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Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age
"Demolishes the myth that war is in decline, and constructs a compelling explanation for the true drivers of war in the past, and likely in the future." -Aaron Clauset, University of Colorado and the Santa Fe Institute
The idea that war is going out of style has become the conventional wisdom in recent years. But in Only the Dead, award-winning author Bear Braumoeller demonstrates that it shouldn't have. With a rare combination of historical expertise, statistical acumen, and accessible prose, Braumoeller shows that the evidence simply doesn't support the decline-of-war thesis propounded by scholars like Steven Pinker. He argues that the key to understanding trends in warfare lies, not in the spread of humanitarian values, but rather in the formation of international orders--sets of expectations about behavior that allow countries to work in concert, as they did in the Concert of Europe and have done in the postwar Western liberal order. With a nod toward the American sociologist Charles Tilly, who argued that "war made the state and the state made war," Braumoeller shows that the same is true of international while they reduce conflict within their borders, they can also clash violently with one another, as the Western and communist orders did throughout the Cold War.
Both highly readable and rigorous, Only the Dead offers a realistic assessment of humanity's quest to abolish warfare. While pessimists have been too quick to discount the successes of our attempts to reduce international conflict, optimists are prone to put too much faith in human nature. Reality lies somewhere in While the aspirations of humankind to govern its behavior with reason and justice have had shocking success in moderating the harsh dictates of realpolitik, the institutions that we have created to prevent war are unlikely to achieve anything like total success--as evidenced by the multitude of conflicts in recent decades. As the old adage advises us, only the dead have seen the end of war.
The idea that war is going out of style has become the conventional wisdom in recent years. But in Only the Dead, award-winning author Bear Braumoeller demonstrates that it shouldn't have. With a rare combination of historical expertise, statistical acumen, and accessible prose, Braumoeller shows that the evidence simply doesn't support the decline-of-war thesis propounded by scholars like Steven Pinker. He argues that the key to understanding trends in warfare lies, not in the spread of humanitarian values, but rather in the formation of international orders--sets of expectations about behavior that allow countries to work in concert, as they did in the Concert of Europe and have done in the postwar Western liberal order. With a nod toward the American sociologist Charles Tilly, who argued that "war made the state and the state made war," Braumoeller shows that the same is true of international while they reduce conflict within their borders, they can also clash violently with one another, as the Western and communist orders did throughout the Cold War.
Both highly readable and rigorous, Only the Dead offers a realistic assessment of humanity's quest to abolish warfare. While pessimists have been too quick to discount the successes of our attempts to reduce international conflict, optimists are prone to put too much faith in human nature. Reality lies somewhere in While the aspirations of humankind to govern its behavior with reason and justice have had shocking success in moderating the harsh dictates of realpolitik, the institutions that we have created to prevent war are unlikely to achieve anything like total success--as evidenced by the multitude of conflicts in recent decades. As the old adage advises us, only the dead have seen the end of war.
344 pages, Hardcover
Published September 3, 2019
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January 2, 2020
Only the Dead is a direct response to and refutation of Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker.
In that book, Steven Pinker complains that things are better now than ever, but that this news gets very little attention because people are naturally drawn to negative news. So that’s what media outlets focus on. (e.g. if it bleeds it leads.) While his assertion is probably true in general, in the specific case of Pinker, he, at least, seems to have no problem getting attention. While people making the opposite argument appear to have a much tougher road. Which is one of the reasons I decided to write this review.
As far as the quality of Only the Dead. I would say that it’s definitely drier than Pinker’s work. Braumoeller is not as good a writer. But if we turn from style to substance, I would have to give the award to Braumoeller. It’s always hard to judge the evidentiary and methodological basis of a book without redoing the math, reading all (or many) of the sources, and knowing a lot about the subject already, but my sense, from the standpoint of evidence, is that Only the Dead is the equal Pinker’s book, and may surpass it, and that from a methodological standpoint it’s definitely better. In particular Baumoeller’s definition of what constitutes war is more sophisticated than Pinker’s. Also, for me at least, Only the Dead does a much better at passing the smell test.
I imagine other people might feel differently. That’s certainly their right, but I think this is one of those books that’s particularly important to read before dismissing. Especially for people using Pinker’s book as their primary support for one or the other political platform or policy proposal.
