War and Order: Thinking About Military Force in International Affairs

Abstract

The study of international relations today faces a formidable methodological problem: how to understand the role of power in relations between powerful states, and especially in the creation, maintenance, and decline of the international orders which frame those relations within groups or systems of states from time to time. The problem extends to explaining the role of power in general, but it is most acute in relation to power in its starkest form - military power. That is the focus of this chapter. It explores the role of military power in shaping orders in systems of states. Show more