President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The implicit bias of ethnocentrism in the decision-making process warps an otherwise effective process of linking ends, ways, and means to achieve political objectives. Without a deliberate effort to control ethnocentric tendencies in its strategic process, the United States will continue to pursue ineffective strategic courses of action given the dual impacts of ethnocentrism on statecraft: misperceiving ourselves and stereotyping others.
It is no small task to write a book that begins with the evolutionary history of humans and ends with artificial intelligence and the “Skynet” problem, but Coker has a long track record of wide-ranging analyses of war and warfare. Despite being retired from a professorship of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Political Science, he continues to direct the LSE’s foreign policy think tank and is a regular participant or consultant in UK and NATO military education and strategic planning circles. Crucial to this book, he has published a number of other works, many of them full length treatments of subjects that are revisited more briefly in this impressive synthesis.
The long-serving professionals of the modern U.S. Army may seem worlds apart from their citizen-soldier forebears. Yet, the lessons outlined here have echoes in the present. A growth in military marketing and benefits following the rise of the all-volunteer force in 1973 testifies to the ongoing effort to satisfy the motivations of prospective recruits.