As I mentioned this book was written as a direct response to Better Angels and it might be easiest to look at some of the places Baumoeller disagrees with Pinker.
First off, Pinker argues that war has been declining for centuries. Baumoeller disagrees, and actually finds the opposite:
The story told...is pretty grim. [The data] shows a significant drop [in the use of force] around the end of the Cold War. The overall trend over the course of the past two centuries, however, has been an increase in the rate of conflict initiation between countries. In fact, if we leave out the two World Wars, we can see that the Cold War was the most conflictual peacetime period to have occurred since the Napoleonic Wars, and the end of the Cold War was the first instance of a decrease in the rate of conflict initiation in nearly two centuries.
This is obviously not the story that Pinker is telling. War has not been declining for centuries, though the fact that it declined after the Cold War has to count for something, right? Well to begin with, that time period is not really long enough for us to draw any conclusions. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t fit Pinker’s idea that the reduction of war is due to the long arc of progress which has been ongoing since at least the Enlightenment.
This takes us to another area of disagreement. Baumoeller found that in periods and areas where war did decrease that it had very little to do with the rise and spread of enlightened humanism, and almost everything to do with international orders, like the Concert of Europe, the Bismarckian System and, more recently, things like NATO and the United Nations. This is exactly the same conclusion put forward by Ian Morris in his book War! What Is It Good For?. According to both Baumoeller and Morris, the decline of war which started at the end of the Cold War, was all about American hegemony, and unrelated to any surge in enlightened liberal values. If American hegemony goes away, which it seems to be doing. Then we're back to where we were
All of this means that war is likely to continue, and it illustrates one final point of disagreement between Pinker and Baumoeller. Baumoeller points out that this has already been happening, wars have continued in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pinker, on the other hand, prefers to limit his focus to wars between Great Powers. And while I agree that this is a useful distinction, it’s also a distinction that can easily be breached. As Baumoeller points out, every war no matter how small has a chance of exploding into something far larger.
If chance events are the main drivers of escalation, anyone who starts a war today is running a small but nontrivial risk that the war will snowball to nightmarish proportions.
The impression one gets from all of this is not that we are living through the Long Peace, a peace that is likely to continue forever, but that we were exceptionally lucky during the Cold War that none of the many conflicts ended up “snowball[ing] to nightmarish proportions.” And as much as I hope that our luck holds, the “small but nontrivial risk[s]” are going to continue to accumulate, and one of these days our luck is going to run out.
In that book, Steven Pinker complains that things are better now than ever, but that this news gets very little attention because people are naturally drawn to negative news. So that’s what media outlets focus on. (e.g. if it bleeds it leads.) While his assertion is probably true in general, in the specific case of Pinker, he, at least, seems to have no problem getting attention. While people making the opposite argument appear to have a much tougher road. Which is one of the reasons I decided to write this review.
As far as the quality of Only the Dead. I would say that it’s definitely drier than Pinker’s work. Braumoeller is not as good a writer. But if we turn from style to substance, I would have to give the award to Braumoeller. It’s always hard to judge the evidentiary and methodological basis of a book without redoing the math, reading all (or many) of the sources, and knowing a lot about the subject already, but my sense, from the standpoint of evidence, is that Only the Dead is the equal Pinker’s book, and may surpass it, and that from a methodological standpoint it’s definitely better. In particular Baumoeller’s definition of what constitutes war is more sophisticated than Pinker’s. Also, for me at least, Only the Dead does a much better at passing the smell test.
I imagine other people might feel differently. That’s certainly their right, but I think this is one of those books that’s particularly important to read before dismissing. Especially for people using Pinker’s book as their primary support for one or the other political platform or policy proposal.
As I mentioned this book was written as a direct response to Better Angels and it might be easiest to look at some of the places Baumoeller disagrees with Pinker.
First off, Pinker argues that war has been declining for centuries. Baumoeller disagrees, and actually finds the opposite:
The story told...is pretty grim. [The data] shows a significant drop [in the use of force] around the end of the Cold War. The overall trend over the course of the past two centuries, however, has been an increase in the rate of conflict initiation between countries. In fact, if we leave out the two World Wars, we can see that the Cold War was the most conflictual peacetime period to have occurred since the Napoleonic Wars, and the end of the Cold War was the first instance of a decrease in the rate of conflict initiation in nearly two centuries.
