Ontogeny
Unlike any other animal we have a history. We live in historical time thanks to culture and culture is largely technological in nature, whether the technologies we identify are languages, cities or machines. History as the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus told us, is the story of constant change. In the case of war, our behavior has witnessed three major historical transitions: from the primate stage of evolution to one that was recognizably human; from the hunter – gather stage of existence to the emergence of agrarian societies; and finally the transition from the agricultural to the industrial era. And if war is universal – if it transcends both time and culture – different societies have different ways of thinking about war and conducting it. Indian, Chinese and European ways of thinking were all different from each other and were different again from the Meso– American. Uniformity has finally arrived with the digital era.