Dogs of War

As Ward Thomas details in The New Dogs of War, in many countries militias and paramilitary groups wield greater power than national governments, while in some war zones private contractors perform missions previously reserved for uniformed troops. Most ominously, terrorist organizations with global reach have come to define the security landscape for even the most powerful nations. Across the first decades of the twenty-first century we have witnessed a dramatic rise in the use of military force by these nonstate actors in ways that impact the international system, leading Thomas to undertake this valuable assessment of the state of play at this critical moment.