War has been the major focus of international relations studies for the past three centuries. As the immense and growing literature on the subject attests, it is a problem of continuing interest. Claims of a “new world order” notwithstanding, wars continue to make headlines and become inscribed on the agenda of the United Nations and regional organizations. The moral, legal, human, and strategic character of these conflicts command no less attention today than previously. Yet, our understanding of contemporary wars is not well served by older analytical approaches. War today is not the same phenomenon it was in the eighteenth century, or even in the 1930s. It has different sources and takes on significantly different characteristics.

My previous study, Peace and war: armed conflict and international order, 1648–1989 (1991) looked backward to examine the sources of war in the modern states system. It also explored the various devices and contrivances diplomats and statesmen organized to reduce the incidence and destruction of violent interstate conflicts. The present study, in contrast, inquires into contemporary and future wars: their sources and essential characteristics.

Wars today are less a problem of the relations between states than a problem within states. But it is not chronic to all states. New and weak states are the primary locale of present and future wars. Thus, war as a problem that commanded the attention of experts in strategy and international relations is now becoming a problem better addressed by students of the state creation and sustenance processes.

We can understand contemporary wars best if we explore the birth of states and how they have come to be governed.