Subject headings make your search more relevant. Do a keyword search using the terms below, then use the facets under Subject on the left to further narrow your results.
for History of a Country
Search for "history" and the country as a subject keyword. You can narrow your search even farther by focusing on a particular aspect.
for Foreign Relations between Countries
Search for each country's name plus "foreign relations" as subject keywords.
for Specific Wars
Use these terms as subject keywords:
World War 1914-1918
World War 1939-1945
Vietnamese Conflict 1961-1975
Korean War 1950-1953
Persian Gulf War 1991
Afghan War 2001
Iraq War 2003
Record the sources you use as you go to avoid that last-minute bibliography panic, and inadvertent plagiarism.
Citing Sources--a guide to proper documentation, with examples for all formats of sources using several style manuals.
Use a citation manager like Endnote or Refworks.
Use truncation to search for variations on words, e.g. leader* for leader, leaders, leadership; terroris* for terrorist, terrorists, terrorism. Many databases, including the catalog, use *. Some use ! or other symbols.
More keywords to use--also may be used as descriptors (subject headings) in some databases:
Target your search by using Boolean operators--AND, OR, NOT--to combine the terms you want to find.
Unlike Web search engines, some databases will read a string of words as a phrase. By tweaking your search intelligently you will avoid the "overload of hits vs. I-didn't-find-anything" syndrome.
Globalization and Security by 
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations by 
International Relations: the Key Concepts by 
The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace by 
The Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy by 
Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy by 
