The United States spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. And Western nations in general spend far more than developing nations around the globe. Yet when Western nations have found themselves in conflicts in recent decades, their performance has been mixed at best. In his fully updated new edition of The Art of Military Coercion, Rob de Wijk presents a theory on the use of force. He argues that the key is a failure to use force decisively, to properly understand the dynamics of conflict and balance means and ends. Without that ability, superiority of dollars, numbers, and weaponry won't necessarily translate to victory.

Tracing war’s expansion beyond the battlefield to the concept of the human being itself
 

As military and other forms of political violence become the planetary norm, On Posthuman War traces the expansion of war beyond traditional theaters of battle. Drawing on counterinsurgency field manuals, tactical manifestos, data-driven military theory, and asymmetrical-war archives, Mike Hill delineates new “Areas of Operation” within a concept of the human being as not only a social and biological entity but also a technical one.

Delving into three human-focused disciplines newly turned against humanity, OnPosthuman War reveals how demography, anthropology, and neuroscience have intertwined since 9/11 amid the “Revolution in Military Affairs.”  Beginning with the author’s personal experience training with U.S. Marine recruits at Parris Island, Hill gleans insights from realist philosophy, the new materialism, and computational theory to show how the human being, per se, has been reconstituted from neutral citizen to unwitting combatant. As evident in the call for “bullets, beans, and data,” whatever can be parted out, counted, and reassembled can become war materiel. Hill shows how visible and invisible wars within identity, community, and cognition shift public-sphere activities, like racial identification, group organization, and even thought itself, in the direction of war. This shift has weaponized social activities against the very notion of society. 

On Posthuman War delivers insights on the latest war technologies, strategies, and tactics while engaging in questions poised to overturn the foundations of modern political thought.

Operation Valhalla collects eighteen texts by German media theorist Friedrich Kittler on the close connections between war and media technology. In these essays, public lectures, interviews, literary analyses, and autobiographical musings, Kittler outlines how war has been a central driver of media's evolution, from Prussia's wars against Napoleon to the so-called War on Terror. Covering an eclectic array of topics, he charts the intertwined military and theatrical histories of the searchlight and the stage lamp, traces the microprocessor's genealogy back to the tank, shows how rapid-fire guns brought about new standards for optics and acoustics, and reads Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow to upset established claims about the relationship between war, technology, and history in the twentieth century. Throughout, Operation Valhalla foregrounds the outsize role of war in media history as well as Kittler's importance as a daring and original thinker.

Book sales of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien keep pace with those of the Koran and the Bible. TV companies pay hundreds of millions to the Tolkien Trust to make adaptations of his work. In the UK, he routinely tops the list of the nation’s favorite authors. An estimated 2 million war gamers use The Lord of the Rings figurines in their RPG. It is incontestable that Tolkien is the most influential Catholic writer of the last century. Tolkien, Philosopher of War fills a gap in the scholarship. It is the first book addressing the philosophical and theological understanding of war in Tolkien and will interest readers of Catholic Studies, the philosophy and theology of literature, war studies, Tolkien Studies, English studies, political theory, and aesthetics. In popular imagination, Tolkien is a Luddite, but recent scholarship has identified Tolkien’s extensive modern sympathies. Tolkien, Philosopher of War contributes to this growing literature. His is a modern critique of Enlightenment thinking, specifically those philosophies of history that wrest the initiative from God in divinizing man. His worry is apocalyptic politics, those political movements that take Christ’s "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5: 48) out of the realm of grace and make it a platform for political action. Tolkien, Philosopher of War has three core theses: metaphysical, political, and aesthetic. In this, Tolkien is comparable to Cormac McCarthy, especially his Blood Meridian. Tolkien took note of a tight analytical connection between the vanity driving commercial civilization – which Hume, Smith, and Ferguson all identified – and the vanity driving the Promethean fantasies of apocalyptic politics. War – indeed, total war – is a predictable outcome of this analytical connection. The three theses run: 1) metaphysical: the apocalyptic anxiety of Tolkien’s lore is traceable to the gnostic rejection of the analogy of being typical of the philosophies of history that dominated his day; 2) political: in the English context, Tolkien sided with the Tories against Whiggery, defending monarchy as a counterweight to the vanity driving progressive philosophy of history; 3) aesthetic: Futurism’s philosophy of history celebrated the Machine; inverting the value order, the Futurism art movement encoded anti-Christianity, fascist politics, and apocalyptic war. Tolkien’s “cosmogonical drama,” with its pastoralism and portraits of angels (Gandalf) and gods (Nienna), dramatizes an aesthetic resistance to Futurism.

Warfare and the Dynamics of Political Control draws on a wealth of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how conflict shapes the establishment and maintenance of political institutions, from small-scale societies to expansive empires. The book examines the material and ideological factors that drive warfare, the organization of combatants, the ways leaders use violence to consolidate power, and how groups resist political domination in times of conflict. By posing critical questions about the efficacy of strategies and the varied outcomes of conflict-driven power struggles, this volume offers profound insights into the dynamics of political control throughout history.

Bringing together case studies from diverse regions and time periods, Warfare and the Dynamics of Political Controlilluminates the multifaceted nature of political violence. The volume includes discussions of human sacrifice, slave-taking, ideological signaling, and military strategy and tactics. The case studies reveal how different forms of political violence influence societal structures. From the fortifications of the Māori in New Zealand to the city walls of early historic India, each contribution provides a detailed analysis of how warfare has been used to both to challenge and to establish political hierarchies. Featuring examples from small foraging communities to large empires across various regions and time periods, the book offers a wide-ranging exploration of how different groups have used and resisted political violence.

This essential work contributes to our understanding of the intersections between conflict and political power, making it a vital resource for scholars of anthropology, archaeology, political science, and history.