How Military Technology Influences International Relations and Politics
All nations on earth need to protect themselves from external and internal attack. As a result, there is need to invest on military equipment so as to always to be ready to protect themselves and also avoid attack from other countries. Hence all countries have military equipments at their disposal.
With the changes in technology, military equipments have been advancing over the years, this has resulted in construction of various complex military equipments and weapons including nuclear weapons, atomic bombs and other chemical bombs beyond human thinking. This gives countries which posses such weapons advantage over others as they are more superior. The type of weapons a country has dictates its say on other countries (Albright & Woodward, 2006). The more a country has complex weapons the superior it becomes over others. Just as in the animal kingdom, the lion due to its superior roar and strength is termed as the king of the jungle; it has won its position due to its agility in battle hence superior. The same applies to countries as they are ranked according to their military power and this leads to the formation of the economic capabilities.
Many countries in the present world have increased the military capabilities as well as developing their military technology so as to conform to the superpowers; this has lead to various uprising as other nation view this as preparation of battle. A while back, Iraq was invaded by the US due to this very reason. It refused to surrender its nuclear plants and weapons hence was seen as a worry to the western countries leading to the war on terror by the western countries.
This event involving Iraq caused tension in the world as the Arab countries and other European countries did not appreciate what US and its allies were doing, taking matters into their own hands. Recently in Syria it was reported that the government used chemical weapons to disperse demonstrators. This led to tension as some countries wanted to attack Syria so as to stop the production of these weapons and others were not for the idea of attacking Syria but for dialogue understanding. This resulted in various countries taking various stands on the matter (Zakaria, 2008).
World politics mainly revolves round the creation of nuclear and other chemical weapons as owning of these military technologies decides the power one has when it comes to world affairs. This has led to many countries trying to secretly come up with their own weapons so as to stand a chance when it comes to world politics and also have an audience in matters concerning international relations (Tight, 2005).
As seen from the situations above, military technology affects relationships between countries in adverse ways. The world peace is mostly determined by how people handle their issues concerning military technology.
References
Albright, M. K., & Woodward, W. (2006). The mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and world affairs. New York: HarperCollins.
Tight, M. (2005). International relations. Amsterdam: Elsevier JAI.
Zakaria, F. (2008). The post-American world. New York: W.W. Norton.
