Professor Christopher Coker and Lord Lothian

On Tuesday 2nd July, Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, to GSF gave our first July lecture, entitled ‘Drones And The Future Of War’ drawing on the themes of his new book,  ‘Warrior Geeks: How 21st Century Technology Is Changing The Way We Fight And Think About War’.

Professor Coker began by pointing out that it was impossible to ‘un-invent’ a technology.  He said the age of chemical power in warfare was being replaced by digital power, and as a result, war had become ‘more cerebral’.  He explored the extent to which drone warfare was ‘becoming a video game’, causing drone pilots – and more broadly, the human race – to lose the ability to empathise and the impact that this would have, given the critical role of empathy and humanity in warfare: ‘war is not about killing people, but about persuading them to stop killing you’.   He discussed the ‘bandwidth problem’ facing drone pilots and the cognitive overload which was ‘switching off their ability to empathise’ and the use of robots to solve these issues – and the issues which in turn the use of robotic technology creates.  He spoke about the reduction of both human labour and human input into decision-making in warfare and concluded that the increased level of debate on the moral and ethical questions surrounding the use of drones at least meant that these issues were being addressed rather more than they had been to date.

To listen again to Professor Coker’s lecture, please click here.