This volume offers a comprehensive history of warfare since 1648, covering conventional and unconventional operations and demonstrating how most modern wars have been hybrid affairs that involved both.Military historian Thomas R. Mockaitis considers how epic struggles like the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the conflicts in the Middle East, among many others, shaped human history. The coverage serves to highlight four themes: the relationship between armed forces and the societies that create them, the impact of technology (not just armaments) on warfare, the role of ideas and attitudes toward violence in determining why and how wars are fought, and the relationship between conventional and unconventional operations.The book also covers the advent and evolution of unconventional warfare, including counterinsurgency, the War on Terror, and current conflicts in the Middle East. It concludes with consideration of the forms armed conflict will take in the future. The book includes valuable excerpts from the writings of military thinkers such as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and supporting maps and diagrams.

Introduction1. The Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe2. An Era of Limited War3. The Era of Revolutionary Wars: North America4. French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars5. Industrialization and the American Civil War6. Prussian Military Reforms and the Wars of German Unification7. The Long Peace8. World War I9. The Interwar Period10. World War II in Europe11. World War II in Asia12. The Cold War: A New Era of Limited Conflicted?13. Conflict in the Post-Cold War WorldConclusion: The New Security Environment and the Future of WarfareNotesBibliographyIndex