Third World War: System, Process, and Conflict Dynamics

By romanticizing the Cold War as a “long peace,” we lose perspective on the full range of conflict dynamics that engulfed the lives and livelihoods of people in the Third World. Episodes of violence and human suffering have increased and spread, encompassing ever more states and social groups. Many regions have seen such a serious deterioration of conditions that “normal” politics are clearly impossible. Third World War examines the patterns of political violence throughout the world during the Cold War and analyzes them collectively as conflict processes within the global system. It shows that warfare was not randomly distributed, but was centered on six protracted conflict regions that together accounted for 80 to 90 percent of all forms of political violence during that time—a magnitude of violence that rivals the destruction of the previous two world wars. Through societal theories of identity, conflict, and development dynamics, supported by a broad range of quantitative evidence, the author explores how armed conflict and the politics of insecurity lead to policy changes, arrested development, and, ultimately, state failure. He concludes with policy implications and a brief assessment of the prospects for peace in the global system.