ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the previous chapters of this book. There seems to be a collision course between the logic of conflict pressing toward absolute violence and the logic of law pressing toward substantial restraint, especially with regard to recourse to war as an instrument of national policy. It is this collision course that is most responsible for an atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty with respect to this entire enterprise embraced by the label 'the law of armed conflict'. There is another dimension to this originality of the present conflict. It is the frustrations associated with the inability to translate military superiority into political outcomes. And then there was the suspicion that Washington's anti-terrorist, pro-democracy rationale for the war was a cover for a wider project associated with a grand strategy to establish regional dominance in the Middle East, with the disguised goal of controlling this major source of global energy reserves.
