This brief conclusion surveys the history presented in the preceding chapters and demonstrates how that history supports the conceptual framework presented in Chapter 1 and the primary themes of Leaving the Fight. These themes include the evolution of state, military, and individual surrender from the Middle Ages to the present and the origins and development of the treatment of prisoners of war and detainees. This last can be seen as growing out of medieval honorable surrender, becoming formal cartels between combatants, and then becoming international conventions, from the second half of the nineteenth century into the twenty-first. The conclusion also argues that detention operations instituted during the Iraq Surge serve as a source of lessons to be learned in future conflicts.

In the more centralized states of early modern Europe, rulers exerted greater control over warfare. They established ransom, parole, and exchange for all ranks, not simply the elites. Men taken in battle and held by enemy forces could be ransomed by the states for which they fought. In certain circumstances, prisoners could be free of confinement until ransoms were paid, a new sense of parole. Prisoners could also be exchanged between warring parties. The details of these practices were set out in formal agreements, “cartels,” between adversaries. State surrenders in European wars were set down in treaties; however, the language of the treaties was typified by respectful treatment of the defeated, avoiding the term “surrender,” and praising the return of peace. Moderate language conformed to the principles of an age in which contemporary writings praised the more civilized, even polite, conduct of war. Surrender of military units was common, particularly in siege warfare. The besieged could win advantages by surrender. Garrisons might be given the honors of war, by which a defeated garrison would be allowed to march out and proceed to a friendly camp or garrison, rejoining their own army and escaping imprisonment.

The focus of this chapter is the puzzle about why it has taken so long for the G20 to be taken seriously in institutionalist international relations, and whether this evolutionary pattern matters for addressing the pivotal question: “How International Organizations Promote or Detract from Peaceful Change.” Amid the shocks of the Global Financial Crisis, the G20 became the privileged institutional choice over alternative options via formal International Organizations, including the United Nations. The protracted lack of scrutiny on the G20 in institutionalist IR is puzzling given the role of this scholarship in extending the level of analysis not only with an original focus on formal IOs but also an expanded range of informal institutions. Per se, the extended neglect of the G20 is a symptom of an ingrained Western and more specially the US centrism in the literature. Even as the G20 has lost instrumental purpose, the value of the G20 as a vehicle for management of world politics must be recognized. The lack of understanding concerning the evolution of the G20 in mainstream IR is particularly noticeable with respect to the elevated role in the G20 by countries with Global South identities.

This chapter provides conceptual models of state surrender and military-unit surrender, as well as commenting on individual surrender through time. The models also explain and define the process and consequences of surrender, including the phenomenon of surrender taking the form of withdrawal since World War II. In dealing with the surrender of individual soldiers, the chapter disputes the idea that classifying something as “surrender” depends on the surrendering party making a voluntary choice to yield, a usual part of dictionary definitions of the term. Combatants, most combatants it can be argued, become prisoners of war not because of their own decision but because of the decisions of their commanders. The chapter also discusses prisoners of war and detainees, distinguishing the former from the ladder. It also lists the possible fates of those held by the enemy. Beyond this, the chapter introduces the evolution of the laws of war as a major theme of the volume, from medieval customary practices to modern international conventions.

This chapter explores the various ways that liberal internationalism has sought to use international institutions to build cooperative systems of order. I start by outlining liberal internationalism’s tradition of thinking about institutions and peaceful change. Liberalism and liberal internationalism are defined by their deep assumptions about modernity, development, and progress as well as by their focus on the challenges of adapting liberal democracy and international order to modernization and rising interdependence. After this, I turn to five system-structural “problems” that liberal internationalism has grappled with over the past two centuries. These are the problems of anarchy, hierarchy, interdependence, liberal openness, and geopolitical vulnerability. Across millennia, the two dominant forms of international order have been either anarchy or hierarchy. Liberal internationalism has been deeply entangled with both types of order. Yet, despite this, its overall ideas and projects have been oriented toward creating a “third way” between anarchy and hierarchy. In all these pursuits, liberals have used institutions as tools and ordering arrangements to solve problems and promote peaceful change.

