The new forms of warlike violence the postcolonial war of pacification, small global war, markets of violence, the privatisation and commercialisation of war – have to be seen within a long history of forms of violence which evolved interdependently. The article looks at three major developments within that history: colonialism, thermonuclear war, and the failing of states. In view of the new forms of warlike violence and their history the author suggests that criminology has to give up some well entrenched presuppositions based on the difference between crime and war and has to develop a “sociological criminology of war” which is a political sociology and, in particular, a sociology of power and domination.