Regional Wars and the Peace Process

Comprehensive Unit132 pagesGrade Level: High School – Community CollegePublished 2004 Regional and civil wars have been a feature of the world order since human societies developed the capacity to organize combatants to wage war. The implications of these wars for political, economic, and social development have changed dramatically with the emergence of new military technologies that permit greater and farther-reaching damage. The rapid emergence of these new technologies in the 19th century ushered in new forces that facilitated the circulation of weapons and the capacities to wage and sustain regional wars. With further advances in warfare technologies, the potential for regional and civil conflicts to evolve into global ones has dramatically increased and has made the need for conflict resolution ever more pressing. The end of World War II led to the decline of colonialism and the realignment of the world in the context of Cold War rivalries. While the Cold War exacerbated re