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Thread: Objections to Generational Dynamics - Page 18







Post#426 at 08-16-2004 10:34 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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08-16-2004, 10:34 PM #426
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More on Paradigm Model

I am pleased you have looked into this in some detail. You have many insightful comments.

First though, I must note that 18-year turnings seem to fit the historical really well for the United States
This is true, the difficulty comes from trying to develop a model that generates the 18 year timing in a plausible manner, with a minimum of "hand waving"
For the industrial era, political participation definitely occurs by the early 20s and considering the archetype imprint can't possibly occur before 4 years of age (not enough memory capacity) That 18 year turnings work pretty well -- 18+4=22.
I considered this sort of thing. The problem is it doesn't really explain anything. What makes one generation different from the next? Different nurture one must suppose. But why should the nurture be different? Since new blood enters the political arena continuously, why should there be the discontinuity of a turning change? Yet if the change is not abrupt then a contiguous set of birth cohorts cannot be assembled into a discrete generation that can produce a consistent nurturing environment for ~18 years to imprint the next generation.

Apar can be presumed to have been increasing on par with Amax. The same technological structure that is increasing Amax requires substantially more educated people in order to create and maintain the capital structure. As a result, the average age at which a person begins work (in the pivotal fields that dominate our civilization) have been steadily increasing from about 18 to 22 or 23. Thus Apar has probably gone from 21 to 26 in the same time that Amax has gone from high 40s to 55. Turning length would thus fall in a consistent 18-20 year range over the whole period.
I toyed with this. I tried to relate educational attainment over time with the sort of Apar that would be needed. The shape isn't right. Amax rises more or less linearly for the two centuries after 1800. To keep constant turning length, Apar has to show the same type of linear rise. But education attainment doesn't extend to ages where it can affect Apar values in the 20's until well into the 20th century. Full participation in elementary education wasn't achieved until about 1930 and full participation in high schoold education until around 1970. We are fairly close to full participation in post-secondary today (i.e. those who wish to get more education after high school can do so). Mass education extending well into the 20's (i.e. that could affect Apar values in the ~25 neighborhood) is a recent phenomenon, yet the need for a rising Apar to make the turnings come out right was already there in the 19th century.

The easiest way to fit turnings (as oppsed to critical elections) is to use a fixed Amax and Apar that gives 18 year turnings. But if Amax is to have a real interpretation, it should rise with increasing life expectancy more or less like average age in political power does. If you simply employ the regression line from the average age data to get Amax and use fixed Apar and L values, you can obtain a good fit for critical elections. This is because the spacing of critical elections has risen from 28 years to 36 years since 1800.

For some time I've had a hunch (without any real data) that turning structure had to be related to when people came of age. The youth emergence concept was a pretty good stab at that concept.
Actually S&H state that a generation is the time from birth to coming of age and they use 0-21. They further go with phase of life, which puts the end of mid-life at 65, the semi-official age of retirement. Their model is elegant and very plausible. Too bad it doesn't fit the data.

Here's the major problem with youth emergence, however. For the industrial era, political participation definitely occurs by the early 20s and considering the archetype imprint can't possibly occur before 4 years of age (not enough memory capacity) That 18 year turnings work pretty well -- 18+4=22. However, with aristocratic societies you get something closer to 26+4 = 30 year turnings.
No, 18-year turnings would come from the spacing between age 4 and the age of political entry 22. 26-year turnings would come from the spacing between age 4 and the coming into inheritance at age 30. There would be no 30 year turnings, just as there would be no 22 year turnings.

Your model has some interesting implications -- one of which is that it would be difficult to have a two-part or six part cycle. I have one issue with the cycle your model presents -- what causes the social moments?
The model I present is not a complete one. All it does is produce a periodic social moment trigger. For example I used it to fit critical elections, which are discrete events, not periods of time. These events often trigger or reinforce a shift in political zeitgeist, roughly in accord with the cycle first described by Arthur Schlesinger. In my earlier presentation of the model I put in these cycles. I also put in associated economic cycles.

The economic cycles are connected to the political cycles. I don't have a clear cut direct mechanism for the interaction, but there is indirect evidence for it. Consider the regular financial panics associated with the cycles in land values that I call the Kuznets cycle: 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and 1929.

Notice that all seven panics occurred in odd-numbered years. Quite a coincidence, eh? The probability that all seven would be either all odd or all even is 1.6%, which is statistically significant. The only relevant commonality of odd-numbered years that I can think of is that they are non-election years. Thus, there is a statistically-significant correlation between the major depressionary panics and election years which strongly suggests involvement of politics in the real estate cycle.

