need to traverse back in history. The Industrial Revolution and the ‘Colonial Wars’, in the first half of the 20^th century, gave us some really interesting innovations and cultural adoptions.
One of the most significant ones was the adoption of the wristwatch by the general public and particularly men. The precursor to the wristwatch, the pocket watch, was highly impractical during military campaigns and battles. In fact, some records do state that the earliest form of wrist watch was primarily the accessory of women, while men carried pocket watches in their waistcoats, which stayed together with the help of the ‘Albert Chain’. Fun fact, it was named after Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria.

Garstin Company, founded by Arthur Garstin to primarily encroach on the gap in the high-quality leather market left by the dwindling fates of French companies post the Franco-Prussian wars, which at that time were the pioneers of the field, decided to patent one of the earliest wristwatch designs. To state in the simplest terms, it was basically leather straps attached to a pocket watch and was known as a ‘Watch wristlet’ design. Slowly, but surely, this design became popular with the officers of the infantry and cavalry divisions starting from the Boer Wars and the Anglo-Burma wars. It wasn’t just a feasible design that saved precious time by avoiding the labour of taking out and putting back of pocket watches, it also helped in troop synchronisation during movement and attacks.

In light of WWI, the market for these watches exploded and it became a manly thing to own having associated itself with the Wars. In fact, it was a coveted thing to own and all men who didn’t have one, moved to get one for themselves as soon as they could. The popularity increased so much that all men who were enlisted in the armed forces, and not just officers, wore a wristwatch towards the end of WWI. What was once famous for being associated with the delicate activities of women was now an inseparable part of men’s attire. Before you outrage over this statement, let me state what the British Horological Journal wrote in 1917:"...the wristlet watch was little used by the sterner sex before the war, but now is seen on the wrist of nearly every man in uniform and of many men in civilian attire."
Naturally, having the spirit of pertinacious invention in every fibre of our body, the inventions didn’t stop there and now we can do much more with them.

Another important invention, of many, was the modern design of the Jerrycan. In its current form, it traces it back to the German military in the 1930s and 1940s due to Hitler’s insistence on an effective fuel delivery system. The naming itself comes from ‘Jerry’, a slang term used for Germans. But what was it called in German? Wehrmacht-Einheitskanister!
The design of this canister was so practical that, towards the end of the war, even the Allies used slightly modified designs of the Jerry Can. It was easy to stack and carry in wagons and trucks on the bombed, uneven roads without much spillage and was also easy to hold and transport by men and women involved in the war due to the three-handle system and could also float. An American engineer, Paul Bleiss, during a planned motor trip from Berlin to Calcutta, was introduced to the Jerry Can by his German co-traveller friend and colleague during his search for a storage container for water on this long and arduous journey. Since it was the summer of ’39, before the war had engulfed Europe, his German buddy told him about the specification of the cans before being called into the service of the Führer’s grand European plan midway through the journey. Being an engineer, Pleiss recognised the superiority of the design over the designs followed by the American and British militaries. Remember seeing those mustard oil/dalda cans with a small circular lid on the top? That’s exactly what the British used and were called Flimsy cans-almost true to their nature.
Much to Pleiss’ dismay, there wasn’t much interest in the designs he’d procured or the actual cans he’d managed to ship with his vehicle from Calcutta. As the war progressed, better sense prevailed with the administration, which ramped up the production of inspired versions of the Jerry Cans, and it became one of the most recognisable aspects of military equipment.

One could go on and on about such examples. One of them is the Epi-Pen, an innovation that was developed for protection against the rising threat of chemical warfare during the Cold War. The initial idea was to counter the effects of G-series nerve agents like Sarin, Soman gas, etc. While these attempts initiated by the Pentagon were limited to military and medical use, the public use case wasn’t left far behind.
Sheldon Kaplan, along with his team, was credited with the invention of the hypodermic injector, which had the potential to carry and deliver Epinephrine in emergency situations. I think it’s futile to state how many lives it has saved around the world. But one thing we need to highlight is how something that initially began with a different objective- to be used in the event of war-found its way into the lives of millions around the world.

There are hundreds of such examples in various parts of the world with local and global impact that highlight how science and war have been in tandem. There have been good things that came out of it, and equally, if not more, worse and horrific uses of Science and Technology as means of unleashing terror. Oftentimes, a more ‘docile’ version of the things used, or associated, with war becomes a part of daily life in such a way that it practically remains invisible to our senses. An Indian example would be the ORS. Those with a more curious bent of mind can read about the development of this solution and its use during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War to save numerous lives (possibly millions).

In my opinion, Science and Technology, in its pure and almost innocent search for knowledge, has no space for the privilege to sit on the scales of right or wrong. The responsibility of those engaged in research is tied to the eradication of ignorance and the pursuit of truth. The search for what is and what isn’t is the heart and soul of science. Almost always, science hasn’t had much say in how its discoveries are used by the public and institutions holding power.
It is upon people, institutions and bodies in power to restrict the use of their discoveries to avenues which seek to alleviate the quality and experience of human life, sustain ecological balance and not indulge in the indiscreet and blatant disregard of the voice of those behind these discoveries.
In the thousands of years of human history, we are arguably at the safest and happiest time that humans have ever lived in. However, to consciously work towards improvement while minimising collateral damage to the environment is proving to be most difficult. My suggestion to tackle this challenge would be to look towards Science and ensure it’s used for the good parts.