Future developments in war, armed conflict and internationalrelations are central to our collective fate in this century. Thisbook looks forward by considering the forces that will drivechanges in military organizations, sources of conflict, the powerof states and the nature of the international system.
New military technologies will alter how wars are fought andwill influence the balance of power. Changes in the globalenvironment will provide new causes of conflict and will changeeconomic priorities. As a result, the state will survive as the keysocial institution and populations will look to it to acquire andto distribute scarce resources like water, energy and land. Many ofthe changes that seem transformatory today, like globalization, theinternet and mass consumerism, will be shown to be less significantthan we believe them to be.
Hirst puts such changes into perspective by comparing them withthe revolutionary changes in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies in Europe: the firepower revolution, the rise of thesovereign territorial state and the parallel development of theinternational system, and the creation of world trade. These basicstructures of the modern world are still with us and will remain,despite major changes in twenty-first-century society.
This book will appeal to students of politics, politicalsociology & international relations as well as the interestedgeneral reader.