Summary and Recapitulation

Abstract

At the global level, new system leaders emerge from periods of global war at their peak positional standing. Their leadership is predicated on being the system’s center of technological innovation, leading the winning war coalition and possessing a predominant share of capabilities of global reach. Generally, system leaders are strong at the outset with powers that decay with the erosion of material resource control and legitimacy. Significant erosion leads to the emergence of challengers and the search for alliance partners for the next showdown period (global war) which will determine the identity of the next system leader. At least this is the way it has worked in the past half-millennium. Whether the processes will continue to work this way depends on whether a single center of technological innovation emerges. It may also depend on whether global war is no longer conceivable. In the absence of clear centrality and a catalytic global war, systemic leadership in the future may simply be less evident.