War Cycles
= War cycles are closely related to Hegemonic Cycles.
Typology
Joshua Goldstein:
- " "Hegemonic war" (Farrar) best gets at the special nature of these wars in revamping the world order.
- "World war" (Wallerstein) or "global war" (Modelski) could imply only a war of global scope (in which case other wars like the Seven Years' War should be included).
- "General war" (Toynbee, Levy) implies the participation of all great powers, again suggesting the inclusion of other wars.
- "Systemic war" (Midlarsky) may connote a change in system structure but can also be taken to mean a war of systemwide scope."
(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc13.pdf)
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)
Lateral Pressure Theory
Joshua Goldstein:
"Lateral pressure theory (North and Lagerstrom 1971; Choucri and North 1975; Ashely 1980) seeks to explain linkages between national economic growth and international conflict. It focuses on the importance of a country's population size, level of technology, and domestic resource availability and changes in these in shaping that country's international behavior. According to this theory, each member of a population creates demands for (at a minimum) food, water, shelter, clothing, and other basic needs. At higher levels of technology, these demands multiply, since machines and infrastructure must also be supported. These demands create a need for resources, and if the country does not have the needed resources domestically it will tend to seek them internationally. The propensity to extend activity beyond a country's own borders to help meet demands is called lateral pressure. It can take various forms, including trade, colonial expansion, and military activity. Different countries develop different national-capabilities—such as armed forces, merchant marines, financial institutions, and communications networks that go with different forms of expansion. The intersections of lateral pressure from two or more countries, often in other parts of the world, create competition for resources, for markets, for trade routes, for military position, and so forth that can intensify into conflicts.13 The lateral pressure literature has not addressed cycles in the past. Since it concerns the effects of economic expansion, the past work has focused on expansionary periods.14But the implications for long wave theory are clear. During the upswing of the world economy, demands will rise, countries will expand and intersect, and competition and war will increase.
Kondratieff himself ([1928] 1984:95) attributes the correlation of major wars with economic upswings to a process much like lateral pressure:
- The upward movement in business conditions, and the growth of productive forces, causea sharpening of the struggle for new markets—in particular, raw materials markets.... [This] makes for an aggravation of international political relations, an increase in the occasions for military conflicts, and military conflicts themselves.
Earlier authors have suggested similar effects of economic expansion.
Sorokin (1957:565—66) tentatively advances the hypothesis that
- in the life history of nations, the magnitude of war, absolute and relative, tends to grow in the periods of expansion—political, social, cultural, and territorial ... In such periods of blossoming the war activities tend to reach the highest points, probably more frequently than in the periods of decay. The expansion of any empire ... [except in a sparsely settled area] can be made only at the cost of the territory of other nations.... These other nations must be conquered, because none is willing to present itself, its population, its territory, and its resources as a free gift to any other nations. Since the victim of the expansion must be subjugated and conquered, this means war, the only real instrument of subjugation. Hence war's increase in the period of expansion.
John Maynard Keynes (1936:381) likewise argues that "war has several causes.... [Above all] are the economic causes of war, namely, the pressure of population and the competitive struggle for markets. " And Lasswell (1935:121) argues that "ina world divided into states whose ultimate differences are to be settled by violence, prosperity expands markets, intensifies contact, sharpens conflict and war." The lateral pressure argument, in which sustained economic growth increases the propensity for major wars in the system, complements the cost of wars argument, in which sustained growth increases the ability to wage bigger wars."
(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc12.pdf)
The Impact of Wars on Long-Term Economic Growth
Joshua Goldstein:
1.
"War may be economically profitable for one country under special circumstances if the war is fought on foreign territory, knocks out some sizable economic competitors, and one's own side wins the war. World War II met all three conditions for the United States. Japan in World War I experienced similar benefits while sitting out the war. The U.S. war in Vietnam, which met only the first condition, was clearly not good for the U.S. economy and seems to have played a major role in the production stagnation that began in the late 1960s. The impact of wars on long-term economic growth has been statistically analyzed by Wheeler (1980) and by Rasler and Thompson (1985b). Wheeler (1980) uses the data and methods of the Correlates of War project to analyze postwar industrial growth (measured by iron production to 1870, then energy consumption) in major nations since 1815. Using multivariate regression analysis for forty-four national cases, Wheeler finds that except for World War II, the effects of war on industrial growth were "overwhelmingly" negative (p. 275).21This conclusion converges with the conclusions of five earlier studies by other authors (Wheeler 1980:261-62). Rasler and Thompson (1985b) use a Box-Tiao statistical analysis in which wars are regarded as an "intervention" in the process of economic growth. The scope of the study was defined by the availability of GNP data Britain since 1700, the United States and France since about 1800, and Germany and Japan since about 1875.
