03-03-2017, 11:51 AM
Quote:Yes. After thinking about it I realized that was my take.
Thank you for clearing that up.
Quote:<second section>
We have had arguments about your alternate M&T model before. Is it your intention to rehash it now? I disagree that the US entered another World Power phase in 1991. When I reread the book a couple of months ago, I even looked at the naval share charts for each hegemon over its period of dominance and found no support for your rule that the change in naval share in 1991 indicated a restart of the cycle.
As for the bit about the challenger, the old power, and the new power, there are a number of ways things could play out. We could have a set of wars spaced 20 years apart, with the possibility of one side winning both, or each side winning one. We could have a gradual decay of one side or the other over the course of the MD phase, with smaller scale clashes and maneuverings attending this (like the switchover between Venice and Genoa). We could have a situation, which looks unfortunately more plausible than i would really like, where Russia ends up being the challenger to the US in some form (needn't necessarily be a direct conventional conflict), and China the eventual winner. This is interesting to discuss, but in the absence of further information it is ultimately speculative. All of those additional rules you tacked on 20 years ago are interesting, but ultimately the theory is about leading sectors (I won't say K-wave because I know how you get distracted when I do) and the transition between world powers. These still suggest an MD phase starting about 2030 and ending around mid-century.