Christopher Coker Ordre des livres

What are humanity's biological origins? What are the mechanisms, including culture, that continue to drive it? What is the history that has allowed it to evolve over time? And what are its functions--how does it survive and thrive by exploiting the features that define it as a species? These are the four questions of the Tinbergen Method for explaining animal behaviour, developed by the Nobel Prizewinning Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen. This book contends that applying this method to war--which is unique to humans--can help us better understand why conflict is so resilient. Christopher Coker explores these four questions of our past and present, and looks at our post-human future, assessing how far scientific advances in gene-editing, robotics and AI systems will de-centre human agency. He concludes that we won't witness war's end until it has exhausted its evolutionary possibilities--meaning that, well into the future, war is likely to remain what Thucydides first called it: 'the human thing'. From the Ancients to Artificial Intelligence, Why War? is an exhilarating tour d'horizon of humankind's propensity to warfare and its behavioural underpinnings, offering new ways of thinking about our species' unique and deadly preoccupation.

In recent years culture has become the primary currency of politics - from the identity politics that characterized the 2016 American election to the pushback against Western universalism in much of the non-Western world.Much less noticed is the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In this pioneering book, the renowned political philosopher Christopher Coker looks in depth at two countries that now claim this title: Xi Jinping's China and Vladimir Putin's Russia. He also discusses the Islamic caliphate, a virtual and aspirational civilizational state that is unlikely to fade despite the recent setbacks suffered by ISIS. The civilizational state, he contends, is an idea whose time has come. For, while civilizations themselves may not clash, civilizational states appear to be set on challenging the rules of the international order that the West takes for granted. China seems anxious to revise them, Russia to break them, while Islamists would like to throw away the rule book altogether. Coker argues that, when seen in the round, these challenges could be enough to give birth to a new post-liberal international order.

An accessible and entertainingly written primer to the most influential book in the history of Western warfare.

Will tomorrow's wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts?

This latest incisive work from Christopher Coker is a prescient analysis of the likelihood of a US-China conflict and how it might be avoided.

In this thought-provoking book, philosopher Christopher Coker argues that war is an intrinsic part of the human condition, rooted in our evolutionary history. He contends that despite changing technologies and geopolitical landscapes, our capacity for war endures, and it will persist until it has exhausted its evolutionary potential.

This is the story of the fictional warriors, heroes, villains, survivors and victims whose exploits thrill and appal us, capturing the existential appeal to men of war

Warrior Geeks examines how technology is transforming the way we think about and fight war, taking three major changes that are driving this process: cybernetic technologies that are folding soldiers into a cybernetic system that will allow the military to read their thoughts and emotions and mould them accordingly; the coexistence of men and robots in the battle-spaces of tomorrow; and the extent to which we may be able to re-engineer warriors through pharmacological manipulation. By referring back to the Greeks who defined the contours of war for us, Coker shows how we are in danger of losing touch with our humanity - the name we give not only to a species but the virtues we deem it to embody. The journey from Greeks to Geeks may be a painful one. War can only be rendered more humane if we stay in touch with the ancestors, yet unfortunately we are planning to subcontract our ethical choices to machines. In revaluing technology, are we devaluing our humanity, or the post-human condition, changing our subjectivity and thus the existential dimension of war by changing our relationship with technology both functionally and performatively?

This thought-provoking book by Christopher Coker examines the evolution of war from a battle of wills to an exercise in risk management. It explores the shift in understanding war through the lens of political science, sociology, and history, highlighting the growing divide between homeland and national security in today's context.

Focusing on the ethical implications of modern warfare, the author argues for the necessity of maintaining traditional ethical rules in conflict, particularly when dealing with international terrorist groups. As a prominent theorist, the author emphasizes the importance of these practices for Western nations, suggesting that adherence to established ethical standards is crucial in navigating the complexities of contemporary warfare.