War

Although recent decades have seen wars decline in both their number and intensity, huge sums of money are still spent on waging them and developing weapons systems to win future ones. By late 2006, for instance, the US government was spending approximately $8 billion per month in Iraq alone (ISG 2006: 32), while the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that by 2005 worldwide military expenditure had reached $1,118 billion in current US dollars. Although the end of the Cold War has reduced the threat of major war between the great powers, many parts of the developing world in particular still suffer from the effect of (past and present) armed conflicts. This chapter examines some of the different ways of understanding war’s place in world politics, some of the major trends that have been identified in armed conflicts since 1945, and the extent to which the nature of warfare has changed over time.