ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two closely related themes. One focuses on the prospects for the decline in the role of force in international relations. The immediate context for this theme is the end of the Cold War, the death of communism, and the apparent triumph of liberal capitalism, together with a corresponding growth of a larger core of industrial capitalist states which are less inclined to war. The second deals with the implications of the shifts in international relations and with changes in the social structure of advanced industrial societies as these affect military establishments. The idea of a warless or post-military society, produced by a decline in the threat of war between modern industrial states, played a key part in the classic writings of the nineteenth century founders of sociological thought. While reliable, high-quality reserve forces will be of importance in the future, there are nontrivial problems to be addressed about how such forces are to be raised and organized.