Fourteen of the 21 bear market troughs since 1933 fall in non-Presidential election years, most recently in 2002. The probability of this arising from chance is 0.001%, providing strong evidence for an election-linked cycle in the stock market. I will also point out that there exist 18-year secular bull and bear markets in stocks that correspond quite well to the S&H turnings and their associated Schlesinger cycles.

Anyway, in the formulation I presented I employed the externally-provided political and economic cycles to determine the length of the era. Then given a trigger and a length, the model can spit out a set of "turnings" and generations.

In S&H's model, my model and (to some extent) in GD -- the generation breaks occur right before a turning shift and thus children are affected by the change in parenting style triggered by the new turning which in turn, creates children who will cause or modify the next mood shift. In your model, it is possible to have a generation straddle two turnings and thus nurturing modes seem to be dropped from your model.

Perhaps you're right that a social moment is created by the generation that came of age during the last social moment. A similar pattern would explain alternating reactive generations. However, this doesn't explain the existence of alternating calms and storms in the first place. It seems you've solved one problem and created another. OTOH, maybe you have an explanation for alternating calms and storms.
There is no reason why parenting style cannot change with the turnings and produce generations with the characteristics that S&H describe. I simply don't use these. In my population model I have social moments externally produced by a different mechanism. Given regular social moments there is no reason why generations similar to those of S&H can be created. And these generations can "color" the turnings to the appropriate type. Croaker posted a figure showing this idea a couple of posts back.

The paradigm model produces a triggering event given a social moment. Since I have an earlier mechanism, the first social moment to be considered with the paradigm model was created by the earlier model. So I can take that social moment as a given. This social moment is the Revolution.

The paradigm model holds that a "can-do" generation paradigm was created in young people because of the great secular achievements of the Revolution. The youth holding this paradigm, when they achieved positions of power stove to "make a more perfect union" with the experiment in libertarian government launched by victory in the critical election of 1800.

This now creates a new political era that can create a new paradigm amongst younger people. The question comes how long does this era last and so how big of a generation will it make? Schlesinger settled on a 15-year timing for a mechanism based on political organization as described by Ted Goertzel:

It seems to take about fifteen years for a successful political party or movement to define its agenda, mobilize its resources, implement its policies as best it can, and obtain the inevitably less than hoped for results. Political parties and other political organizations go through a fairly predictable cycle: growth and vitality under a charismatic leader, a period of mature, more routinized leadership, then a gradual decline as the leaders become soft and the supporters tire of the message.
So one can re-formulate the paradigm model by assuming that the liberal eras launched around the time a generation comes into power last 15 years. Recall that the spacing from the mid-point of a liberal era to the beginning of the next is Amax - Apar. This means the time from the beginning of one liberal era to the beginning of the next will be Amax - Apar + L/2, where L is the length of the liberal era, or 15 years. This gives the length of a political cycle as Amax - Apar + 7.5. With Apar = 25 this comes to Amax - 17.5.

By introducing this 15 year length to the paradigm model, 15-year paradigm generations are now created at regular intervals of Amax - 17.5 years. The period in between the liberal eras (or the "inactive" generations in between the paradigmatic generations) are not 15 years in length as a rule. Their length is given by Amax - 32.5 years.

As for a social moment, one needs economic support to get one. Shortly after the paradigm model got going, the interaction between politics and economics ensures that the requisite economic factors will be present by the time a generation reaches Amax so that a social moment can be created. But for the first critical election in 1800, this alignment wasn't in place. Thus, the 1800-1816 liberal era isn't a social moment. What happens is a libertarian experiment is launched that fails on the reality of governance. There are no bad times to color the paradigm of the young Jeffersonians. There are no great achievements either. Mostly there is simply a core "Democratic" ideology implanted into the paradigms of young Jeffersonians. Later, when economic hard times develop after 1819, this ideology allows old Jeffersonians to become Jacksonian Democrats. The economic hard times have already created some of the features of a social moment. The Jacksonians are able to put an ideological spin on the times and win power in 1828.

The Jacksonian era is essentially a pragmatic rerun of the last liberal era. The generation whose paradigms are being expressed didn't experience triumph while young and so don't have the "can-do" ethos of Hero-type generations. They also did not experience an awakening when young either, so they don't have the moral certainty possessed by Prophet-type paradigms. But they do have a political paradigm and that is enough to produce a new liberal era.

