Competing theories about who is most responsible for the overall frequency and geographic scope of international armed conflict in the nuclear age are systematically tested against the record of states' warlike actions since World War II. These theories include the traditional view of `power politics' which assumes that intervention is practiced primarily by great powers and the vision of `nuclear paralysis' which presumes that great powers use military force infrequently compared to aggressive minor states. The frequency of foreign overt military intervention both within and outside of war is compared among all states. Analysis is based upon a new catalog of international armed conflicts, the OVERT MILITARY INTERVENTION file, that attempts to identify all foreign overt military interventions initiated since World War II. Ninety-seven states initiated 591 foreign overt military interventions within 269 international armed conflicts between 1945 and 1985. All international armed conflicts, the intervenors and their territorial targets are named in an Appendix that accompanies the article. Results provide partial support for both the power politics and nuclear paralysis perspectives but also raise questions about the adequacy of each of these views. Great powers excepting the Soviet Union have intervened more frequently than have virtually all other states, and the Soviet Union is not far behind. China, France and the United Kingdom, however, now intervene less frequently than they did in the first decades after World War II. Moreover, great powers as a group account for only a small fraction of all foreign overt military interventions, in part because nearly all but very small states intervene occasionally. Direct responsibility for the incidence and scope of contemporary international armed conflict is more diffuse than is implied by some traditional theories of power politics. At the same time, great powers employ warlike force more often than is implied by the image of nuclear paralysis.

Whether rigid and extensive alliances help keep peace or promote war is a vexing question in theory of international politics. The Cold War era following World War II presents an apparent paradox: two great coalitions openly confronted one another; their members contributed to numerous local wars and other international crises which continually threatened global conflagration; yet world peace generally prevailed. It is suggested that persistence of general peace despite frequentlocal savagery owes in part to differential effects of Cold War alliances upon defensive and offensive overt military intervention which, in turn, have different implications for the diffusion and magnitude of war. 690 instances of overt military interventions conducted by all world states between September 1945 and December 1991 are systematically examined. A strong tendency toward intra-allied defensive intervention is observed consistent with intense local warfare. At the same time, a comparatively weak tendency toward inter-allied offensive intervention is observed, consistent with avoidance of general war.

The United Kingdom practiced foreign military intervention more than thirty times in more than twenty countries after World War II. She used force more extensively than any other major country despite her reduced status in the post-war era. The question is whether Britain's extensive military activity can be explained in the same terms as those often used to account for the militance of some great powers. Where, when, and why Britain initiated thirty-four military interventions between 1949 and 1970 are examined. It is found that most interventions were limited to countries within the bounds of the post-war Empire in the immediate vicinity of an Army base, experiencing political violence, whose authorities might officially request British action. These limits constrained where and when England appealed to arms more rigidly after World War II than before, and more rigidly than is usually expected among great powers. In addition, some functions often attributed to imperial or great power military intervention are evaluated. It is found that the United Kingdom did not systematically use military force on behalf of her greatest trade monopolies, her most profitable overseas investments, nor very much on behalf of the greatest concentrations of her citizens. If the hallmark of a great power is the flexible application of military power to further obvious national interests, Britain did not behave as a great power. This challenges notions of a simple relationship between national capability and military practice. It also suggests difficulties in promoting international peace: international society permits more than one syndrome of extensive national military violence.The United Kingdom intervened abroad with military force more than thirty times in the quarter century following World War II. She used arms in more than twenty countries and in nearly every world region.Britain turned to force more often than any other major nation, including either the United States or the U.S.S.R. She intervened in more places than any other state. Such militance seems inconsistent with England's post-war position. The Nineteenth Century wars are easier to understand. Then Britain equalled any country and played a vital role in the international balance of power. The United Kingdom fell to secondary status after World War II: America and Russia eclipsed her; she was shorn of empire; her economy suffered; and she no longer exerted decisive influence upon the structure of the international system.On the surface Britain's extensive military activity appears anachronistic. England was one of the most active military powers at the height of the Empire in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. After 1945, in decline, she continued to use force often and over a wide expanse of the globe. This once-dominant nation seemed unable to adjust military behavior to new political realities (Calvocoressi

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The authors' understanding of the relationship between the cold war and enduring rivalry in the Third World has been hampered by a tendency to view international conflicts as relatively isolated phenomena. The authors address this question by analyzing the impact of superpower arms transfers on armed interventions in the Middle East from 1948 to 1991. The evidence suggests that arms transfers from the United States to Israel restrained the level of military aggression in the region, on the part of both Israel and its Arab rivals. Soviet arms transfers, however, had the opposite effect. This latter pattern is attributed more to the Soviet Union's inability to restrain its clients than to its active promotion of regional conflict. The authors' conclusions are based on a Poisson regression analysis of time-series data derived from the Overt Military Interventions database and the arms trade registers compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.