"Global wars" as defined by Modelski's leadership cycle theory (see chapter 6) are distinguished from other interstate wars. Rasler and Thompson find that interstate wars "in general... have no statistically significant impact on economic growth." But for global wars, each of which they test separately, eight of the thirteen country war combinations are statistically significant at the.05 level. Rasler and Thompson's conclusions are tentative (the statistical significance is borderline and the methodology somewhat ad hoc), and they point out that their results largely contradict those of Wheeler (1980) in terms of the effects of World Wars I and II on economic growth in specific countries. Nonetheless, they conclude that at a minimum, "the evidence indicates that global war does not seem to pay" and does "cost... in terms of permanently increasing the costs of maintaining and operating competitive states" (p. 534). The empirical evidence thus corroborates war's negative impact on production. Theoretical arguments support this conclusion as' well.
Wars cost money to fight and use up limited resources. And in the war zone itself existing capital plant is damaged and economic output reduced. War conditions, with centralized governmental control and sacrifices on the part of the population, may manage to "squeeze" the maximum production out of the economy in the short-term (using full capacity). But those very conditions disrupt the long-term growth of the economy (growth of capacity)."
2.
"At least three countereffects can be postulated, nonetheless, in which war exertsa positiveeffect on production. While these are weaker than the negative effects, they deserve mention.
First, in the short term, war can effectively "squeeze" maximum production out of a national economy.
Pigou (1940:32) reasons that productive power can increase in wartime "by the direct action of patriotic sentiment. Volunteers flow into the army and munition-makers readily accept long hours, just as a family would do which suddenly discovered its house burning and in crying need of salvage." These effects are augmented by direct and indirect coercion (conscription and taxation).
Second, war seems sometimes to "shock" a national economy into a reorganized mode based on a new "technological style".
After a sharp drop in production during the war, production may resume growth at a more rapid rate than before the war as was the case for French national production discussed above (fig. 12.4). Organski and Kugler (1980) refer to the "phoenix factor" in which a country that has been decimated by losing a major war recovers economically and within fifteen to twenty years restores its capabilities to levels competitive with the other leading powers (the distribution of power that would have ensued had the war not taken place). West Germany and Japan are the two most recent and most striking such cases.
But John Stuart Mill refers to the same kind of phenomenon centuries earlier:
- The great rapidity with which countries recover from a state of devastation... has so often excited wonder.... An enemy lays waste a country by fire and sword, and destroys or carries away nearly all the moveable wealth existing in it: all the inhabitants are ruined, and yet ina few years after, everything is much as it was before.
A third possible positive effect of war on production, although beyond the scope of this book to explore, is war's role in shaping the formation of the nation-state itself and hence the overall context of production.
As Tilly (1975:42) puts it, "war made the state, and the state made war." These three positive effects of war on growth operate on different time scales. The squeezing of higher production can be sustained only over the short-term (a few years); the "phoenix effect" is relevant to a period of decades following a major war;32and the role of war in state-making operates on an even longer time-scale more relevant to hegemony cycles than long waves."
(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc12.pdf)
Toynbee on How Social Memory Affects War
Joshua Goldstein:
"Toynbee's theory (chapter 5) that the social memory of war causes cycles in war may also be integrated into this framework. The memory of recent severe war works against its recurrence. But as that memory fades over the decades, the chances of war recurrence increase. While I am not sure that social memory can be shown to playa role in the long wave,48and while I have not done empirical research in this area,a role for social memory in the long wave has a certain theoretical appeal and should not be ruled out. Such a theory is consistent with the finding, in chapter 11, that war severity is more "periodic" than other elements in the long wave with respect to calendar time.49 Thus the social memory element of the long wave theory could serve to stabilize and give greater regularity to the recurrence of major wars, which in turn would stabilize the entire long wave."
(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc12.pdf)
The Correspondence between Hegemonic Cycles and War Cycles
See our entry on Hegemonic Cycles for details:
Joshua Goldstein writes:
"These three shifts (in the hegemonic cycle) also line up with the most cataclysmic wars.
Looking back over the past five centuries, three great war peaks stand out above all the others:
- The Thirty Years' War, 1618—48
- The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1793—1815
- World Wars I and II, 1914—45
These are empirically (see chapter 11) the most severe wars, corresponding with the highest peaks of inflation and hence presumably the most "costly" wars.
...
From my perspective, the crucial issues are how costly a war period was, how disruptive it was of the world economy, and what effect it had in restructuring relations among the core countries. From this perspective, the three wars included are the most important landmarks on the historical map. Each of these three wars marks a transition, a transformation of world politics and its reconstitution on a new level of development. While slow, underlying change takes place all the time and transitions from one era to another are long and drawn out in many ways, one can still identify the most visible, most intense phases of these transitions as residing in the three hegemonic war periods, 1618—48, 1793-1815, and 1914—45.
At the end of each of these three war periods, a new configuration of international politics at the core of the world system emerged. The Treaty of Westphalia, the Congress of Vienna, and the arrangements of 1945 each revamped the hierarchical system of great powers, coronating a new hegemonic power at the head of a fresh world order.
