Main topic of my research: redefining today’s soldiers by comparing the “new” soldiers versus the “past” soldiers, mainly focusing on the effect of advancement in robotic technology in warfare.

It took me a good week to figure out where I was heading with my research topic. Not only was I dissatisfied with my research topic, and not to mention my discontentment with the topic of war, I was struggling to narrow my research topic down. Originally, I was planning to see the effect of robotic technology as a whole, in a society and how it would effect military and medical advancement. I thought about the prosthesis part of veterans’ rehabilitation, and how robots can be incorporated into after-war stages of life. At the same time, I wanted to explain the causes of veterans’ injures, which were mostly caused by the deadly weapons used in war tactics (advancement in military weapons). However, the more I dug into my research, there were many informations that I did not agree with.  (A lot of dark, destructive materials that were too emotional for me to handle.)  I could not write a research paper on topics that I disagreed with… I just couldn’t. So, instead of pursuing the topic of weapons used in warfare, I decided to take a different route and chose to study the soldiers now versus then.

Redefining Today’s Soldiers

What I mean by “new” soldiers versus “past” soldiers is: the difference robotic technology (or should I say, technology advancement) bought in the new concept of defining veterans.  Back then (World War II (WWII) era: 1929-1945), technology was just about to boom, or to better say, the creation of radar technology was the newest “Ah-Ha” technology moment.  Compared to today’s technology advancement and the rate of technology evolvement, the earlier 1900′s technology did not evolve as fast. (At least, not fast enough for the people at war.) Due to lack of technology advancement and lack of knowledge in weapons, there were not many weapons that could be as destructive as today’s weapons.  In this case, we are going to take nuclear bombs and nuclear reactions out of the our equation, because WWII was the starting point of nuclear weapons.  In the past, injuries consisted of gun shot wounds, grenades wounds, or poison gas intoxication ( to name only few that caused major deaths in WWII).  Most of the soldiers were wounded by enemies’ bullets and mustard gas.  And, only 4 out of 100 soldiers were expected to survive.  Yet, look at us now, with technology advancement and many advancement in history, the rate at which people survive from war injury is now up to 93%.

What does these statistics and data tell us about the “soldiers” it self?  And, what does this tell us about the effect of technology advancement?

Technology has redefined soldiers.  Now, robots will take in place of human beings in the battle fields.  The soldiers are no longer injured due to inflictions done by other human beings, but instead by robotic weapons created by human beings.

Before, war heroes were placed on pedestals.  The soldiers were welcomed home with big celebrations/ parties, and they were much appreciated for protecting our country.  However, now, war has changed it’s route; war has become a fight of struggles for who have better weapons, and who have more people to spare for war.  Now, creation of robots as soldiers from scientific advancement has changed the view of war.  Now, war has shifted their casualty talk into creating better and smarter robots to take in place of these soldiers.  The definition of caring for the wounded soldiers have changed to trying to save the machine (robot), or trashing the “soldier”, and replacing the soldiers (machines) with the newest model.

There’s no attachment for the loss of soldiers or losing one’s life to war.  Death in war, or heroism in warfare became meaningless.  It has been replaced by mere robots, who don’t have feelings, emotions, or consciousness that of humans.  My rationale for my study is to find the trend in where the definition of soldiers is heading, and to see how far robotic technology will change the war itself.    I, also, want to explore how the whole new concept of robotic soldiers will have impact on future warfare.  I believe that it is important to distinguish the appreciation for the military servicemen, at the same time, define what is a real soldier compared to that of robots.  Ultimately, through my research, I hope to find the main cause that shifted the use of robots as soldiers.  And through my investigation, I hope to portray the shift of change in the past to present day soldiers.