Introduction

Weapons are the base of warfare - men fight with tools - and the technical superiority of weapons may confer an important advantage over the opponent. The diachronical relation between weapons, warfare, and societies is so immense that only some of the more representative aspects can be presented here.

War produces power, and also allows the survival of systems which depend on power and domination. Therefore, both weapons and warfare are part of an eternal cycle based on survival strategies of many societies. This is probably why warfare is nearly as old as humankind. A large number of published studies, with approaches from various areas of expertise, have so far tried to explain why societies engage in war, and yet the subject is still not consensual. War is all about domination, at both personal and social levels, sometimes lasting centuries, other times as ephemeral as one single battle.

Societies developed complex cultural systems in order to feed this need for war. Developed niches within their structure to place warriors implemented new technologies and design of weapons, and intellectual creativity applied to strategy, policy, and philosophy. The way wars are conducted and fought is also of cultural design, since war is a state of socially organized aggression.

The theoretical historiography over war has been generally organized around two main issues. One is to draw upon the real need for war in the world, and associated with that is a desperate quest for the peoples where violence and war are not common or do not exist. The other is to present war as a common and necessary feature in the historical process. Indeed, there is nothing like past moments of glory to ease both the individual and the social frustrations of an apathetic present.

Although based on violence, the objective of war is not violence, but rather to overcome the opponent, to be victorious, and to benefit from all related profits. A degree of social cohesion is indispensable for a community or nation to be able to engage in war. On the other hand, the state of war is a catalyst of social discipline and social cohesion as people gather around one common objective and forget their internal disputes. Therefore, some social systems have developed the need for an intermittent state of war, to an extent that peace is just an intermediate period, or a pause, between wars (see Social Violence and War).

The origin and nature of warriors lies within the particular configuration of their social and economic systems. In many societies, military training, and sometimes even combat and killing an enemy, were a fundamental part of the rites of passage to manhood. The integration of youth in warfare activities has been an important regulator of the social systems of many cultures, thus producing warriors with particular ethnic profiles. Throughout military history, this ethnicity was repeatedly celebrated. From the Greek and Iberian mercenaries in Mediterranean late antiquity, to the North American Iroquois auxiliaries to the French army, and the Gurkhas in the British army from the early nineteenth century to the present day; these ethnic groups of warriors played an important role in both the composition of armies and in the outcome of battles. Chinese and Tibetan armies used mercenaries, and around the Mediterranean shore during the first millennium BC Greeks, Celts, Numidians, the Sea Peoples, Scythians, Balearians, and Iberian, just to name a few, are referred to by the historical sources as reputed mercenaries.