This course is designed to give you an overview of armed conflict in its many forms, with a focus on interstate and intrastate war. The course will begin by considering the concept of armed conflict and its many forms, and the empirical trends in armed conflict across time and space. Theoretical and empirical work will then be drawn upon to address the question of why armed conflict occurs and what explains the onset of war, as well as what explains the conduct of opposition forces during war along with war's severity, duration and conclusion.