This is obviously not the story that Pinker is telling. War has not been declining for centuries, though the fact that it declined after the Cold War has to count for something, right? Well to begin with, that time period is not really long enough for us to draw any conclusions. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t fit Pinker’s idea that the reduction of war is due to the long arc of progress which has been ongoing since at least the Enlightenment.
This takes us to another area of disagreement. Baumoeller found that in periods and areas where war did decrease that it had very little to do with the rise and spread of enlightened humanism, and almost everything to do with international orders, like the Concert of Europe, the Bismarckian System and, more recently, things like NATO and the United Nations. This is exactly the same conclusion put forward by Ian Morris in his book War! What Is It Good For?. According to both Baumoeller and Morris, the decline of war which started at the end of the Cold War, was all about American hegemony, and unrelated to any surge in enlightened liberal values. If American hegemony goes away, which it seems to be doing. Then we're back to where we were
All of this means that war is likely to continue, and it illustrates one final point of disagreement between Pinker and Baumoeller. Baumoeller points out that this has already been happening, wars have continued in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pinker, on the other hand, prefers to limit his focus to wars between Great Powers. And while I agree that this is a useful distinction, it’s also a distinction that can easily be breached. As Baumoeller points out, every war no matter how small has a chance of exploding into something far larger.
If chance events are the main drivers of escalation, anyone who starts a war today is running a small but nontrivial risk that the war will snowball to nightmarish proportions.
The impression one gets from all of this is not that we are living through the Long Peace, a peace that is likely to continue forever, but that we were exceptionally lucky during the Cold War that none of the many conflicts ended up “snowball[ing] to nightmarish proportions.” And as much as I hope that our luck holds, the “small but nontrivial risk[s]” are going to continue to accumulate, and one of these days our luck is going to run out.
May 27, 2020
This may be the most important book of the 21st century, but we will never know.
Upon hearing of Pinker's "decline of war" hypothesis, and taking in the evidence Pinker presents, Braumoeller (a highly qualified academic) decided to test the hypothesis with rigorous data analysis. Braumoeller's conclusion is that Pinker was too hasty in constructing his thesis.
It is incumbent on us all, but especially on those in power, to prevent the almost incomprehensible tragedy that would result from a great war with modern weaponry. As Pinker might have made policy makers complacent about this, so might Braumoeller bring them back to reality, thereby preventing a war. And that's why I say this book is so important. But again, if it does its job we will never know.
Upon hearing of Pinker's "decline of war" hypothesis, and taking in the evidence Pinker presents, Braumoeller (a highly qualified academic) decided to test the hypothesis with rigorous data analysis. Braumoeller's conclusion is that Pinker was too hasty in constructing his thesis.
It is incumbent on us all, but especially on those in power, to prevent the almost incomprehensible tragedy that would result from a great war with modern weaponry. As Pinker might have made policy makers complacent about this, so might Braumoeller bring them back to reality, thereby preventing a war. And that's why I say this book is so important. But again, if it does its job we will never know.
March 12, 2020
Braumoeller shows with hard evidence that Steven Pinker's book 'better angels', and the theory that war is in decline are not true. At best the trends in war are stable. We still have the same risks of stumbling into a world war as we had last century.
And this is really important to realize, because authors like Pinker sing people to sleep with their fake songs about automatic world peace. While we need to stay awake en be vigilant, and work on preventing new wars.
Altough the argumentation is solid and the subject interesting, the book is sometimes a bit dry. But it was still interesting and in a strange way entertaining to read.
And this is really important to realize, because authors like Pinker sing people to sleep with their fake songs about automatic world peace. While we need to stay awake en be vigilant, and work on preventing new wars.
Altough the argumentation is solid and the subject interesting, the book is sometimes a bit dry. But it was still interesting and in a strange way entertaining to read.
April 16, 2021
This book challenges the thesis that war has declined and got less deadly over the last 200 years. Braumoeller convincingly uses statistics to show that the decline-in-war thesis is wrong and proposes that the presence of international orders is a predictor of the kinds of war that will take place. I thought he did a really good job of bringing different statistical methods to bear on these questions. Three stars because I only have a peripheral interest in this topic and while Braumoeller does take on a massive thesis and is aware of his limitations in taking on such a big thesis, he does appeal to authority in a couple of places (e.g., Taleb p.42 and Gray p.60).
April 14, 2024
A decent but very "thin" book.
