Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature is, quite simply,
one of the most influential social science books of the past
decade. In it, Pinker argued that violence in all its forms-but
especially war-has been steadily declining throughout the modern
era, and that the world is more peaceful now than ever before. The
book found a very receptive audience, and it is indeed a powerful
work. But is it true? In Only the Dead, Bear Braumoeller assesses
the claim that armed conflict is in decline and finds it wanting.
In the course of his assessment, he also develops a powerful
explanation for trends in warfare over time. His central finding is
that, although there has been a drop in the rate of international
conflict following the end of the Cold War, that drop followed
nearly two centuries of steady increases in the rate of conflict.
Moreover, the rate of civil war onset has increased following the
end of the Cold War, and extrastate wars (wars between states and
non-state entities) have shown a recent resurgence. With regard to
war intensity and severity, he has found no significant change
since the end of the Napoleonic Wars-which represents a sharp
rejoinder to Pinker's thesis. Just as importantly, he contends that
the flaws in Pinker's argument flow from a fundamental weakness in
this theory, which is really a monocausal story about a decline in
the willingness to wage war. In contrast, Braumoeller's findings
are in accord with systemic theories of international politics that
emphasize Great Power conflict. He therefore traces how Great Power
interactions produce world orders, which in combination with Great
Power activity alter the calculations made by states as they
contemplate the choice between a negotiated settlement and war. To
buttress his argument, he looks at key episodes from each major
historical era, all the while emphasizing how the Great Power
system induces armed conflict. Because the decline-in-war thesis
has captured the attention of politicians, journalists, and
citizens as well as academics, Only the Dead is likely to be quite
controversial. But Braumoeller, known for being one of the most
numerate political scientists in the discipline, has both a
powerful theory and data that doubters cannot dismiss. It therefore
has the potential to stand as a landmark work in the fields of
international politics and the history of war.
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