The More Things Change...: Recognizing and Responding to Trends in Armed Conflict

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly fashionable to argue that conflict patterns today are fundamentally different from patterns in past eras. If correct, this argument could call into question the future value of decades of seientific research on the sources and consequences of interstate conflict. This paper reviews several Prominent differences that have been proposed and examines major conflict-related data sets for evidence related to these explanations. It appears that intrastate conflict is currelltly more frequent and bloodier than interstate conflict, as many analysts have argued, but that this has been the case for most of the past two centuries. Similarly, while analysts claim that future conflict will revolve around ethnic or cultural issues rather than territoral or ideological questions, the available evidence is mixed. I conclude with seieral suggestions for future research on militarized conflict, focusing on three themes: non-state actors, sub-war intrastate conflict, and (both interstate and intrastate) contentious issues and issue management.

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