Roush+Week+12+assignment

The movie “Why We Fight,” as the name suggests, is an attempt to answer that question. The impression I got from the film was that the answer to the question is simply, “Because.” Basically, we have always fought, and the only thing that changes is how effective we are at it. The film expressed the evolution of what has become an American warrior culture by starting with the end of World War II, the beginning of modern America. It focused on Dwight Eisenhower’s feelings about the atomic bomb, Eisenhower being the first president after Truman to really have to deal with the issue of nuclear weapons. One thing I noticed, although I’m not sure if this was intended by the filmmakers, is the unique role that science plays in war. Advancement in the ability to fight a war is dependent on the ability to develop new technologies. The ability to develop new technologies is usually dependent on the development of new science, especially with the complexity of technology today. It would be very unlikely that a person would stumble upon the ability to create a bomb by harvesting nuclear fusion without first having an appropriate model of the atom and the concept of conversion between mass and energy. However, the goal of science, particularly theoretical science, is not to develop new weapons for the military, the goal is simply to figure out how the world works. This puts science in an interesting position. As science advances, technology advances. As technology advances, weaponry advances. As weaponry advances, our ability to kill each other advances. As weapons get better and better, the potential for evil to be done with those weapons becomes a more and more frightening thought. Thus, as we increase in our understanding of the universe, we increase in the potential to be wiped out entirely by our own weapons. I think this idea was portrayed to some extent in the film, but not actually stated. The story of the two bomber planes attacking the target in Iraq showed the effect of technology on war, where two people with advanced weaponry can destroy an entire city, and in our //Guernica// logic we accept that it is just for the best.