Each war period thus brought a political restructuring of the core and a realignment of economic relations among core countries (winners and losers, new trading spheres, differential costs of the war to participants, bankruptcies, reparations, and so forth).
This dating of hegemony cycles also resonates well with the work of several other scholars. In chapter 5 I mentioned Quincy Wright's dating of eras in military evolution: 1450—1648; 1648—1789; 1789—1914; and 1914—. Again, while the specific dates vary, the overall scheme corresponds with the dating of Wallerstein rather than Modelski. Tilly (1975:46), in discussing the role of wars among established states in creating new states, lists the most "dramatic demonstrations" of this as the Treaty of Westphalia, the Congress of Vienna, and the Treaty of Versailles.9These major reorderings of the international system again correspond more closely with Wallerstein's than Modelski's dating of hegemony cycles. The division of time into these eras also resonates with Doran's (1971) study of the "assimilation" of losing countries after drives for European supremacy. His list of such drives is: the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic wars, and World Wars I and II. However, he finds the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, to have been a "failure" of assimilation (p. 110), allowing France's drive for supremacy to resume later. Leaving this case aside, then, the remaining wars are the same "big three." The importance of these three wars is reflected in evidence from prices as well "
(http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcyc13.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)
Status
Great Power Rivalry Periods Are Characterized by Thirty-Year Wars
Duncan Law, interpreting Immanuel Wallerstein:
"where are we in that cycle? Well, clearly we are no longer in the period of hegemony. As Wallerstein says in the passage I quoted above, the period of US hegemony came to an end some time in the late-1960s – mid-1970s. I would suggest, further, that the period of hegemonic decline has also now ended, or is at the very least ending. We are instead entering a new period of ‘great powers rivalry’, in which the powers within the interstate system are sufficiently balanced that jockeying for geopolitical position becomes a more central preoccupation of states’ governing elites.
Now, the period of hegemony is characterised by a global political-economic structure created and enforced by the hegemonic state: an economically liberal order within the sphere of the hegemonic power’s global influence. In the period of decline that order persists, because although the former hegemonic power’s political-economic strength is reduced, it is in the interests of its rivals to retain the political and economic structures that are increasing their economic, and therefore geopolitical, strength.
In the period of great powers rivalry this calculation changes, for two reasons. First, the period of great powers rivalry is, Wallerstein argues, typically characterised by global stagnation or recession. In this scenario, economic growth moves closer to a ‘zero sum game’ in which states are concerned to expand their spheres of influence and thereby increase or secure their wealth at others’ expense, rather than relying on general global economic expansion ‘naturally’ increasing states’ wealth through the ordinary operation of the liberal international order.
Second, with the ‘opening up’ of geopolitical space, and the unpredictability of the future structure of the world system, states have an increased interest in gaining geopolitical power relative to their rivals. This too leads to an increase in interstate geopolitical competition. Eventually, Wallerstein suggests, that geopolitical competition will result in global war.
It is, again, worth emphasising the unpredictability of history, and the inadequacy of any conceptual schema to the complexities of global political-economic dynamics. Still, Wallerstein’s approach seems to me to provide a useful ‘baseline’ for thinking about our current macrosocial moment.
In particular, here are some of the things associated with the shift from the first to the second stage of the ‘cycle of hegemony’, described above: Increasing interstate rivalries; efforts by many states to expand their spheres of influence; global economic stagnation and recession; declining power of a previous hegemonic power. An increasing decay or collapse of the liberal international order, and a corresponding movement towards greater autarky for individual states, and towards greater interstate competition. Shifts in the ideological ‘superstructure’ that parallel these political-economic shifts: increased challenges to the global liberal order, and to liberal ideology more broadly; greater suspicion of international institutions; increased nationalism, and therefore, often, nativism. A shift towards more zero-sum understandings of wealth accumulation, both between and within states; correspondingly, greater intra-state rivalries between economic groups. All of these things seem to have some explanatory purchase on our current anti-liberal, anti-elite, increasingly isolationist political moment.
Further – again, with all due caution and caveats – this ‘baseline projection’ would seem to warrant a pessimism about the medium term geopolitical outlook. If the US is, indeed, to be replaced by an alternative global hegemonic power within a capitalist world-system – if the ‘cycle of hegemony’, as Wallerstein characterises it, is to persist – then that new hegemonic power must, somehow, establish its hegemony. On Wallerstein’s account, this has only ever previously been achieved through a ‘thirty years war’:
The original Thirty Years’ War was from 1618 to 1648, out of which the United Provinces emerged hegemonic. The second one was the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars of 1792-1815, out of which the United Kingdom emerged hegemonic. And the third was the period 1914-1945, out of which the United States emerged hegemonic. (xxv)
Will this current period of interstate rivalries result, eventually, in a new ‘thirty years war’? Again, the predictive power of social science is notoriously limited. But this seems like something worth worrying about, in amongst all our other worries."
(https://duncanlaw.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/cycles-of-hegemony/)
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)
- 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. "
This 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."