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.

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.