His research focuses on International Relations Theory (security studies and international political economy), and he is the author of The Origins of Major War, (Cornell U.P., Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, 2000), a study of the link between the rise and decline of great powers and the outbreak of devastating system-wide wars. His second book project, Economic Interdependence and International Conflict, examines the conditions under which inter-state trade will lead to either war or peace. Other research interests include the origins of economic interdependence between great powers, the realist-constructivist divide, in-group/out-group theory and the logic of reputation-building, and the interconnection between international political economy and security studies.