Have globalization, virulent ethnic differences, and globally operating insurgents fundamentally changed the nature of war in the last decade?
Interpretations of war as driven by politics and state rationale, formulated most importantly by the 19th century practitioner Carl von Clausewitz, have received strong criticism. Political explanations have been said to fall short in explaining conflicts in the Balkans, Africa, Asia and the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States.
This book re-evaluates these criticisms not only by scrutinising Clausewitz's arguments and their applicability, but also by a careful reading of the criticism itself. In doing so, it presents empirical evidence on the basis of several case studies, addressing various aspects of modern war, such as the actors, conduct and purposes of war.

Chapter 1 Introduction, Jan Angstrom; Chapter 2 Strategy in an Age of 'Low-Intensity' Warfare, M. L. R. Smith; Chapter 3 The Concept of Conventional War and Armed Conflict in Collapsed States, Isabelle Duyvesteyn; Chapter 4 Warfare in Civil Wars, Stathis N. Kalyvas; Chapter 5 A Different Kind of War?, Colin McInnes; Chapter 6 New Wars, Old Warfare?, Kersti Larsdotter; Chapter 7 The Wars in Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Bob de Graaff; Chapter 8 International Operations to Contain Violence in a Complex Emergency, John Mackinlay; Chapter 9 Theories of Globalisation and Sub-State Conflict, Paul B. Rich; Chapter 10 Elaborating the 'New War' Thesis, Mary Kaldor; Chapter 11 Rethinking the Nature of War, Isabelle Duyvesteyn;

Isabelle Duyvesteyn is a lecturer at the History of International Relations Department, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Jan Angstrom is a researcher at the Department of War Studies, Swedish National Defence College.