It is important to read first the Methodology for presenting the “War Cycle” by context in order to understand how the results are presented and what they mean
How does this context help to demonstrate the “War Cycle”?
Over the 1900-1999 period, wars are mostly triggered during the amplification phases.
Over the 2000-2022 period, wars are mostly triggered during the attenuation phases.
The World context does not immediately help to demonstrate the “War Cycle” without further analysis.
World analysis from context data
Is the chosen method a dead end?
If you look at the graph and what is shown in the blue dashed rectangle, you will conclude that over the 2001 to 2021 period the wars at the World level do not demonstrate the “War Cycle”, since more wars started during the attenuation phases than during the amplification phase.
The strict application of the methodology leads to an apparent dead end since we have just demonstrated that at the world level there is nothing significant over a period of almost 20 years.
The contexts by the dates of the wars must be completed by one or several other methods
In fact, there are several findings that need to be considered:
- When war becomes permanent, as it was the case after the September 11, 2001 attack, it is difficult to see which wars do or do not verify the “War Cycle”. There are periods, such as the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, where the phenomenon is not visible only by the dates of the outbreak of wars.
- a war can start in the attenuation phase but will probably produce an important escalation during the amplification phase,as explained in Modeling War Outbreak Case 3 where the war starts during the attenuation phase and escalates during the amplification phase (as seen in the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Syrian war)
- The presentation through the dates of the outbreak of wars in context is useful, but insufficient for a complete demonstration. It is necessary to take into account the cases of escalation of wars when the wars started in a phase of attenuation.
So? We see through this the limits of the demonstration by the “dates of the outbreak of wars”. There are many cases where the dates of the outbreak of wars help to demonstrate the “War Cycle”, but there are others where it is the escalation during the amplification phase that is significant. This point is therefore worth considering.
Graphic updated on April 2,2023