This liberal era creates its own 15-year paradigmatic generation, but this one is colored by the socioeconomic milieu of the Awakening triggered by the Panic of 1819. Specifically, ideas about slavery, wealth redistribution (stealing Indian land to sell/give to whites) and states rights (e.g. nullification) are implanted, which will help frame the next political era/social moment. This particular paradigmatic generation has prophet qualities because the economic conditions are favorable for a social moment, and the political conditions are unfavorable for a crisis (there are no divisive paradigms held by the elder dominant generation)

When this generation ages into power we see a number of interesting things. First we see the first direct attempt to engineer an economic cycle through political means. In 1854 Congress passes the Graduation Act that slashes the price of long-unsold federal lands by 90%, igniting a land boom that peaks in the same year (coincidentally exactly 18 years after the last peak in 1836). With a peak comes the bust in 1857 and economic conditions are created that increase political irritation. We already have a tinderbox with conflicting paradigms on the issue of slavery. Patience runs out in 1860, the Democrats split, and Lincoln is elected. That is, there is a critical election associated with the generation whose paradigm was created in the last social moment/liberal era. This critical election results in the Civil War. In contrast to what S&H claim, the Civil War did produce one group of empowered youth. These are the young Abolitionists who see their objective of emancipation realized. Those holding the Abolitionist paradigm will age into Progressives. After the failure of the Populists in the 1896 critical election, they launch a liberal era of their own, which is quite different from what the Populists would have done.

Being an empowered generation, the Civil War generation does not possess "battling paradigms" like their predecessors, but rather "can do" paradigms that support attempts to form a more perfect union. This sort of leadership prevents the social moment from being a Crisis. The Panic of 1893 and subsequent depression helps produce the stress needed for the characteristics of a social moment to be present in the liberal era.

And it goes down from there. Generational paradigms forged in crises, lead to "ameliorative" efforts in the following liberal era, that induce the divisive paradigms in the young people of that time (prophets). This divisive paradigms lead to a Crisis for the liberal era after that. Just because this political cycle is operating to keep a roughly even spacing of liberal eras of alternating crisis and non-crisis flavors doesn't mean that the S&H-type generational developments cannot still happen. Artists will still be born during crises and Nomads during Awakenings. Those whose paradigms are of the can-do type will look a lot like S&H Heroes and the holders of the divisive paradigms will look a lot like Prophets. The difference is that we don't have to rely on these generations somehow creating the cycle. The cycle runs underneath them, although they will certainly color each era in ways that will make them look like turnings. They will also smear the boundaries to make the turnings (as opposed to the political eras) more uniform in length.







Post#427 at 08-17-2004 01:05 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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08-17-2004, 01:05 AM #427
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Mid-cycle periods (Updated 8/17)

Dear Mike,

I pulled together this collection of data and I'm posting it here
because I know you like to collect stuff like this. If you discover
anything interesting, please let me know.

This table shows, in each case, the date of the climax of the crisis
war, and the date and number of years to the beginning of the next
crisis war. Thus, this is a table of crisis war lengths, mid-cycle
lengths and total seculum lengths.

It's about time I did this, because I've learned some interesting
things.

First, the average mid-cycle length is 67 years. The average seculum
length is 79 years.

Second, there are a few mid-cycle periods less than 50 years.
Actually quite a few, all in ancient and medieval times. The minimum
was 42 years.

My strong suspicion is that low values are caused by multiple
timelines of warring countries. If you take the Byzantine Empire,
centered in Constantinople, a central crossing point surrounded by
Persia, Russia, Europe and Arabia, then it's reasonable to expect
that not everyone followed the same schedule.

This is an honest list, in the sense that I identified crisis wars
using the criteria I've posted. However, there were some cases when
I really needed more information from other sources, and in those
cases I cherry-picked. I would guess that there are probably 5 or 10
errors in this table, but they can all be fixed with more
information. At any rate, there's a good chance that any errors will
cancel each other out in determining distribution of mid-cycle
lengths.

This table contains 99 entries. In the past I've said that I did
over a hundred of these, but apparently I only thought I had done
that many.

If anyone sees any errors, please let me know.

