Modern War and the Utility of Force

<p>This book investigates the use and utility of military force in modern war.</p><p>After the Cold War Western armed forces have increasingly been called upon to intervene in internal conflicts in the former Third World. These forces have been called upon to carry out missions that they traditionally have not been trained and equipped for in environments that they often have not been prepared for. A number of these ‘new’ types of operations in allegedly ‘new’ wars stand out such as peace enforcement state-building counter-insurgency humanitarian aid and not the least counter-terrorism. The success rate of these missions has however been mixed providing fuel for an increasingly loud debate on the utility of force in modern war. This edited volume poses as its central question: what <em>is</em> in fact the utility of force? Is force useful for anything other than a complete conventional defeat of a regular opponent who is confronted in the open field?</p><p>This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies war and conflict studies counter-insurgency security studies and IR.</p><p><strong>Isabelle Duyvesteyn</strong> is an Associate Professor at the Department of History of International Relations Utrecht University in the Netherlands. </p><p><strong>Jan Angstrom</strong> is a researcher at the Swedish National Defence College. </p>