Can the great powers reorder war? The Dice of Mars and disordering of the ‘liberal’ war regime

Abstract

This article suggests that debates on the disordering of the ‘liberal’ international order stand to benefit from the further study of how the ordering of war itself is changing. It considers how war is not only spreading, intensifying, and rapidly evolving in technological means, but also becoming increasingly contested. To advance this study, it introduces the concept of ‘war regimes’ and traces the succession of war regimes in the modern experience. It finds that the character of war is rapidly evolving, but that war is also increasingly contested after liberal hegemony, albeit minimally ordered at thresholds of deterrent capabilities. The case is made that this has significant political and strategic implications for how states may attempt to reorder war in this century.