If I have any additions or changes, I'll edit this posting.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Code:
				        ---Length in years---
      Crisis War, Beginning,  Climax	War  Mid-cycle Total
                                              Period
      ------------------------------    ---   -------- -----
America
    King Philip's War   1675    1678      3      97     100
    Revolutionary War   1775    1782      7      79      86
    Civil War           1861    1865      4      76      80
    WW II               1941    1945      4

England
    Norman conquest     1064    1066      2      69      71
    Civil war           1135    1154     19      50      69
    War: Normandy       1204    1215     11      61      72
    Civil war / Wales   1276    1284      8      54      62
    Hund Yrs War begin  1338    1346      8     109     117
    War of the Roses    1455    1485     30      74     104
    Armada              1559    1588     29      50      79
    Civil War           1638    1660     22      41      63
    War Spanish Succ    1701    1714     13      79      92
    French Rev / Napol  1793    1814     21      51      72
    Franco-Prussian     1865    1870      5      68      73
    WW II               1938    1945      7

Normandy / France
    Conquer England     1064    1066      2      58      60
    Louis VI            1124    1135     11      47      58
    3rd Cru / Civil w   1182    1204     22      66      88
    Louis' 2nd crusade  1270    1285     15      53      68
    Hund Yrs War begin  1338    1346      8      69      77
    Hund Yr War redress 1415    1430     15      65      80
    Conquest/loss Italy 1495    1515     20      47      67
    St. Bartholomew     1562    1572     10      63      73
    30 Years War        1635    1648     13      53      66
    War Spanish Succ    1701    1714     13      75      88
    French Rev / Napol  1789    1814     25      51      76
    Franco-Prussian     1865    1870      5      68      73
    WW II               1938    1945      7

Germany
    Peace at Augsburg   1540    1555     15      63      78
    30 Years War        1618    1648?    30      53      83
    War Spanish Succ    1701    1714     13      79      92
    French Rev / Napol  1793    1814     21      51      72
    Franco-Prussian     1865    1870      5      68      73
    WW II               1938    1945      7

Spain
    Muslim conquest      711    715       4      62      66
    Charlemagne invades  777    801      24      51      75
    Muhammad v Xians     852    861       9     101     110
    al Mustansir         962    970       8      57      65
    End Umayyad caliph. 1027    1031      4      49      53
    Annex Moorish Spain 1080    1086      6      58      64
    Almohades invasion  1144    1150      6      45      51
    Alfonso reconquest  1195    1212     17     100     117
    Repel Muslims       1312    1340     28      51      79
    Xians vs Jews       1391    1420     29      59      88
    Inquisition/Reconq  1479    1492     13      68      81
    Armada battle       1560    1588     28      52      80
    Revolt in Catalonia 1640    1659     19      42      61
    War of Span. Succ.  1701    1714     13      79      92
    French Rev / Napol. 1793    1814     21      54      75
    Spanish Republic    1868    1874      6      62      68
    Spanish Civil War   1936    1939      3

Japan
    Meiji Restoration   1852    1868     16      73      89
    WW II               1941    1945      4

Ancient Greece
    Persian Wars        -507    -490     17      59      76
    Peloponnesian War   -431    -404     27      47      74
    Macedonian conquest -357    -338     19

Ancient Palestine
    King Herod Terror      -     -4       -      70       -
    Jerusalem Massacre    66     71       5      42      47
    Parthian War         113

Ancient Mecca
    Pagan wars                  592?      -      64      64
    Muslim civil war     656    665?      9

Ancient Rome
    Second Punic War    -218    -201     17      52      69
    Third Punic War     -149    -146      3      55      58
    Social/Civil War     -91    -82       9      46      55
    War with Egypt       -36    -30       6      93      99
    War with Christians   63     71       8      42      50
    Parthian War         113    117       4      76      80
    Severan Wars         193    211      18     113     131
    Empire reunited      324    337      13      69      82
    Rome sacked          406    410       4     117     121
    Byzantine War        527

Byzantine Empire
    First Persian War    527    531       4      91      95
    Defeat of Persians   622    630       8      65      73
    Revolt/Anarchy       695    715      20      63      83
    Expel Muslims        778    779       1      81      82
    Constantinople att   860    863       3      57      60
    Russian Armada       920    941      21      55      76
    Annihilate Bulgaria  996    1014     18      57      75
    Revolt v throne     1071    1081     10     108     118
    Crusades/Constantin 1189    1204     15      55      70
    Reconquest          1259    1261      2      80      82
    Civil War           1341    1347      6      75      81
    Ottoman conquest    1422    1453     31

