War X: Human Extension in Battlespace

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. His latest works are Who Killed Canadian History?, Who Killed
the Canadian Military, and Hell’s Cor

This is a most curious book. Tim Blackmore of the University of Western
Ontario’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies is clearly against
war. At the same time, however, he is fascinated, perhaps obsessively
fascinated, by the tools of war. Does modern military technology make us
more frightened of war? Or does it create a sense of invincibility? He
looks at infantry, body armour, mechanized armour, helicopters, unmanned
aerial vehicles, and casualties in turn, in all cases mixing ad copy by
arms manufacturers, claims and theorizing by soldiers, and the
recollections of combatants. The result is deliberately and consciously
horrifying.

What Blackmore seems to forget, however, is that nations and leaders
sometimes must fight to protect national interests and their peoples’
freedom. The Second World War was terrible, but it was a necessary and
just war if Nazism was to be checked. The Gulf War, I would argue, was
also a just war—even small nations have rights. Perhaps the next great
war will be similarly necessary, and if so, people will want their sons
and daughters to have the best technology at their service. No one wants
war, but sometimes wars must be fought. Only the naпve think otherwise.