Showing the strength and trying to gain superiority over the others is a human attribute. For achieving this, we even fought many bloodshed wars and continue to do so. The world today faces an imminent menace of a nuclear conflict, if happened, will result in mayhem. Thus we are at the verge of extinction due to our own actions. In the current era of political demarcation, any country feels protected only if it has sound defence systems, which in turn results in showcasing military show offs. War games are a resultant of that.
Many countries often conduct war games. A moment ago, Russia conducted the ‘ Vostok 2010’ , which was their largest military exercise since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Same is the case with other developed and developing countries. ‘Ashwamedh’ , ‘Milan’ and ’ Vayu Shakthi’ are some of the war games conducted recently by the Indian Army , Navy and Air force, respectively. The war games give the combatants, confidence and a good real time experience in using those weapon systems. It makes the common people of the country to feel conceit about their nation’s strength and to develop a feeling of safeness in their mind. Through this, a country can expose its capabilities to the outside world. The sophisticated and precise weapon systems show its expertise and combat efficiency. As any country is militarily sound, it can become a global player and will have a place in the international arena, being respected, and others will listen to their views over global issues.
On the other hand, when the economic impact is taken into account, a huge amount of money is spent for conducting this. In several developing countries like India, China, Pakistan, etc many people still strive for their basic necessities. In the race to gain supremacy, the plight of these people gets ignored, which further broadens the gap between the haves and have not. Secondly, all countries talk about pollution control to protect our nature. These war playoffs add more to the environmental pollution. Also, it deteriorates the tensions prevailing among different countries, as each one will look upon the military expansion of the other with suspicion, which results in further bolstering of the weapon stockpiles by all.
Thus, when closely analyzed, we can see that there are both good and bad effects. Of course, everything in this world have positives and negatives! But today, it is always better to focus on the pros and try to resolve the cons. A country can get revenue from defence also, if it could polish the emerging technologies in the right way. Countries like USA, Russia, Israel, etc add a lot to their account by selling weapons to others. By doing so, the money spent for making those weapons can be gained by selling the same and even a part of that can be funded for the war games. Then the government can lay more emphasis on other areas of developments in the country in its annual budgets rather than keeping a huge amount for defence and if it could ensure that these allotted funds reach the deprived people properly, the chasm of the rich and poor can be reduced. Thus the defence leapfrogging can add to economic development also.
By conducting joint war drills and also mounting a mutual cooperation between the neighbors, countries can develop a mutual trust. Through the G20 Summits, BRIC Summits, etc, many countries do so. Operation Milan, Garuda exercises, etc are examples of some of the joint war games conducted earlier. If such an amity could be obtained, then there will be less need for conducting individual war games as many countries can come together and they can expose their strengths jointly, which tightens the friendship and also reduces the pollution up to a certain extent. So, the idea of growing together with mutual cooperation and faith should be nurtured for making the world safe and secure, and also to protect all living beings of this sole planet which maintains life as far as we know.
