This fully updated and revised edition explores the evolution, nature and function of international law in world politics.

'The best book so far on Britain's...war in Afghanistan' International Affairs 'Masterful, irrefutable... Farrell records all these military encounters with the irresistible pace of a novelist' Sunday Times

'The best book so far on Britain's...war in Afghanistan' International Affairs 'Masterful, irrefutable... Farrell records all these military encounters with the irresistible pace of a novelist' Sunday Times

The new edition also contains more material on non-western perspectives, international institutions and non-state actors and a new bibliography.

An empirically rich account of how the West's main war-fighting armies have transformed since the end of the Cold War.

This book presents alarming evidence to show how the military services manipulate weapons acquisition to suit their own ends rather than national security.

This book presents alarming evidence to show how the military services manipulate weapons acquisition to suit their own ends rather than national security.

Seeking to explain this paradox - to uncover the motivations at the core of warring communities - Theo Farrell explores the cultural forces that have shaped modern Western conflict.