Over the last decade, the rise of insurgents and non-state actors in war, and their readiness to use terror and other irregular methods of fighting, have led commentators to speak of ‘new wars’. They have assumed that the ‘old wars’ were waged solely between states, and were accordingly fought between comparable and ‘symmetrical’ armed forces. Much of this commentary has lacked context or sophistication. But it has also failed to consider many of the other dimensions which help us to define what war is - legal, ethical, religious, and social. The Changing Character of War draws together all these themes, in order to distinguish between what is really changing about war and what only seems to be changing.