The book explicitly comes to counter the "decline of war" thesis, most prominently presented in Steven Pinker's 1,000+ page "The Better Angels of Our Nature." This book only deals with one facet of that one, namely the part dealing with war (using various definitions), and convincingly argues that Pinker's thesis is wrong. War has not become rarer (in the sense of initiations of war becoming less frequent), and wars haven't been getting obviously less deadly (though this depends on how you measure it). Braumoeller is convincing in this point and within a couple dozen pages you may be convinced, as I was, that Pinker just didn't treat the subject with the appropriate seriousness and rigor.
The rest of the book is sadly lacking. Braumoeller offers a sort-of alternative explanation around "international orders," essentially saying that international orders can reduce the chance of war within them but increase the chance of war between orders. The classic example is the Cold War, with liberal democracies on one hand and the USSR and its allies on the other, such that there were limited wars within these two groups but enormous violence on the fault lines between them. This is a worthwhile point but not enough space is given to understand how these orders are formed, why not to understand the causality as reversed (in other words, less incentive for war causes countries to come together in an order or the like), and how to compare orders between different periods. This is not necessarily a problem, it just makes the discussion of international orders incomplete. The overview of international orders over the last 200 years toward the end of the book feels unhelpful on any level.
It's interesting that between the two books, almost no attention whatsoever is given to the effect of *place* on conflict as opposed to *time*. I think what many of us find appealing in the decline-of-war thesis is that we see in Western Europe today a bunch of countries that used to war constantly and now are at such total peace that war between them is truly unthinkable. England, France and Germany in particular are the examples that come to mind. A similar situation has developed in other regions, especially the Americas. The vast majority of conflicts in recent decades have taken place in a relatively narrow territory. This seems like a very interesting fact, and one that is patently obvious regardless of the chronological point, yet neither book seems to do much in terms of cross-country analysis, opting instead for looking at the world over time.
Probably the best of this book could be dug up from an article by the author or other critics of Pinker's, the book is not really of much interest beyond that.
The book explicitly comes to counter the "decline of war" thesis, most prominently presented in Steven Pinker's 1,000+ page "The Better Angels of Our Nature." This book only deals with one facet of that one, namely the part dealing with war (using various definitions), and convincingly argues that Pinker's thesis is wrong. War has not become rarer (in the sense of initiations of war becoming less frequent), and wars haven't been getting obviously less deadly (though this depends on how you measure it). Braumoeller is convincing in this point and within a couple dozen pages you may be convinced, as I was, that Pinker just didn't treat the subject with the appropriate seriousness and rigor.
The rest of the book is sadly lacking. Braumoeller offers a sort-of alternative explanation around "international orders," essentially saying that international orders can reduce the chance of war within them but increase the chance of war between orders. The classic example is the Cold War, with liberal democracies on one hand and the USSR and its allies on the other, such that there were limited wars within these two groups but enormous violence on the fault lines between them. This is a worthwhile point but not enough space is given to understand how these orders are formed, why not to understand the causality as reversed (in other words, less incentive for war causes countries to come together in an order or the like), and how to compare orders between different periods. This is not necessarily a problem, it just makes the discussion of international orders incomplete. The overview of international orders over the last 200 years toward the end of the book feels unhelpful on any level.
It's interesting that between the two books, almost no attention whatsoever is given to the effect of *place* on conflict as opposed to *time*. I think what many of us find appealing in the decline-of-war thesis is that we see in Western Europe today a bunch of countries that used to war constantly and now are at such total peace that war between them is truly unthinkable. England, France and Germany in particular are the examples that come to mind. A similar situation has developed in other regions, especially the Americas. The vast majority of conflicts in recent decades have taken place in a relatively narrow territory. This seems like a very interesting fact, and one that is patently obvious regardless of the chronological point, yet neither book seems to do much in terms of cross-country analysis, opting instead for looking at the world over time.
Probably the best of this book could be dug up from an article by the author or other critics of Pinker's, the book is not really of much interest beyond that.
April 20, 2021
This book allowed me to understand quite a bit about warfare in the modern world. I do see the point of Braumoeller that from a statistical standpoint it might be too early to say that war has really declined in the last few decades. By using a wide array of statistics he shows that the probability and the instigation of war have not reduced substantially. He pointed out that the data does not a decline in war thesis. His point about humane ideals not driving a reduction in warfare was strong.
