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Can War be Eliminated?
Throughout history, war seems to have had an iron grip on humanity. In this short book, internationally renowned philosopher of war, Christopher Coker, challenges the view that war is an idea that we can cash in for an even better one - peace. War, he argues, is central to the human condition; it is part of the evolutionary inheritance which has allowed us to survive and thrive. New technologies and new geopolitical battles may transform the face and purpose of war in the 21st century, but our capacity for war remains undiminished. The inconvenient truth is that we will not see the end of war until it exhausts its own evolutionary possibilities.
120 pages, Paperback
First published December 9, 2013
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50 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Coker
54 books15 followersChristopher Coker was a British political scientist and political philosopher who wrote extensively on war.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 7, 2017
No. I knew the answer before reading the book, but the detailed argument can be instructive.
Coker writes several convincing reasons why war will continue. War, he says, is still evolving in that it can maximize the competitive edge of this group or that. War will continue as long as that's true. The geopolitical divide of have and have not nations, the continuing economic inequality, will always contribute to war. Human values differ widely; there's no single vision of peace which can have meaning across all cultures. In fact, going hand in hand with Coker's belief that organized violence is an inherent evolutionary trait of man, is his explanation that peace isn't a value built into our species in the way of other traits, such as language or the need for esteem.
Coker writes well about the will to war as an element of our evolutionary trajectory and the natural order of societal competition. He's most chilling when he writes not of biological but of technological evolution. Our wide use and dependence on digital technology in militaries requires less reflection, therefore leading to a general inability to empathize. In future combat soldiers will feel and think differently. The current rush toward robotics--most apparent in the use of drones by more and more militaries--is merely a logical step in the history of technological development. He maintains the aim is to make war more humane by reducing human interaction and therefore increasing the accuracy of weapons. While such weapons reduce the emotion of war, they increase consistency of behavior while also providing more humane actions by removing hatred from the equation. All these ideas are steps in warfare to reduce human casualties and add efficiency to battlefield weapons that advanced militaries are enthusiastic about. But they lead to his disturbing question: "How long will war still need us?"
He writes that the thing about present and future wars is that such digitized technology requires soldiers with rich imaginations and perceptions, and I wondered if the varied states of educational systems would leave some societies, including some in the old guard of power, at a disadvantage.
Christopher Coker is called a philosopher of war. While I'm not sure what that is, I see he's a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and that he writes widely about war, using as sources many philosophers from Aristotle to John Gray. This particular book is very short but long on ideas distilled into an essential understanding of man's continuing impulse to make war.
Coker writes several convincing reasons why war will continue. War, he says, is still evolving in that it can maximize the competitive edge of this group or that. War will continue as long as that's true. The geopolitical divide of have and have not nations, the continuing economic inequality, will always contribute to war. Human values differ widely; there's no single vision of peace which can have meaning across all cultures. In fact, going hand in hand with Coker's belief that organized violence is an inherent evolutionary trait of man, is his explanation that peace isn't a value built into our species in the way of other traits, such as language or the need for esteem.
Coker writes well about the will to war as an element of our evolutionary trajectory and the natural order of societal competition. He's most chilling when he writes not of biological but of technological evolution. Our wide use and dependence on digital technology in militaries requires less reflection, therefore leading to a general inability to empathize. In future combat soldiers will feel and think differently. The current rush toward robotics--most apparent in the use of drones by more and more militaries--is merely a logical step in the history of technological development. He maintains the aim is to make war more humane by reducing human interaction and therefore increasing the accuracy of weapons. While such weapons reduce the emotion of war, they increase consistency of behavior while also providing more humane actions by removing hatred from the equation. All these ideas are steps in warfare to reduce human casualties and add efficiency to battlefield weapons that advanced militaries are enthusiastic about. But they lead to his disturbing question: "How long will war still need us?"
He writes that the thing about present and future wars is that such digitized technology requires soldiers with rich imaginations and perceptions, and I wondered if the varied states of educational systems would leave some societies, including some in the old guard of power, at a disadvantage.
Christopher Coker is called a philosopher of war. While I'm not sure what that is, I see he's a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and that he writes widely about war, using as sources many philosophers from Aristotle to John Gray. This particular book is very short but long on ideas distilled into an essential understanding of man's continuing impulse to make war.
