Intertwined logics: How nationalism and the changing international order have shaped patterns of war and peace since 1816

This essay explores how domestic and international dynamics conjointly shaped wars in the modern world, including those fought in the contemporary period. Building on an institutionalist theory of war and distinguishing between domestic and international transformations of the institutional order, I argue that nationalism provided the main motivations for many conflicts in the past and the present, and their dynamics broadly follow an established pattern of transitioning from an imperial to the nation-state order. This logic intertwines with a changing international system, however, that follows its own but related rhythms, influencing war ends as well as alliance patterns and providing the ideological frames that give nationalist ideals of self-rule a more specific content. Early twenty-first century wars—in Ukraine, Palestine–Israel, or Ethiopia—follow the nationalist patterns of the past quite closely but are also uniquely shaped by the emerging, multipolar international environment within which states narrowly focus on their national interests and pursue raw-realist goals.