Wars are Becoming Less Frequent: A Response to Harrison and Wolf

Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Steve Pickering
The Economic History Review 67(1): 214–30.
Harrison and Wolf claim that interstate wars are becoming more frequent’. This is an alarming claim deserving serious attention. It is also a highly surprising claim, since recent conflict research tends to find the opposite: incidences of violent conflict are becoming less frequent. We argue that Harrison and Wolf’s claim is incorrect. We show empirically that interstate wars are in fact becoming less frequent. Other data on tensions between states below war, such as the Interstate Crises Behavior data, also suggest a decline in conflict between states. We detail how Harrison and Wolf’s analysis is misleading, highlighting how their findings primarily arise as a likely artefact of their uncritical use of the Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) data, and explaining why MIDs cannot be interpreted as wars’. Given that Harrison and Wolf’s basic premise is wrong, and wars are not becoming more frequent, we should be sceptical of their conclusions. We briefly revisit their suggested explanations for why wars may become more frequent in light of what we know about long‐term trends in warfare and research on interstate war.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0289.12002
Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Steve Pickering. 2014. “Wars Are Becoming Less Frequent: A Response to Harrison and Wolf.” The Economic History Review 67(1): 214–30.
@article{gleditsch2014wars,
   Author = {Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede and Pickering, Steve},
   Journal = {The Economic History Review},
   Number = {1},
   Pages = {214--230},
   Publisher = {Wiley Online Library},
   Title = {Wars are Becoming Less Frequent: A Response to Harrison and Wolf},
   Volume = {67},
   Year = {2014},
   abstract = {Harrison and Wolf claim that interstate \Elzreapos wars are becoming more frequent'. This is an alarming claim deserving serious attention. It is also a highly surprising claim, since recent conflict research tends to find the opposite: incidences of violent conflict are becoming less frequent. We argue that Harrison and Wolf's claim is incorrect. We show empirically that interstate wars are in fact becoming less frequent. Other data on tensions between states below war, such as the Interstate Crises Behavior data, also suggest a decline in conflict between states. We detail how Harrison and Wolf's analysis is misleading, highlighting how their findings primarily arise as a likely artefact of their uncritical use of the Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) data, and explaining why MIDs cannot be interpreted as \Elzreapos wars'. Given that Harrison and Wolf's basic premise is wrong, and wars are not becoming more frequent, we should be sceptical of their conclusions. We briefly revisit their suggested explanations for why wars may become more frequent in light of what we know about long-term trends in warfare and research on interstate war.},
   doi = {10.1111/1468-0289.12002},
   url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.12002}
}