Addressing Kondratieff's argument (1979) that long waves of economic activity are responsible for major wars, this study develops and tests three hypotheses relating war to long price waves. Focusing on the experiences of Great Britain and the United States between 1750 and 1977, we find that...

The basic assumptions associated with two approaches to analyzing the relationship between the distribution of capabilities and war, namely Waltz's analysis of systemic stability and Modelski's long cycle of global leadership, are examined and contrasted. The systemic stability model concludes...

Based on a model linking ascent prerequisites, relative decline, long-wave dynamics, and systemic war, the relationships among the pace of technological innovation, relative economic position, and naval capability are examined for Britain (1780-1913) and the United States (1870-1980). In both...

Historical-structural analyses of world politics tend to emphasize the theoretical significance of a handful of wars that over the past several hundred years have demarcated important changes in systemic structure. However, analysts do not fully agree on which wars have constituted the...

Of approximately 100 empirical democratic peace articles published in journals and papers presented at conferences over the last 10 years, none identifies a positive and statistically significant relationship between democratic dyads and militarized conflict. Therefore, many international...

The largely unanticipated end of the cold war and the consequent difficulties in explaining its demise underline the need to understand better the phenomenon of rivalries in world politics. There is, however, much more at stake than the history of the Soviet-American relationship because a...

One of the factors thought to explain the relative decline of system leaders is the high military overhead costs assumed by leaders. High defense burdens, however, may be achieved at the expense of investment, capital formation, and future economic growth. By evading the high defense burdens,...