Waging War Without Warriors: the Changing Culture of Military Conflict

Military Review, May-June, 2004 by John R. Sutherland

WAGING WAR WITHOUT WARRIORS: The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, Christopher Coker, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London, 2002, 195 pages, $49.95.

In Waging War without Warriors, Christopher Coker examines the transformation of war as an all-consuming contest that tries not only the individual's will to survive but also the will of the entire community. Past wars were seen as existential and self-affirming to the individual and instrumental to the state; war was personal and practical. Coker states that in the West today war is a foreign policy tool that lacks the human intimacy and value of past wars. The balance between war's instrumental and existential aspects has now swung completely to the instrumental side. The focus on instrumentality enables existential warriors to defeat stronger instrumental Western armies such as those of Vietnam and Afghanistan.

By focusing on ancient Greece, Coker provides a history of martial cultures, analyzing how those cultures are changing. He traces the development of the warrior spirit, moving from Rome's systemization of violence to alternative ways of war, such as avocated by Sun Tzu, the Islamic tradition, and Japan's kamikazes. War is no longer considered mankind's most revealing behavior; it has become a competition between rival technologies that are disconnected, impersonal, and increasingly unacceptable to the West.

Coker argues that the lack of personal human drama in war reduces the West's willingness to sacrifice itself in great struggles. This technological effect is corrosive because war is becoming similar to a video game, where no one has an emotional stake in the outcome and no one takes responsibility for individual actions. Coker feels that tomorrow's combatants will be technicians divorced emotionally from the battlefield, and he explores the significance of an evolving culture of war that is devoid of a heroic warrior.

A resounding warning for the West is that it must continue to dominate war, preserve its culture, and find a way to reinvest individual involvement and commitment in the act of making war. We must rediscover the value of "fighting for something." According to Coker, if we do not rediscover the existential value of war, we will be in danger of repeating the actions that brought the Roman Empire's collapse when Rome became unwilling to defend itself against the barbarians. Technology must augment the warrior, not supplant him.

LTC John R. Sutherland, USA, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas