War Cycles

Discussion

Joshua Goldstein:

"Summary of Empirical Analysis Chapters 9–11 have presented the results of my empirical analysis on long waves in economic variables and in war. This analysis began from a conception of long waves as alternating historical phase periods in which cycle time rather than calendar time is the appropriate statistical framework. I defined these phase periods, a priori, by a single base dating scheme that applies across the board to all the time series studied.

Fifty-five economic time series and several war series were assembled into a coherent data base, which was analyzed to find whether the behavior of the series in fact alternates in successive phase periods. The analysis consistently identified synchronous long waves in a variety of price series from different core countries as well as in the two (English) real wage series. The analysis of time-shifted correlations further identified long waves in production, innovation, and capital investment although the paucity of data, especially for capital investment, makes this conclusion quite tentative. The production variables lead prices by about ten to fifteen years, allowing a new interpretation of the "stagflation" of the 1970s as the start ofa production downswing and the end of a price upswing. Innovation seems to lead prices, inversely, by about five years, and capital investment seems to lead prices by about ten years. Long waves in trade are not evident. The severity of great power war correlates strongly with the long wave, leading prices by about one to five years. The pattern of recurring war, while remaining fairly synchronous with the long wave, passes through several different eras over the course of five centuries.

While the results arrived at in chapters 9—11 are in many places tentative, and the data supporting them often fragmentary, I have nonetheless tried to piece together the most coherent picture possible admittedly, only a "rough sketch" from the available information. This effort does not "prove" anything about long waves but helps to build theory consistent with available evidence. Further research into one or another class of variable may well turn up contradictory evidence at some later point, forcing a revision of theory (or resolving an unsolved puzzle, such as the British-U.S. patent mystery). But for now, the picture described in chapters 9—11 is the most consistent and supportable interpretation that can be made of the available evidence.

In closing, I note that the competing long wave hypotheses tested in the preceding chapters may be seen as the bottom level of a hierarchy of hypotheses. At the upper levels, the results corroborate three meta-hypotheses:

1. The existence of a world system corroborated by the international synchrony of political-economic movements.

2. The unity of economics and politics in that system corroborated by the strong correlations among political and economic variables.

3. The existence of long waves of political economy within the world system corroborated by the alternating growth rates in the data series."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc11.pdf)

Fernand Braudel on the Cost of Premodern Warfare

Joshua Goldstein:

"The cost of wars argument is especially applicable to preindustrial times. In the first few centuries after 1500, wars were fought primarily with money, that is, with mercenaries hired by a monarch. If the mercenaries were not paid, they would not fight or worse, they might turn on their master. Thus the link between prosperity and war was fairly direct.

Braudel (1972:897–99) identifies two types of wars in Europe around the sixteenth century. "Internal" wars took place within Christendom or Islam, and "external" wars were between these two hostile civilizations. Braudel notes that the second type (jihad or crusade), as well as the outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence in the Christian world, coincide with times of economic depression. But wars of the first type corresponding more closely to what are here called great power wars are "usually preceded by a `boom'; they come speedily to a halt when the economy takes a downward turn" (p. 898). Braudel (1972) describes fifteenth-to-seventeenth-century European wars as moving in surges the economy recovered from one war and was in turn drained by the next, bringing war temporarily to a halt. Braudel describes the constraining effect of finances on the Spanish-French war in1557 (p.943), the European conquest of Tunis in 1574 (p. 1134), and the Spanish-French war in 1596–97 (p. 1218). In the latter case, the "state bankruptcy of 1596 had once more brought the mighty Spanish war machine to a halt" (p. 1221).

Braudel cites a number of cases in which spectacular state bankruptcies, especially by Spain, brought a sharp reduction in war. In industrial times the costs of war, no longer restricted to purchased mercenaries, continued to place a strain on the total resources of society. Although by industrial times European society was able to sustain a much higher level of economic production and surplus, the costs of war kept pace with this growth (Farrar 1977). The second argument for why production affects war I call the "lateral pressure" argument. Production upswings bring increased national growth by a number of great powers at once, leading to heightened competition for world resources and markets. This competition increases the propensity toward major conflicts and wars among core countries (even though the things over which they conflict may lie outside the core)."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc12.pdf)

History

Joshua Goldstein:

"In describing the war cycles, I find it helpful to look at the war pattern as evolving and passing through successive stages of development, which I call "eras." In each successive era, the recurring pattern of war severity resembles the previous era in some ways but differs in others:

1. From 1495 until about 1618/1648

.. great power wars fluctuate up and down around a level of about ten thousand fatalities per year (from 1511 to 1606 there are only three "peace" years out of ninety-four).

Three war peaks, albeit weak ones, can be picked out on the basis of sustained, high-fatality wars: 1521-29, 1552-56, and 1593-1604.15

2. From about 1618/1648 to 1793/1815

.. there is a repeating pattern, or "signature," of great power war, in which a series of wars of escalating severity culminates in a high-fatality war and a relatively peaceful period follows. This pattern repeats four times, the war peaks ending respectively in 1648, 1713, 1763, and 1815. The fatality levels of these war peaks are an order of magnitude higher than in the previous era about one hundred thousand annually and rise steadily during the two centuries. In these centuries a trend toward more peace years breaking up the years of great power war is observable.

3.From about 1793/1815 to 1914/1945

.. the peace years become predominant and the pattern of escalating wars within a long wave is replaced by one or more peaks of short duration. In this era the wars are shorter and, in the case of World Wars I and II, more severe by an order of magnitude (about two million battle fatalities per year). I hypothesize that a fourth era may have begun around 1945 in which even fewer great power wars will occur, but any that do will be of even greater severity and shorter duration.

Note that Wallerstein's (1983) three "world war" periods , each followed by the start of a new hegemony (see chapter 6), seem to correlate with the eras just described."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc11.pdf)

More information

Research into War Cycles

Goldstein discusses, in this chapter of his book on Long Cycles, the historical research of:

• Ludwig Dehio (see: Ludwig Dehio's Theory of War Cycles)

• Arnold Toynbee (see: Arnold Toynbee's Theory of War Cycles

• A. F. K. Organski's Power Transition Theory

• L. L. Farrar, Jr.

Joshua Goldstein:

"The third strand of research coming out of Quincy Wright's work leads into the current debate on cycles of war and hegemony. The influences of Ludwig Dehio, Arnold Toynbee, and A. F. K. Organski come to bear, as shown on the right-hand side of figure 5.1. This strand focuses not on fifty-year cycles (long waves) but on longer cycles defined by the very biggest wars, which I will call "hegemonic wars. "34This conception of war cycles flows out of Wright's observation that every other fifty-year war concentration was "more severe." Toynbee formulated this into a one-hundred year war cycle scheme, and his contemporary Dehio formulated a similar scheme based on the recurrent efforts of Continental powers to gain hegemony in Europe.

This concept of a cycle of hegemonic challenges eventually drew Organski's "power transition" theory into the debate, since that theory deals with the outbreak of war when a rising challenger surpasses the dominant power in capabilities. Different conceptions of what constitutes hegemony, hegemonic war, or a hegemonic challenge lead to different interpretations and datings of these phenomena. By hegemony I mean the position of the leading country in the world, which is able, by virtue of superior economic and military capabilities, to largely shape the rules by which international relations (both economic and security relations) are conducted."

(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc05.pdf)