July 7, 2016
This book has the virtues of being quite short (I read it in a single sitting at the library) and very accessible (the language is grade school level and it assumes almost no background knowledge). But that's about it for praiseworthiness. This book's musings are thoroughly trite and thoughtless. It's clear the author just banged out a long rant on the unavoidability of war one evening and emailed in the manuscript to the publisher the next day. On the natural inevitability of war, he actually thinks war is an adaptively persistent feature of human society (a claim he makes with nothing but just so stories and ad hoc speculation on its selective benefits) rather than the most ultimate breakdown in human sociality. If anyone doubts that it could be possible for a seemingly intelligent person to have utterly nihilistic ideas about war based in wishy washy moral relativism, this book should set you straight. On the other hand, it's a good read for anyone who wants to know in a nutshell what the most reactionary ‘reasons’ for endorsing war could be.
June 30, 2021
3.5 stars. A solid overview of what war is from an evolutionary, cultural, sociological, technological, and political perspective. Nothing radically new was presented and I find the persuasiveness of the arguments to have been hindered by their briefness and in some areas their lack of thorough interrogation. Given that my answer was “no” before picking up the book, I do wish that there had been a slightly more of that, but I recognise that the text is limited by its length. Coker’s arguments did prompt questions on specific points that he brought up, particularly on religion, so that is a benefit in and of itself, and I will certainly be consulting the recommended further reading. I also appreciate how certain examples or statements in this book (published in 2014) have erred close to being prophetic (reading in 2021).
Overall, a solid review of the ideas and literature surrounding the perpetual despairing question of why we go to war, that in its answer confirms why the question will likely continue to be asked ad infinitum.
Would recommend to anyone new enough to war studies to benefit from the thought-prompting that Coker’s conclusions will provoke, but not so new as to have no background at all in basic political theory and war history - those are needed, as there is definitely an assumption of some knowledge and the language is highbrow enough to permit that.
Overall, a solid review of the ideas and literature surrounding the perpetual despairing question of why we go to war, that in its answer confirms why the question will likely continue to be asked ad infinitum.
Would recommend to anyone new enough to war studies to benefit from the thought-prompting that Coker’s conclusions will provoke, but not so new as to have no background at all in basic political theory and war history - those are needed, as there is definitely an assumption of some knowledge and the language is highbrow enough to permit that.
January 23, 2014
Coker, Christopher. Can War Be Eliminated? Polity Press, Cambridge UK, Malden, Massachusetts, 2014 (120pp. price undetermined).
Christopher Coker of the London School of Economics is one of the world’s leading war theorists, a philosopher and political scientist of considerable acumen, acuity and lucidity.
His short answer to the question posed in the title of his latest book is simple. No.
Coker’s essential argument stems from war’s centrality to the human condition, a centrality emerging at the pace of evolution’s long arc, an arc that includes the primate’s genetic propensity to align in-groups against out-groups, territorial instincts which promote in-group hierarchical organization and attendant violence, and evolution’s selection of warrior abilities. But war is not simple, despite the simple-seeming similarities among war’s basic activities. In fact, the cultural, evolutionary, technological and social faces of war compose this short book’s most important, surprising, and thought-provoking engagements.
War comes to human beings “naturally”, eventually dependent on the complex structures that are outcome of a number of simple, symmetrical laws. Even so, wars are very different and take on many aspects—indeed, war itself is a product of the social complexity of life. From a thin, localized population of hunter-gatherers from 12,000 years ago (violent to some degree, but not warlike), through the first hydraulic civilizations, and now, to today’s specialized, technological urbanized societies, war has evolved too, along with the historical modes of its expression.
Coker’s book is no dry treatise. To the contrary, his discussions of evolution’s contribution to war’s meme-expression, the cultural dynamics of war (dueling, militias, irregular warfare, guerilla insurgencies, low-tech terrorism, even hostage-taking, are all brilliantly discussed) and its technological elements (brilliant discussions of drones, cyber-warfare and defense, robotic warfare), geo-politics and peace. Above all, Coker
argues against the widely-held notion (see, eg. Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”) that war is an idea that can be defeated by firmly held counter-ideas. Coker looks forward into the 21st century and gives us a glimpse of new kinds of war.
Can War Be Eliminated? has excellent end notes and a superior, short bibliography for those who wish to pursue the topic.
Above all, war will not disappear until it exhausts its own evolutionary possibilities. We should not hold our breath.
Christopher Coker of the London School of Economics is one of the world’s leading war theorists, a philosopher and political scientist of considerable acumen, acuity and lucidity.
His short answer to the question posed in the title of his latest book is simple. No.
Coker’s essential argument stems from war’s centrality to the human condition, a centrality emerging at the pace of evolution’s long arc, an arc that includes the primate’s genetic propensity to align in-groups against out-groups, territorial instincts which promote in-group hierarchical organization and attendant violence, and evolution’s selection of warrior abilities. But war is not simple, despite the simple-seeming similarities among war’s basic activities. In fact, the cultural, evolutionary, technological and social faces of war compose this short book’s most important, surprising, and thought-provoking engagements.
