Theories of War

Course Description: World history has often been characterized as a history of warfare. Nation-states have fought each other for over two thousand years, and few scholars believe that the end of warfare is imminent. The ongoing U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appear, unfortunately, to confirm this belief. Predictions that the deepening of economic globalization and the spread of democratic norms across borders would give rise to a more peaceful world have thus far proved overly optimistic. Ethnic and national rivalries, the rise of non-state actors with violent agendas, and the proliferation of old and new types of weapons of mass destruction have all complicated the international context in which war occurs, perhaps rendering international security as elusive a goal in the present era as it proved to be in past ones.