Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security Edited by Tessaleno C. Devezas University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division NATO Security through Science Series This Series presents the results of scientific meetings supported under the NATO Programme for Security through Science (STS). Meetings supported by the NATO STS Programme are in security-related priority areas of Defence Against Terrorism or Countering Other Threats to Security. The types of meeting supported are generally “Advanced Study Institutes” and “Advanced Research Workshops”. The NATO STS Series collects together the results of these meetings. The meetings are co-organized by scientists from NATO countries and scientists from NATO’s “Partner” or “Mediterranean Dialogue” countries. The observations and recommendations made at the meetings, as well as the contents of the volumes in the Series, reflect those of participants and contributors only; they should not necessarily be regarded as reflecting NATO views or policy. Advanced Study Institutes (ASI) are high-level tutorial courses to convey the latest developments in a subject to an advanced-level audience Advanced Research Workshops (ARW) are expert meetings where an intense but informal exchange of views at the frontiers of a subject aims at identifying directions for future action Following a transformation of the programme in 2004 the Series has been re-named and re- organised. Recent volumes on topics not related to security, which result from meetings supported under the programme earlier, may be found in the NATO Science Series. The Series is published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, and Springer Science and Business Media, Dordrecht, in conjunction with the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. Sub-Series A. Chemistry and Biology Springer Science and Business Media B. Physics and Biophysics Springer Science and Business Media C. Environmental Security Springer Science and Business Media D. Information and Communication Security IOS Press E. Human and Societal Dynamics IOS Press http://www.nato.int/science http://www.springeronline.nl http://www.iospress.nl Sub-Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics – Vol. 5 ISSN: 1574-5597 To Vanda Our Love May Not Be Eternal, But Be It Infinite While Endures. A ubiquitous bad habit of thought is supposing that whatever is determined is inevitable… Further, it has been suggested that the universe itself is a space-time granular and that the future although completely deterministic is unpredictable, being its own fastest simulation Daniel Dennet, 2003 To My Progeny, João Paulo, Thiago, João Pedro, Gabriel, Mathieu, Matheus, and Théo, Coevals of the Next K-Wave Peak Generation, With the Hope That the Future Will be What it Not Used to Be. Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security vii T.C. Devezas (Ed.) IOS Press, 2006 © 2006 IOS Press. All rights reserved. PROLOGUE Long Waves and Warfare: An Enduring Controversy In a paper published in 2001 [1] I put forth some empirical evidence, already claimed in the 1980s by Kleinknecht [2] and Vasko [3], that publishing on economic long waves (or Kondratieff waves) seems itself to move along a long wave path. Reckoning the number of th publications (books and papers) on long waves since the start of the 20 century my graph suggested the existence of two clusters of publications separated by ~59 years, each follow- ing a logistic trajectory. The first cluster, presenting a ΔT (time to go from 10% to 90% of the complete growth) = 28 years, peaked in the late 1920s, coinciding with apogee and rd downswing of the 3 Kondratieff wave (K-wave for short) and in my opinion it corre- sponded to the period of discovery and diffusion of the long wave concept, the period when the main body of Kondratieff’s work was published and also the period that witnessed the uprising of publications on business cycles (not considered in my reckoning). The second cluster, presenting a ΔT = 25 years, peaked in the middle 1980s, coinciding with the down- th swing of the 4 K-wave and, again in my opinion, it corresponded to a typical phase of proofing the existence, modeling, and theorizing on economic long waves. I concluded then that the unfolding of the second logistic signaled the ceiling of publications on long waves in the coming years, probably heading to a reasonable understanding of the phenomenon. Now, only four years later, this conclusion seems to be incomplete. Indeed, we have ob- served a diminishing number of publications during the last couple of years (if compared to the huge amount of publications during the 1980s), but not the expected ‘reasonable under- standing’. What some chapters of this book reveal is that doubts on the very existence of K- waves increased (coming even from authors that actively published on long waves during the second cluster), or if they in fact exist (or existed), some recent developments may have perturbed their unfolding, in such a way that long waves might be but a temporary histori- cal fact associated