War in the modern great power system, 1495–1975

The University Press of Kentucky

1983

230 p.

Includes bibliographical references and index

978-0-8131-5339-1

Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface; 1. Introduction: The Empirical Study of War; 2. The Modern Great Power System; Assumptions of the Great Power Framework; Definition of the Great Power Concept; Origins of the Modem Great Power System; Composition of the System; Exclusions from the System; The Modem Great Power System; 3. Definition and Identification of the Wars; Definition of War; Existing Compilations of Wars; Criteria for Inclusion and Exclusion; Initiation, Termination, and Aggregation of War; Potential Biases in the Selection Procedures; Wars in the Modem Great Power System 4. Measurement of the WarsConceptualization of War; Operational Indicators and Measurement Procedures; The War Data; 5. Quantitative Description of the Wars; Characteristics of Individual Wars; Yearly Amount of War; Relationships among the War Indicators; 6. Historical Trends in War; Linear Trends; Cyclical Trends; Comparison of Historical Periods; Interpretation of Historical Trends; 7. War Contagion; Conceptualization of War Contagion; The Contagion of Individual Wars; Frequencies of War in Successive Periods; Contagion of the Total Amount of War; Summary and Interpretation 8. Conclusion: A Base for Further InvestigationAppendix: Estimation of Missing Battle Death Data; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W

The apparently accelerating arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the precarious political conditions existing in many parts of the world have given rise to new anxiety about the possibility of military confrontation between the superpowers. Despite the fateful nature of the risk, we have little knowledge, as Jack S. Levy has pointed out, ""of the conditions, processes, and events which might combine to generate such a calamity."" No empirically confirmed theory of the causes of war exists, and the hypotheses -- often contradictory -- that have been proposed remain untes

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