War comes to human beings “naturally”, eventually dependent on the complex structures that are outcome of a number of simple, symmetrical laws. Even so, wars are very different and take on many aspects—indeed, war itself is a product of the social complexity of life. From a thin, localized population of hunter-gatherers from 12,000 years ago (violent to some degree, but not warlike), through the first hydraulic civilizations, and now, to today’s specialized, technological urbanized societies, war has evolved too, along with the historical modes of its expression.
Coker’s book is no dry treatise. To the contrary, his discussions of evolution’s contribution to war’s meme-expression, the cultural dynamics of war (dueling, militias, irregular warfare, guerilla insurgencies, low-tech terrorism, even hostage-taking, are all brilliantly discussed) and its technological elements (brilliant discussions of drones, cyber-warfare and defense, robotic warfare), geo-politics and peace. Above all, Coker
argues against the widely-held notion (see, eg. Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”) that war is an idea that can be defeated by firmly held counter-ideas. Coker looks forward into the 21st century and gives us a glimpse of new kinds of war.
Can War Be Eliminated? has excellent end notes and a superior, short bibliography for those who wish to pursue the topic.
Above all, war will not disappear until it exhausts its own evolutionary possibilities. We should not hold our breath.
October 20, 2014
This is more of an essay than a book - a philosophical discussion of war as a part of the human condition. It's a quick read - only 80-some odd pages - but not an easy one. The author is an academic, and the prose is thick and highbrow.
The author does a good job of exploring the various reinforcing elements of war: its evolvability, its links to culture/stories/mythology (including modern story-telling), technological advancement (and the resulting bifurcation of the global labor market), geopolitics, and (most interesting to me) the definition of peace.
I agree overall with his conclusion that war is, for the foreseeable future, here to stay. And there were a few quotes that will stick with me (some are not the author's):
- War is not the best way of settling differences, but it is the only way of preventing them being settled for you.
- We could even conclude that just as people can be seen as DNA's way of producing other people, and scholars can be seen as a library's way of creating new libraries, war is the way by which warriors reproduce themselves
- What most people mean by peace, of course, is victory - the victory of their own side
- If baboons had nuclear weapons, they would have destroyed the world in a week
It's not a fun read, nor a pleasant conclusion, but it is a realistic one. If it were a more approachable book, I would have ranked it higher.
The author does a good job of exploring the various reinforcing elements of war: its evolvability, its links to culture/stories/mythology (including modern story-telling), technological advancement (and the resulting bifurcation of the global labor market), geopolitics, and (most interesting to me) the definition of peace.
I agree overall with his conclusion that war is, for the foreseeable future, here to stay. And there were a few quotes that will stick with me (some are not the author's):
- War is not the best way of settling differences, but it is the only way of preventing them being settled for you.
- We could even conclude that just as people can be seen as DNA's way of producing other people, and scholars can be seen as a library's way of creating new libraries, war is the way by which warriors reproduce themselves
- What most people mean by peace, of course, is victory - the victory of their own side
- If baboons had nuclear weapons, they would have destroyed the world in a week
It's not a fun read, nor a pleasant conclusion, but it is a realistic one. If it were a more approachable book, I would have ranked it higher.
May 26, 2014
Christopher Coker in his latest book asks “Can War Be Eliminated”? I personally wasn’t aware that there was a debate on this topic because despite all the ideas that advocates of liberalism have put forward including: trade interdependence, the democratic peace thesis, and liberal institutionalism among others, wars still occur. Rather than taking the international relations approach, Coker uses philosophy to argue that war is a part of mankind’s’ evolutionary process and because of this war will continue to exist, despite mankind’s’ technological gains. While it was interesting to have the argument laid out this way, I’m not sure why we needed it. Unless you’re a serious utopian thinker, war is just an unfortunate human reality.
January 6, 2015
I think I must've heard an interview with the author on BBC Radio 4 and sufficiently intrigued to buy a copy of this book to read for myself. I found it to be an overview of the issue -- it's only just over 100 pages long in its text -- which was helpful but I was left wanting. And I'm not sure why. Perhaps I didn't feel I read enough of what the author thought. Perhaps it was because it was too much of a brief assessment of what others had written. I don't know. I think I want to read it again. But I don't feel compelled to want to recommend it. So, I will keep it and refer to it when I want to learn more about why we go to war. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews