War in the Modern World

Great powers no longer fight great wars. But how exactly did countries like the United States go from confronting powerful adversaries in 1914 and 1939 Europe to waging lengthy counterinsurgency campaigns in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer lies in the profound geopolitical and technological changes that came in between. After Germany and Japan surrendered to the Allied powers in 1945, the very nature of war—how it is fought and by whom—had changed, culminating in a series of proxy battles, civil conflicts, and insurgencies that came to define the global landscape after World War II. A 24-episode course designed by US Naval War College professor David R. Stone, War in the Modern World has two complementary goals. The first is to explore modern war through conflict from the end of the Second World War up to the present day and the second is to zoom out of the trenches to examine the characteristics that tie wars since 1945 together. It is not just about the dates and details