The Use of Force for State Power History and Future

This book studies force, the coercive application of power against resistance, building from Thomas Hobbes’ observation that all self-contained political orders have some ultimate authority that uses force to both dispense justice and to defend the polity against its enemies. This cross-disciplinary analysis finds that rulers concentrate force through cooperation, conveyance, and comprehension, applying common principles across history. Those ways aim to keep foes from concerting their actions, or by eliminating the trust that should bind them. In short, they make enemies afraid to cooperate, and now they are doing so in cyberspace as well.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Tools for Sovereignty: Power and Force

Chapter 2: Divide and Conquer: The Progress of Force to 1800                        

Chapter 3: “The Civilizing Mission”: European Dominance to 1914                         

Chapter 4: The World Crisis:1914-1953                                            

Chapter 5: A Frozen World, 1953-1990                                              

Chapter 6: A Liberal Order?                                                                 

Michael Warner serves as an Historian in the U.S. Department of Defense and has written and lectured on intelligence and cyberspace history.

John Childress is a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who has served as a ground commander in Iraq and Afghanistan and as an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.