Warrior Geeks

Coker, Christopher

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199327898.003.0007

Cited by 5 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Some scholars such as Arkin (2011) argue that new technologies can lead to more ethical and less destructive wars as 'autonomous weapons systems' can be programmed not to hurt human beings. Others are more sceptical, warning that technological advancements in past eras regularly resulted in increased destructiveness of warfare (Coker, 2013).…”

Section: Military Violence In the 21st Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

The organisation of military violence in the 21st century

Malešević

2017

Organization

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In this article, I analyse the sociological foundations of military violence in the 21st century. The first part of the article engages critically with the three dominant contemporary approaches in the study of organised violence: (a) the decline of violence perspective, (b) the new wars theories and (c) the technological displacement approach. I argue that despite their obvious merits, these three perspectives do not provide adequate interpretation of recent social change. In particular, I contest their emphasis on the radical discontinuity in the character of the contemporary military violence when compared to the previous historical periods. Hence, to remedy this – in the second part of the article – I develop an alternative, a longue durée, sociological interpretation centred on the role of organisational, ideological and micro-interactional powers in the transformation of military violence. In contrast to the three dominant perspectives, I argue that the 21st-century organisation of military violence has changed but it still exhibits much more organisational continuity with the last two centuries than usually assumed. More specifically, my argument centres on the long-term impact of the three historical processes that have shaped the dynamics of military violence over long stretches of time: the cumulative bureaucratisation of coercion, centrifugal ideologisation and the envelopment of micro-solidarity.

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Section: Military Violence In the 21st Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

The organisation of military violence in the 21st century

Malešević

2017

Organization

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“…60 Philosophers have long recognised the problems of using metaphors of spatial mobility to describe time. 61 As Arthur Prior notes: 'Time may be […] like an ever-rolling stream, but it isn't really and literally an ever-rolling stream'. 62 Our tendency to deploy metaphor is explicable with reference to our perception of the passing of time: 'some future event to which we have been looking forward with hope or dread is now at last occurring, and soon will have occurred, and will have occurred a longer and longer time ago'.…”

Section: Now and The Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…60 In its fascistic muscularity, misogyny and paeans to the glories of 'hygienic' war, Futurism may still shock the contemporary mind. 61 It is unlikely we would concede as much to the speedy temporalities ascribed to the gas lamp and civic sanitation, which once amazed the urban populace. We should, however, acknowledge the roots of our own preoccupation with the historical pace of change in 19th-century industrialisation and mass commercialisation, not least in its pessimistic register.…”

Section: Introduction: the Revolutionary Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cyber Security and the Politics of Time

Stevens

2015

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Time is an under-represented topic in security studies and International Relations (IR). The development and implementation of security measures are often justified as necessary responses to the contemporary rate of global change yet little attention is granted time and temporality as factors influencing the politics and practices of security. This thesis proposes that security can be understood within the framework of a 'politics of time' (chronopolitics), in which collective perceptions of time and temporality are constitutive of security politics and practices. Its principal object is cyber security, which aims to regulate and exploit complex sociotechnical systems of networked and interdependent information technologies. The thesis examines how cyber security actors imagine time and temporality in (post)modernity and the implications of these temporal biases for the politics of cyber security. It explores how cyber security actors imagine the accelerating present and the relative deceleration of political decision-making; how apocalyptic narratives of imminent catastrophe illustrate concerns about the immanent dangers of technology; how the past is mobilised through historical analogies to understand dystopian futures; how the future is metaphorically inhabited through preparedness exercises and simulations, and literally populated through education, training and recruitment. These 'chronotypes' inform the cyber security imaginary and disclose a manifold of deeper chronopolitical tendencies, theorised here as the logics of assemblage, real time, event, and eschaton. The thesis makes an original contribution to IR by promoting the interdisciplinary analysis of time to help understand the politics and practices of contemporary security. DeclarationThe copyright of this dissertation rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. ContentsAcknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………………….……...

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“…The mass reliance on the use of unmanned drones in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen navigated by ‘civil servants’ in Nevada is probably a reliable indicator of how some wars will be waged in the future. It is quite conceivable that human warfare might give way to armed conflicts between robotic soldiers (Coker, 2013). In this context where there is no direct human presence on the battlefields but where devastation and demolition continue to escalate it will quickly become obvious how futile it is to rely on human casualty counts as the barometer of war's destructiveness.…”

Section: The Historical Sociology Of Warfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Is War Becoming Obsolete? A Sociological Analysis

Malešević¹

2014

The Sociological Review

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There is a degree of consensus among scholars that the character of warfare has substantially changed over the past three decades. However, there is no agreement about the direction and causes of this change. Some argue that 'the new wars' have become more brutal, more chaotic and decentralized. These wars are linked to the globalization processes emphasizing that as the unrestrained proliferation of globalized economy intensifies so will these new wars. In contrast others insist that all forms of organized violence are on the wane: there are fewer wars, they are less lethal, more localized and shorter than in previous historical periods. Moreover they argue that the very institution of warfare is gradually but definitely becoming obsolete. This paper challenges both of these perspectives and articulates an alternative interpretation. The aim is to develop a longue durée sociological analysis that focuses on the macro-organizational social context and explores the dynamics of the war-state-society nexus over the past centuries. I argue that warfare is not becoming obsolete and that 'new wars' are unlikely to completely replace inter-state warfare. Instead my analysis indicates that there is more organizational continuity in the contemporary warfare that either of the two dominant perspectives is willing to acknowledge.

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Warrior Geeks

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The organisation of military violence in the 21st century

The organisation of military violence in the 21st century

Cyber Security and the Politics of Time

Is War Becoming Obsolete? A Sociological Analysis

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