Dueling,War and the Utility of Force

1. John Mueller , 'The Obsolescence of Major War', Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol. 21, no. 3, September 1990, pp. 321–328.

2. Chiefly: John Mueller , Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989).

3. Akhtar Majeed , 'Has the War System Really Become Obsolete?' Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol. 22, no. 4, December 1991, pp. 419–425.

4. Michael Howard , The Causes of Wars and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 9.

5. Padover Saul K. , Thomas Jefferson on Democracy (New York: Appleton-Cehtury, 1939), pp. 262–263.

6. Stromberg Roland N. , Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, KS: Regents Press of Kansas, 1982), pp. 1–2.

7. Mcarsheimer John J. , 'Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War', International Security, Vol. 15, no. 1, Summer 1990, p. 41.

8. For a detailed discussion of this process, see Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday; and John Mueller, 'Changing Attitudes Towards War: The Impact of the First World War', British Journal of Political Science, vol. 21, no. 1, January 1991, pp. 1–28.

9. Evan Luard , War in International Society (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 77. Jack S. Levy, 'Long Cycles, Hegemonic Transitions, and the Long Peace', in Charles W. Kegley, Jr (ed.), The Long Postwar Peace: Contending Explanations and Projections (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 147. For the argument that this 'long peace' has not been the peculiar effect of the terror of nuclear weapons, see Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday, esp. ch. 5; and John Mueller, 'The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: Stability in the Postwar World', International Security, vol. 13, no. 2, Fall 1988, pp. 55–79.

10. For an explanation of this phenomenon, see Mueller, 'Obsolescence of Major War', p. 325.

11. Levy Jack S. , War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495–1975 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), p. 45.

12. On this issue, see also John Mueller, 'Quiet Cataclysm: Some Afterthoughts About World War IIP, Diplomatic History, Vol. 16, no. 1, Winter 1992, pp. 66–75.

13. Majeed , 'Has the War System Really Become Obsolete?' p. 423.

14. See Oliver Stevens William , Pistols at Ten Paces (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940), pp. 280–283; Hamilton Cochran, Noted American Duels and Hostile Encounters (Philadelphia: Chilton, 1963), p. 287; Robert Baldick, The Duel (New York: Potter, 1965), p. 199; Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday, pp. 9–11.

15. Seitz Don C. , Famous American Duels (New York: Crowell, 1929), p. 30.

16. Stowe Steven M. , Intimacy and Power in the Old South (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), p. 15.

17. On these issues, see also John Mueller, 'War: Natural, but not Necessary', in Hinde Robert A. (Ed.), The Institution of War (London: Macmillan, 1991).

18. Hinsley F. H. , 'Peace and War in Modern Times', in Raimo Väyrynen (Ed.), The Quest for Peace (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1987), pp. 78–79.

19. Majeed , 'Has the War System Really Become Obsolete?' p. 421.

20. It is interesting in this regard that many people found Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 to be remarkably odd. For example, the director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency 'just did not find it conceivable that Saddam would do something so anachronistic as an old-fashioned land grab. Countries didn't go around doing things like that anymore'. Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 217. That perspective may be premature, but the general notion that that sort of behavior is going out of style may prove to have substance.