War cycles

The theory of war cycles holds that wars happen in cycles.

The cycles of war
The forerunner of the study of war cycles was Edward R Dewey, with Quincy Wright's monumental A Study of War adding impetus to the discipline. The credibility of the study of cycles was frequently questioned, as this type of inquiry attracts persons with marginal credibility and interest in paranormal issues. However, with advent of computer algorithms minimizing the dampening effect affecting the abstracted oscillations and facilitating the detection of stochastic drifts, the study of cycles is subject to renewed interest.



Comparative studies
Quantitative studies of bellicosity of the Western civilization and the Confucian civilization of the East was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson. Richardson's studies led him to the conclusion that "Confucian-Taoist-Buddhist religion of China stands out conspicuously as being either itself a pacifier, or else associated with one" and that "it seems probable that the comparative peacefulness of China prior to 1911 was the result of instruction, and in particular of Confucian instruction."

Richardson's findings were based on data spanning about a century. Study by Krus, Nelsen, & Webb (1998) lengthened his perspective for the wars of the Western civilization by about three centuries (Fig. 1) and for the Eastern Civilization by about 17 centuries (Fig. 2). In Fig. 2, the 220–618 time interval corresponds to the period in Chinese history called the Period of Disunion (also called the Chinese Dark Ages or six dynasties), when Confucius' teachings were abandoned. Krus et al. (1998) concluded that "In the Empire of China, when the Confucian philosophy was predominant, the peace lasted significantly longer than in the West. When Confucian teachings were abandoned, the frequency of warfare approximated that observed for the Western countries."

For another comparative study that specifies a mathematical model of war cycles and tests it cross-culturally and cross-historically see Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends. Note that this study tries to connect the war cycles with long-term trend dynamics.