The chapter opened by considering the often repeated realist claim that the pattern of
 international politics--wars interrupted for periods characterized by the preparation
 for future wars--have remained constant over the preceding twenty-five centuries.Moreover, rather than identifying the terrorists as transnational criminals
 and using police enforcement methods to counter their threat, the USA and its allies
 defined them as enemies of the state who had to be targeted and defeated using
 conventional military means.Behind the rhetoric of universal values, the USA has used the war to justify a wide
 range of policy positions that strengthen its economic and military power while
 undermining various multilateral agreements on arms control, the environment,
 human rights, and trade.From classical realists
 such as Rousseau to structural realists such as Waltz, protagonists have argued that
 interdependence is as likely to breed 'mutual vulnerability' as peace and prosperity.Had one of the significant norms of the Westphalian
 order become unhinged, namely, that war happens between sovereign states?