The UN General Assembly, a body including representatives of all UN member governments, serves as the primary forum for defining a better world order through peaceful change. It has endorsed programs of peaceful change at all levels of ambition at different times and on different issues. Much of its activity has focused on the minimalist goal of averting or ending particular wars. On other issues, most notably decolonization, national economic development, and adding environmental concerns to the intergovernmental agenda, it has contributed to incremental change in the states system. Yet the limits on what governments would endorse became clear on issues such as human rights where changes would affect domestic political orders. The end of the Cold War and related domestic-level political changes provided the context for higher ambition, which peaked in 2005 when the General Assembly endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs offered a vision of deep peace in which universal respect for human rights, human development, and human security prevail within ecologically sustainable societies. Yet the subsequent spread of authoritarian rule within states and increased geopolitical tensions between major states have reinforced governments’ traditional approaches to states system, reducing the ambition of programs for peaceful change.

To most contributors in this volume, international organizations (IOs) act both as agents of, and inhibitors of peaceful change. This leaves the task of identifying exactly how and why they foster or inhibit peaceful change to empirical analysis and mid-level theorizing. Yet, as Ian Hurd points out in his chapter, understanding the deep power politics at play in institutionalized peaceful change requires a higher level of theorizing. This concluding chapter takes stock of the collective findings in light of Hurd’s cautionary tale and suggests future avenues of research engaging with postpositivist, relational, and critical theories. It identifies three main areas in need of further theorizing: the agents, the stakes, and the processes of peaceful change. It argues that such further theorizing would not only shed light on transformative processes of maximalist peaceful change which are yet to be fully explored in this volume, but it would also help develop a more pluralistic research agenda.

This chapter unpacks the complex relationship between international organizations and peaceful change in the international system through various perspectives on international relations. We identify three types of peaceful change associated with international organizations: institutional change within IOs, interactional change among IOs, and transitional change involving IOs and power dynamics in the international system. The latter has the potential to bring about a “maximalist peaceful change,” resulting in profound positive changes in international relations and human life. However, it also carries significant risks. As great power rivalry intensifies and challenges to the existing liberal international order grow, understanding the role of international organizations in promoting or hindering peaceful change becomes crucial. This chapter serves as an introduction to the volume, providing an overview of its content and summarizing the major findings of other chapters. The book not only diagnoses the ability of international organizations to facilitate order transitions but also offers suggestions to address their current shortcomings in promoting peaceful change.

This chapter looks at the assumption that there is a relationship in world politics between international organization and peaceful change. That premise is the working hypothesis behind many of the chapters in this book, and it provides the justification for the scholarly search for empirical patterns between IOs and change. When international relations is assumed to be comprised of a mechanical ontology (causal mechanisms that lead from initial conditions to predictable effects), then it makes sense to employ a scientific methodology indebted to Isaac Newton. But the shifty concepts of world politics, such as conflict, peace, change, and stability, are not well-suited to machine-like regularity. Concepts such as change are subjective or ambiguous and hence make for poor variables. The chapter examines the gap between methodology and ontology that emerges in the effort to find causal mechanisms that link the practice of international organization to the outcomes of peaceful change.

Postwar functionalism focused the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in advancing peaceful change on scientific and technical cooperation. By the 1970s, the influx of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as member states called for greater attention to health development needs and the ways postwar liberal internationalism was a structural determinant of ill-health. Contested perspectives about WHO’s mandate and core functions ensued. Major donor countries, concerned about the organization’s politicization, reasserted their influence by shifting the organization’s budget to donor-controlled voluntary contributions. Despite ongoing efforts to reform the WHO, new global health initiatives proliferated, weakening the organization’s standing as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare WHO’s limited authority and resources but also the critical importance of both scientific and political leadership in responding to shared global health threats. This has renewed debates about WHO’s role in advancing peaceful change amid a now complex and crowded global health governance landscape. While some argue for the organization to return to its scientific and technical focus, promoting interdependence and trust among member states requires meaningful political processes.