Great Power Warfare and the Decline of War Question

We investigate the long-term trajectory of great power warfare in Western Europe from 1495 to the present, asking whether this form of warfare has truly declined. Building on Levy’s (1982, 1983) dataset and hypothesis, we analyse war onsets over five centuries and test the decline-of-war thesis against the no-change hypothesis using modern statistical approaches. Our findings support a sustained decline in the frequency of Western European great power wars, beginning well before 1945, and challenge interpretations that attribute post-World War II peace solely to nuclear deterrence. We also present a theoretical framework explaining this decline, emphasizing regional specificity and war type differentiation. Cautioning against broad generalizations, we argue that global trends in warfare are best understood through disaggregated, historically grounded analyses. We conclude that while war persists globally in various forms, the long-run reduction in Western European great power war constitutes a meaningful, though localized, movement toward more pacific international relations.