ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War has given rise to hopes among many international relations scholars and public activists that a dramatic transformation in world politics is now unfolding. They contend that changes in norms, ideas, and culture have the power to tame the historically war-prone nature of international anarchy. 1 This analysis and the prescriptions that follow from it exaggerate the autonomy of ideas and culture in shaping behavior in anarchy. A rich body of research on war by anthropologists suggests that ideas and culture are best understood not as autonomous but as embedded in complex social systems shaped by the interaction of material circumstances, institutional arrangements, and strategic choices, as well as by ideas and culture. Cultural prescriptions that ignore these multifaceted interactions will provide a poor road map to guide strategies of global change.