Though, I did not like this book on many other counts. Firstly, the entire point about putting your negative thesis in like half the book is a bit too much. He should start with his perspective which only comes in the last third of the book. Also, he had an academic style couple with quite a few informal comments here and there, which really broke the flow of the book, and did not earn the respect of the reader for the author. Some of his points, I found them to be a bit too commonsense!
Anyone who had lived through the world outside may be sheltered Europe or the USA knows that war has not declined. With the mess created by Arab Spring (I do like revolutions but they can be quite messy), with Russia and China bullying in their neighbourhoods, I cannot see why anyone will say that war or its probability has declined. More than that, I wonder who buys the rhetoric of the West as a promoting democracy around the world, as a Pakistani, with all the coups that the West orchestrated and supported, there is no question that human rights only matter to the West when there is no economic pain associated with it. Otherwise, before and after Cold War, humane ideals might matter when it comes internally to Western countries they really are not primary drivers of their foreign policy or matters of war and peace. At very best, they are "nice to haves". That's the reality.
The other thing I am not fully convinced with this book is that it underestimates the impact of nuclear weapons on warfare. I don't think nukes are good, but nukes do really escalate the cost of war. I think without nukes, the Soviet Union and USA and China will probably have gone into a full-scale war along with Pakistan and India having a serious conflict. So, I do think War has become less deadly in the sense that war "could have been deadlier" if there were no nukes.
Though, I did not like this book on many other counts. Firstly, the entire point about putting your negative thesis in like half the book is a bit too much. He should start with his perspective which only comes in the last third of the book. Also, he had an academic style couple with quite a few informal comments here and there, which really broke the flow of the book, and did not earn the respect of the reader for the author. Some of his points, I found them to be a bit too commonsense!
Anyone who had lived through the world outside may be sheltered Europe or the USA knows that war has not declined. With the mess created by Arab Spring (I do like revolutions but they can be quite messy), with Russia and China bullying in their neighbourhoods, I cannot see why anyone will say that war or its probability has declined. More than that, I wonder who buys the rhetoric of the West as a promoting democracy around the world, as a Pakistani, with all the coups that the West orchestrated and supported, there is no question that human rights only matter to the West when there is no economic pain associated with it. Otherwise, before and after Cold War, humane ideals might matter when it comes internally to Western countries they really are not primary drivers of their foreign policy or matters of war and peace. At very best, they are "nice to haves". That's the reality.
The other thing I am not fully convinced with this book is that it underestimates the impact of nuclear weapons on warfare. I don't think nukes are good, but nukes do really escalate the cost of war. I think without nukes, the Soviet Union and USA and China will probably have gone into a full-scale war along with Pakistan and India having a serious conflict. So, I do think War has become less deadly in the sense that war "could have been deadlier" if there were no nukes.
January 26, 2025
Only the dead have seen an end to war. An interesting idea that war is an organized and violent form of resolving human conflict. Its in peoples nature to have conflict, the selfish gene reflects this concept incredibly well. This book in particular is a compelling and scholarly examination of why war remains a constant in human history, even in the modern, supposedly peaceful age. Braumoeller challenges the widely held belief that war is becoming less frequent and inevitable, arguing instead that conflict is deeply ingrained in the political, social, and economic structures of nations. Through a combination of historical analysis, theoretical insights, and empirical data, he explores the persistence of war in the 21st century and the factors that continue to drive global conflicts. The book is a thought-provoking and well-researched contribution to discussions on international relations, offering a fresh perspective on the complex dynamics of war and peace. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the underlying forces that shape modern warfare.
August 7, 2020
Braumoeller writes an engaging and easily readible book, providing a refuation for the decline of war thesis in a transparent and often humerous way. The conclusions he provides as a way out of this quagmire are very much lacking, and his indecisiveness over the good and bad aspects of international orders left me wondering precisely how humanity can move forward without catastrophic violence. Moving beyond the violent nation-state and including an assessment of current non-violent and anarcho pacisifist communities around the world may have provided a more fruitful end to this text that what eventuated. As it stands, this is an excellent argument against Pinker, and Braumoeller's wity writing provides some much needed relief in the face of what is an undeniably horrific conclusion.
June 2, 2022
An expectational look at the data about war and its lack of decline
March 17, 2021
Most interesting was how coalitions can increase the risk of war.
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