The Steps To War explanation is a theory of international relations based on the issue paradigm that empirically establishes the war-proneness of territorial issues and the use of power politics practices. The framework is established by and John A. Vasquez in the 2008 book , though many of key insights, such as the role of alliances, arms races, and territory in promoting escalation of disputes to war, have been elaborated in previous works. The Steps To War explanation makes two major contributions to the war literature. First, it shows that not all disputes are equally likely to escalate to war. In particular, it presents a theoretical and empirical case for the war-proneness of territorial disputes. And second, the theory demonstrates that the very power politics practices that politi