Professor Anthony King

Overview

Professor Anthony King was appointed as the Director of the University of Exeter’s pioneering Strategy and Security Institute in November 2023. Professor King said: “I’m delighted to work with colleagues at the Strategy and Security Institute to continue its work as a leading policy-facing research centre in the UK.” The Strategy and Security Institute established in 2010 has become a leading centre for research and teaching, especially with its flagship programme the MA in Applied Strategy. Professor King is currently revising and re-invigorating the MStrat, which will be re-launched for the 2025/26 academic year. The course provides student with an advanced academic understanding of strategy but, uniquely, it also trains students in the practical application of strategy with field trips, simulations and exercises. Professor King also aims to raise the research profile of SSI, and is hoping to develop some major funded research programmes, including a project on AI, security, and military decision-making. SSI is actively recruiting doctoral students in wide range of topics related to security.

His inaugual lecture took place in December 2023, and you can view the recording here.

Biography

Anthony King read Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He completed an MA in Political Science at the University of Michigan in 1991, before studying for an ESRC-funded PhD in the sociology department at the University of Salford in 1992. Based on fieldwork among Manchester United fans, his doctoral dissertation, ‘The Premier League and the New Consumption of Football’ examined the transformation of English football in the early 1990s. He completed his dissertation in 1995, and was appointed as a lecturer in the Sociology Department at Liverpool University in the same year. In 1997, he moved to the University of Exeter. He was appointed Professor of Sociology in 2006. In January 2016, he left Exeter to take up a position as Professor of War Studies in the Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Warwick. He returned to Exeter to the post of professor of war studies (security and defence) in 2023.

Research:

Anthony King is a sociologist who remains heavily influenced by social anthropology. Although his work may be diverse, it is unified by a common interest in contemporary social transformation. His research traces the way specific social groups (be they Manchester United fans, infantry platoons, or divisional headquarters) have adapted through close ethnographic observation and historical comparison. His work on the armed forces explores the social, cultural, and military impact of professionalisation.

He has published widely including eight sole-authored monographs and over eighty research articles. Originally, he worked on the sociology of sport and social theory. Since 2004, he has focused on war and the armed forces. He has published extensively in this field on a number of topics including command, cohesion, urban warfare, AI, gender, commemoration, technology, and counter-insurgency. In 2019, he completed a trilogy on military transformation: The Transformation of Europe’s Armed Forces: from the Rhine to Afghanistan (Cambridge, 2011), The Combat Soldier: infantry tactics and cohesion in the twentieth and twenty-first century (Oxford, 2013), Command: the twenty-first century general (Cambridge, 2019).

His most recent books are Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century (Polity, revised second edition 2025) and AI, Automation, and War: the rise of a military-tech complex (Princeton 2025). He has held five ESRC research grants. His most recent grant was a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2021-24), 'Urban Warfare: past, present and future'. He is currently preparing an Advanced Research application for the European Research Council on AI and military decision-making.

Media Work:

Anthony King makes frequent appearances in the national and international media and press, including The Economist, The Times, BBC Radio 4, 2 and 5 Live. He has appeared over a hundred times since the start of the Ukraine War in 2022.

Mentoring/Advising:

Anthony King has been advising the armed forces for over two decades. He worked in NATO's Regional Command South in Afghanistan in 2009-2010. Most recently, he has written reports for the Royal Marines in 2016 and 2021, and for the British Army. In 2022, he was commissioned to write an audit on British Army culture by the Chief of General Staff following the Atherton Report on the experience of females in the armed forces.

Doctoral supervision:

He is actively looking to recruit new doctoral students interested in military sociology, security studies, strategy, the armed forces, and war. He is particularly interested in the following areas:

· Command

· Urban warfare

· Small unit cohesion

· AI and autonomous weapons

· Gender and the armed forces

· Commemoration

· Counter-insurgency

· Doctrine

Prospective postgraduates interested in any of King’s specified research areas are encouraged to contact him direct.