Christopher Coker

Christopher Coker (28 March 1953 – 5 September 2023) was a British political scientist and political philosopher who wrote extensively on war.[1] He was Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) for almost 40 years, from 1982 until 2019. Despite being retired from his professorship, Coker was Director of LSE IDEAS,[2] LSE's foreign policy think tank[3] and continued to be a regular participant or consultant in UK and NATO military education and strategic planning circles.[4] He was also the Director of the Rațiu Forum in Romania.[5] He was a NATO Fellow in 1981.[6] He was a member of Council of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).[7]

Christopher Coker
Coker in 2014
Born(1953-03-28)28 March 1953
Died5 September 2023(2023-09-05) (aged 70)
Academic work
InstitutionsLondon School of Economics
Main interestsWar

Coker died on 5 September 2023, at the age of 70.[8][9] Studying in Oxford and Cambridge, his supervisor was Michael Howard. Other influences on him were Hedley Bull and Philip Windsor.[10] Obituaries highlighted Christopher Coker's commitment to mentoring students.[10]

Scholarship

Coker believed that war is a feature of ‘human nature’ or ‘humanity’ in general.[1] In the 2021 book Why War?, Coker argued that war is central to the human condition and is part of the evolutionary inheritance which has allowed humans to survive and thrive. New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), and new geopolitical battles may transform the face and purpose of war in the 21st century, but humans' capacity for war remains undiminished. Coker concluded that humanity will not see the end of war until it exhausts its own evolutionary possibilities.[11]

In his 2019 book The Rise of the Civilizational State, Coker investigates how Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia seek to challenge Western powers and liberal international order with concepts of civilizational states.[12]

In July 2023, Christopher Coker wrote a reflection on the state of war studies, which can be read as a summary of his key views on the state of war, after the invasion of Ukraine. In this short essay that also references other major literature on the subject, Coker argues that "Our relationship with war is so long and deep that we could, if we wish, tell the story of humanity entirely through the lens of conflict." [13]

The annual Christopher Coker Prize recognizes the best paper in strategic studies published in the journal International Politics in the previous year.[14]

Works

Monographs
  • Why War? (Oxford University Press, 2021)
  • The Rise of the Civilizational State (Polity, 2019)
  • Rebooting Clausewitz: 'On War' in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford University Press, 2017)
  • The Improbable War: China, the United States and the Continuing Logic of Great Power Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • Can War be Eliminated? (Polity, 2014)
  • Globalisation and Insecurity in the Twenty-First Century: NATO and the Management of Risk (Routledge, 2014)
  • Men at War: What Fiction Tells Us about Conflict, from the Lliad to Catch-22 (Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • Warrior Geeks: How 21st-century Technology is Changing the Way We Fight and Think about War (Oxford University Press, 2013)
  • War in an Age of Risk (Polity, 2013)
  • Barbarous Philosophers: Reflections on the Nature of War from Heraclitus to Heisenberg (Columbia University Press, 2010)
  • Ethics and War in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2008)
  • The Warrior Ethos: Military Culture and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2007)
  • The Future War: The Re-Enchantment of War in the Twenty-First Century (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004)
  • Empires in Conflict: The Growing Rift between Europe and the United States (Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, 2003)
  • Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)
  • Humane Warfare: The New Ethics of Postmodern War (Routledge, 2001)
  • Twilight of The West (Basic Books, 1998)
  • War And The Illiberal Conscience (Avalon Publishing, 1998)
  • War and the 20th Century: A Study of War and Modern Consciousness (Brassey's, 1994)
  • A Farewell to Arms Control: The Irrelevance of CFE (Alliance Publishers Limited, 1991)
  • Reflections on American Foreign Policy Since 1945 (Pinter, 1989)
  • British Defence Policy in the 1990s: A Guide to the Defence Debate (Potomac Books, 1987)
  • South Africa's Security Dilemmas (Praeger, 1987)
  • NATO, the Warsaw Pact and Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 1985)
  • The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the New International Economic Order (Praeger, 1984)
  • The Future of the Atlantic Alliance (Palgrave Macmillan, 1984)
  • US Military Power in the 1980s (Palgrave Macmillan, 1983)

Articles

Book chapters
  • The Collision of Modern and Post-Modern War. In Yves Boyer & Julian Lindley-French (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of War (2012).
  • Rebooting the West: Can the Western Alliance Still Engage in War? In Christopher Browning & Marko Lehti (eds.) The Struggle for the West (Routledge, 2009).
  • NATO as a Post Modern Alliance. In Sabrina Petra Ramet & Christine Ingebritsen (eds.) Coming in From the Cold War: Us-European Interactions Since 1980. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)
  • Outsourcing War. In Daphné Josselin & William Wallace (eds.) Non-State Actors in World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

Interviews, Podcasts and Video Lectures

References
  1. "Professor Christopher Coker to deliver prestigious Kenneth N. Waltz Annual Lecture on the future of war". Aberystwyth University. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  2. "LSE IDEAS announces new Jinnah Fellowship to increase understanding of Pakistan's foreign policy". FE News. 14 August 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
  3. "Christopher Coker". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  4. Lee, Wayne E. (15 February 2022). "#Reviewing Why War?". The Strategy Bridge. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  5. Mutler, Alison (29 March 2022). "EXCLUSIVE | China's 'bromance' with Russia will be hard to give up-LSE professor Christopher Coker ⋆ Universul.net". Universul.net (in Romanian). Retrieved 12 January 2023.
  6. "Christopher Coker". Martens Centre. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  7. "Christopher Coker". The Brenthurst Foundation. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  8. Professor Christopher Coker
  9. LSE IDEAS announces the passing of Director, Professor Christopher Coker
  10. Henriksen, Rune. "Christopher Coker in Memoriam". Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  11. "'Why War?' by Professor Christopher Coker". The King’s School, Canterbury. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  12. "Podcast | Christopher Coker, "The Rise of the Civilizational State"…". New Books Network. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  13. Coker, Christopher (11 September 2023). "Debating the Future of War: Change and Continuity After the Invasion of Ukraine | Hurst Publishers". HURST Publishers. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  14. "The Christopher Coker Prize". International Politics. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
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