A Return Journey: Richardson, “Frontiers” and Wars in The 1946–1965 Era

In the Statistics of Deadly Quarrels Lewis Richardson presents findings linking frontiers to war. His results constitute the basis for a number of discussions concerning continuity and war, diffusion and war, and geopolitical approaches to war. Given the importance of Richardson's work, this paper investigates the generality of the frontier/ war relationship, by focusing on the post-World War II period using two different war data sets and multiple operationalizations of “borders.” The paper first develops a set of theoretical arguments linking borders and war in various ways. Next it reports an approximate replication of Richardson's analysis. The initial findings generally support Richardson's results (looking at the 1946–1965 period and with a full international system membership), but some qualifications are noted. Two further analytical approaches are then employed. The first of these is a set of cross-national approaches which are similar to Richardson's procedures. This approach provides an important further qualification of the Richardson border/war relationship: colonial borders support the border/war relationship, but noncolonial borders do not. The second approach involves nation-level comparative time-series analyses, the results of which are consistent with the qualifications discovered in the paper's earlier analyses.