Warzones Over Wifi

In today’s day and age we have access to so much information about war and terrorism that it only feels right to keep the military top of mind, or at least not out of our thoughts. Detailed information about the graphic reality of war was once reserved for those among us with a particular interest in such things; interest in studying the footage and gruesome reality of war. Today videos of violent conflicts between groups appear online on a regular basis for all to see.

A disadvantage of what we’re seeing on a regular basis is the absence of history. To see the grim realities of oversea wars may often create a false sense of understanding the complexities of what it is we’re seeing, what the resolution ought to be and the real potential consequences of events happening globally. Headlines and news clips offer a pseudo-education of events unfolding in places we know very little about. While we’re presented images and videos from warzones in real time we are shown the violence unfolding now with no questions or answers as to how we got here in the first place. When we see conflict Middle East we forget that this region was cut up into nation states in the 20th century by European actors with no consideration of what preexisting cultural groups they were binding together under the title Nation.

We watched Afghanistan fail to prevent a Taliban takeover in 2021 after the West withdrew but there was little mention of the Afghan War of the late 70’s extending into the 90’s and the initial Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996. Photos of a grocery market suicide bombing tell nothing about prolonged Russian involvement in Afghan politics, including the assassination of the Afghan head of state in 1979 prior to a near 10-year Russian occupation after decades of arms deals between the two countries. The United States countered the Russian invasion with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the Afghan resistance and Mujahidin in the 80s. We don’t hear any of this in the headlines. We only get what’s eye catching because a detailed history of correlated events does not get many clicks.

If we are to understand even the slightest bit of these conflicts -which today show no sign of slowing- we must try to understand some of how these conflicts began. When we’re shown clips and snippets we lose the full perspective of the situation, about how out-of-state intervention may be what caused, motivated, or made inevitable the violence we are seeing today.

But when we see this violence emerging, we often can’t help think What should we do? Can’t we go in and help this terrible situation? When we see the world as it is we get part of the picture. When we look back through time at how militarism shaped the present in these places, we at least have a clearer understanding of what we are looking at.

To be clear this is by no means a stance of whether or not the West should be involved in the region rather it is an articulation of the general historical shortcomings many of us harbour around similar complex situations.

What we gain from learning about militarism today is how multi-faceted it has become and, by learning about the broad applications of the army, we will develop a better understanding of the true intentions of our present army.

From another perspective: The United States spends nearly a trillion dollars on their military, with the 2025 fiscal military budget set to be $849.8 billion. Most countries don’t produce that much revenue in a year let alone spend that much on their army. This figure is difficult to make sense of without a (relative) understanding of where this money is going. To see a figure like that and hear it’s for the military creates a mental image of millions of guns and bombs, countless death machines on land, sea, and air raining hellfire on the enemy.

Granted, their capacity for violence is unmatched in many regards. But the reality is the military today is being used for so much more than it was a hundred years ago. This money isn’t set aside solely for hucking bombs and shooting bad guys. The military has become an institution implanted across the world, propping up governments in states of interest and working with ally governments to fight radicalized groups in foreign borders. The American war machine, in the last 80 years, has become an expensive, multi-purpose operation and to have a grip on that might soothe the fear of some but might disturb others even more. At the end of the day a death machine that builds schools and hospitals is still a death machine. But a greater understanding of the full scope benefits everyone whose taxes foot the bill. At the very least recognizing the actuality of the modern military allows for greater insight when it comes time to vote in the next batch of bookkeepers.