War, Peace, and the State of the State

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Abstract
Against the tenets of realist literature, the article argues that the main source of war in the last half-century is internally-derived, and resides in the nature of post-1945 states. Regional and temporal variations in the topography of war make suspect realist claims of state similarity and systemic explanations of war. It is not the security dilemma nor the international system, but the composition of state legitimacy and the characteristic of weak, strong, and failed states which explain war today. Regions populated by strong states, defined in terms of legitimacy, are arenas of peace, and regions of weak and failed states are a prime location of war.

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