perhaps with the onset of the massive capitalistic means of production. We must recognize, however, that considerable progress has been made in understand- ing the underlying mechanisms driving the long wave behavior of the world socioeconomic development. Despite this progress, one also recognizes that many aspects related to these underlying driving forces remain unsolved. Perhaps the most controversial of these aspects to have endured is the close relationship between K-waves and the outbreak of major wars, first suggested by Kondratieff himself. Social scientists and politicians are well acquainted with the fact that chance events (in- stantaneous and unforeseeable events of human or physical nature) have been responsible not only for the outbreak of wars, but also have even changed or decided their course and outcome. Notwithstanding, since the last quarter of the 20th century the new recognition of some patterns in the study of warfare may contribute to change this perception. Two main trends in analyzing warfare are now acknowledged: the increasing recognition of the exis- tence of some cyclical patterns of warfare involving the core of the world system, and a shift toward newly evolving patterns involving non-state actors and asymmetric warfare. viii Moreover, we should add the fact that warfare analysts agree that for the coming decade the threat of a largely bi-polar, superpower-driven global war situation is practically non- existent. Instead, the near term threat for international security comes from conflicts of asymmetric nature, bringing a confusing mix of stateless actors, separatist and fringe inde- pendence movements, insurgence operations, terrorist attacks, the use of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), information warfare, and other unconventional threats. There is con- sensus too that there are few, if any, countries that can militarily challenge the NATO coun- tries in open combat at the present time, a scenario that, however, may change in the long term. The prevailing view has been that warfare is a random occurrence having more or less severe or transitory effects on the economic and social system. Contemporary historians, economists, and other system scientists, who have demonstrated the existence of cyclical patterns, however, are increasingly questioning this view [4–6]. Long wave theorists have shown a clear secular pattern of recurrence of major wars with a period of 50 to 60 years [7–10], as well as a concentration of wars in the upswing phase of the K-wave. Another pattern of 25-year periodicity, probably generation-driven, also emerges from these stud- ies [1,11]. Moreover, simple extrapolation of the secular trend points to a highly probable severe conflict by the middle of the second decade of this century (upswing of next K-wave), involving countries struggling for leadership in the Pacific Rim. Hence, we may tentatively agree with this maturing point of view that wars are not merely the result of blind social and political forces, but patterned according to long socio- economic cycles and/or, as recently proposed [12], the result of deep and general laws un- derlying the coevolutionary unfolding of the world system. It is necessary to investigate the underlying causes of the observed patterns, using the modern tools of systems science and looking at social and biological human behavior at the aggregate level, in order to develop a consistent theory of warfare. Even the recently observed trend of “brush-fire” and asym- metric wars might be an adjacent new ingredient of the long wave dynamics. The meeting that spawned this book had as scope the discussion of the above points, mainly concerned with the relationship between K-waves and warfare under the light of the new trends observed in the international political sphere. To my surprise, however, as well as to most of the participants of the NATO Advanced Workshop on Kondratieff Waves, Warfare, and World Security (held in Covilhã, Portugal, 14–18 February 2005) many of the contributions presented and the discussions developed during the meeting again stirred up the old controversy about the existence of long waves and about the possibility that K-waves might come to an end. For this reason it was a very difficult task to sort all the 38 received contributions among the three different parts of the book. In Part I (Kondratieff Waves Revisited: New Concepts on the Interpretation of Long-Term Fluctuations in Economic Growth) the reader will find a mix of contributions dealing with new visions or revisions of the concept of long waves considered from very different perspectives related to their unfolding. A few of them also broach the subject of their relation with warfare and some also contribute with some views about future developments, but these aspects were not the main objective of the con- tribution. Those contributions objectively discussing the issue of K-waves and their relation with military conflicts, following old and/or new conceptualizations of the phenomenon, were selected to form Part II (Kondratieff Waves and Warfare).