ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at trends in the use of armed force. It discusses what might be done to reduce the incidence of violence, based on a large body of theory on the causes of war. Traditionally, those who have studied the use of armed force in world politics have been interested primarily in interstate war, most notably war between great powers, especially fought over real estate. Force without war, civil war, and terrorism are hardly novel features of world politics. Since World War II, the intermittent, limited uses of military power have blurred the distinction between war and peace, leading to references in the scholarly literature to militarized international disputes and force without war. Many cases of force without war can be found in the post–Cold War era. As with the determinants of foreign policy behavior in general, it is useful to focus on individual, nation-state, and international system levels of analysis in considering theories about the causes of war.
