Though the prevention of conflict is the first promise in the Charter of the United Nations, it is a promise constantly betrayed by international organizations, governments, and local actors alike. At the same time, and in a more positive vein, recent studies provide much-needed information about why and how today's conflicts start and what sustains them. This ground-breaking book presents some of the best scholarly and policy-relevant work on the practical challenges of conflict prevention within the UN system. The authors consider the causes and dynamics of war, the tools that are being developed to predict the cruption of conflict, and what is being done - and what could be done better - in the effort to move from promise to practice.