Resort to War analyzes more than 600 wars, beginning in 1816, using the suthoritative, highly standarized, and systematic coding methods developed by the Correlates of War Project, which aims to reveal the underlying patterns and causes of war. -book cover.

Introduction : The debate: is war evolving? ; The need for systematic studies of war ; Brief history of the correlates of war project ; Purpose of this work -- 1. The interstate and international systems : Theoretical foundations: state actors in the international system ; Five nested systems ; The correlates of war interstate system ; The international system ; The central system and the major power system -- 2. Defining and categorizing wars / Meredith Reid Sarkees : Defining war and a typology of war ; The initial classification ; An expanded typology of war ; The coding of wars ; Describing inter-state war ; Describing extra-state war ; Describing intra-state war ; Describing non-state war -- 3. The inter-state wars : List of inter-state wars in chronological order ; Individual descriptions of inter-state wars -- Analyzing inter-state wars -- 4. The extra-state wars : List of extra-state wars in chronological order ; Individual descriptions of extra-state wars ; Analyzing extra-state wars -- 5. The intra-state wars / Meredith Reid Sarkees : Defining intra-state war ; Civil wars ; Regional and inter-communal wars ; List of intra-state wars in chronological order ; Individual descriptions of intra-state wars ; Analyzing intra-state wars -- 6. The non-state wars : The non-state wars in chronological order ; Individual descriptions of non-state wars ; Analyzing non-state wars -- 7. What do we know about war? / Meredith Reid Sarkees : War and religion ; War and psychology ; War and philosophy ; New wars? ; A comprehensive view of trends in modern war ; What do the new data tell us? -- Appendix : Chronological list of all wars.