I know that computers were developed for the military during World War 2 and continued research has helped develop the computers we use today. Gathering information is crucial for the military and has been for much longer than computers have been around.
Roland says that "chariots were perhaps the most dominant instrument of warfare before nuclear weapons." The development of gunpowder, artillery, ships, or even the use of metal to create weapons and armor among others have all had their own significant impacts on warfare at least on par with the chariot.
The way warfare is carried out has changed as humanity grows older, but war on a fundamental level hasn't changed. "Before these conceptual categories took hold of the modern consciousness, premodern commanders thought of their armies and navies in terms of men (human capital) and material (arms and armor, forts and roads, food and ammunition)" according to Roland. The materials may be different, but Commanders still think of their armies in these terms.
Roland states that "the military establishment began to institutionalize research and development, adopting from industry a kind of planned obsolescence that would keep American armed forces a generation ahead of their potential foes. They created what President Dwight Eisenhower called in his farewell address a “military-industrial complex,” a perpetual arms race, not necessarily with any particular enemy, but with the status quo." This made the U.S. military a constantly evolving entity compared to armies of the past. This started to happen around the same time that the computer was invented. New means of communication including the radio and now the internet have all allowed information to be gathered and analyzed more efficiently. These forms of communication have not only reshaped the battlefield, but also the decreased the amount of time that it takes for the battlefield to reshape itself.
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