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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 publications (books and papers) on long waves since the start of the 20th century my graph suggested the existence of two clusters of publications separated by ∼59 years, each following 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 downswing of the 3rd Kondratieff wave (K-wave for short) and in my opinion it corresponded 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 downswing of the 4th 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 observed 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 understanding’. 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 historical fact associated perhaps with the onset of the massive capitalistic means of production. We must recognize, however, that considerable progress has been made in understanding 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 (instantaneous 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 existence 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. 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 independence movements, insurgence operations, terrorist attacks, the use of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), information warfare, and other unconventional threats. There is consensus too that there are few, if any, countries that can militarily challenge the NATO countries 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 studies [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 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the many theories that have been offered to ‘explain’ K-cycles, the most plausible by far is their close correlation with clusters of radical innovations associated with changes in major primary energy sources, starting with the “age” of coal and iron, followed by the “age”of steam power, railways, steel, and town gas, followed by the age of electrification, internal combustion engines and automobiles. Schumpeter (writing in 1939) suggested that the third wave would end around 1950. He expected the A-period of a fourth K-wave to begin then, with a B-period starting in the 1970s and ending around 1990. The postwar boom and the advent of nuclear power and natural gas seemed to fit that prescription. The slowdown beginning in the 1970s also fits the pattern. US oil production peaked in 1969-70. The energy crisis of 1973-74 was followed by the deepest recession since the 1930s. Nuclear power suffered a setback in the 1980s, and the on-going de-industrialization of the US accelerated. In effect, it can be argued that the fourth K-wave occurred on schedule and ended around 1990-1992, also with a deep recession. The A-period of the fifth wave presumably began then, driven by the ‘digital revolution’ ICT and the internet. But recent events, especially since 2000, also suggest that the pattern may have broken. This paper reviews the evidence for such a view. The relevance to US National Security is spelled out clearly in Michael Klare's book “Resource Wars” (2001) which virtually predicted 9/11 and the US attack on Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While long waves have been seriously discussed by economists for almost one hundred years, to date there is no scientific consensus that particular frequency components are in any way privileged in the undoubtedly fluctuating history of modern economic and political development. This is disappointing for two reasons. First, the demonstration that robust, well-defined periodic components existed would present us with a plausible tool for forecasting. And second, they could (and their purported existence has variously been thought to) provide insight into underlying causal mechanisms that generate the observed patterns. The data, I argue, only provide support for a continuous spectral pattern of a power law, 1/fα type. This is borne out in the paper by the analysis of political indicators such as the newly revised Modelski/Thompson sea power index and the Levy great powers conflict data. Claims for underlying low-dimensional chaos are only partly substantiated. Individual peaks at various frequencies in the spectrum are probably only due to “random noise” factors unique to segments of the record and not robust across countries and historical episodes. While one could then play the game of finding ad hoc explanations for why the ‘K-wave’ did not take its expected form in this or that century, from the perspective of the theory of complex dynamics it seems more plausible to conclude that a periodic model is not appropriate. Rather, the underlying model is more likely to be of the self-organized criticality or percolation type, characterized by power-law or fractal behavior rather than well-defined periodicity. I highlight some features common to several models of innovation/economic dynamics and war/hegemonic cycles, such as highly clustered but nonperiodic critical events and resulting long life cycles of rise and decline, that may serve as a plausible explanatory mechanism for this 'revisionist' interpretation of the empirical record on long waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]