Ottoman Empire
    Constantinople fall         1453      -      59       -
    Conquer Syria/Egypt 1512    1520      8      56      64
    War with Iran       1576    1590     14      93     107
    War w/Holy League   1683    1699     16      69      85
    War with Russia     1768    1774      6      79      85
    Crimean War         1853    1856      3      52      55
    Destruction         1908    1922     14

Egypt (added 8/17)
    Fatimid dynasty              969      -      54       -
    Mirdasid dyn/Syria  1023    1023      0      56      56
    Seljuk Tutush reign 1079    1095?    16      79      95
    Saladin's reunifica 1174    1185     11      65      76
    Malmuk empire       1250    1261     11      86      97
    Black Death         1347    1349      2      51      53
    Timur-I Lang invade 1400    1401      1     111     112
    Ottoman conquest    1512    1520      8      66      74
    Revolt ag. Ottomans 1586    1609     23     102     125
    Civil War           1711    1711      0      75      75
    Muhammad Ali        1786    1811     25      65      90
    Rev + English occup 1876    1882      6      66      72
    Egyptian Revolution 1948    1954      6

Russia
    Defeat of Tartars   1360    1380     20      82     102
    Annex Novgorod      1462    1485     23      72      95
    Livonian War        1557    1582     25      67      92
    Peasant rebellions  1649    1670     21      92     113
    Ottoman/Pugachev    1762    1783     21      70      91
    Crimean/Emancipate  1853    1861      8      54      62
    Bolshevik Revol     1915    1928     13      65      78
    Soviet collapse     1993    1993 -

(Saudi) Arabia
    Wahhabi state               1745      -      55       -
    War with Ottomans   1800    1818     18      84     102
    Ibn Saud conquest   1902    1925     23

Iran
    Safavid dynasty est 1501    1524     23      54      77
    War with Ottomans   1578    1590     12      58      70
    Afghan/Jew persecut 1648    1662     14      60      74
    Afghan/Russia wars  1722    1736     14      68      82
    War with Russia     1804    1813      9      98     107
    World War I         1911    1919      8      61      69
    Iran/Iraq War       1980    1989      9

Iraq:
    Ottoman Destruction 1908    1922     14      58      72
    Iran/Iraq War       1980    1989      9

Vietnam
    French Indochina    1885    1895     10      70      80
    Indochina War       1965    1980     15

China
    Taiping Rebellion   1851    1864     13      68      81
    Mao / Chiang        1932    1949     17

Mexico
    Mexican-Amer War    1846    1848      2      63      65
    Mexican Revolution  1911    1924     13

Philippines
    Civil wars          1755    1762      7      58      58
    Civil war           1820    1823      3      73      76
    Philippine revolut  1896    1898      2      43      45
    World War II        1941    1945      4
8/17 Update: Egypt added.

8/18 Update: Table restructured to show length of crisis war, length
of mid-cycle period, and total.

[End of message]







Post#428 at 08-17-2004 01:20 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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08-17-2004, 01:20 PM #428
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Re: Differences between GD and TFT

Dear Kurt,

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
> The one major thinking shift required to accept your model is that
> one must dispense with the notion that gnerations are primarily
> imprinted by their childhood. The youth emergence model works
> because it assumes that generational imprinting occurs twice --
> once around 5 years old to determine active/reactive behavior and
> again at the emergence age to determine the exact archetype. This
> allows for each archytpe to be born in a particular turning
> regardless of turning length but it has the implication that long
> cycle saecula do not have Prophet leaders during the Crisis.
> Instead, imprint occurs in the "emergence" turning. So Prophets
> are not created by Highs, they are created by Awakenings . . . and
> so forth. Thus, long cycles will still have Prophet leaders, but
> their birth years will fall in both the High and the Awakening.
This concept of "generational imprinting" is an interesting one.
Is this in S&H's book anywhere, or has this concept been developed by
you and/or Mike?

This "imprinting" concept is flexible enough that it can be used for
other things. For example, I've hypothesized that all generations
become unified during a crisis, which means that the entire cycle is
re-launched by each new crisis, and by the awakening, all four
generations are playing their part.



But when I said that, I slipped something through: If we assume that
the "rising adulthood" generation during a crisis is something else
-- say the previous generation of Nomads -- then in the above diagram
I still show (by removing the shading) that the elderhood and midlife
generations are no longer united. So you would have Nomad and Artist
generations in the top two slots during an Awakening.

The imprinting concept could be extended to provide a framework for
explaining what's going on in this case. A child born during an
Awakening is imprinted as a Nomad at age 4, but then is
"re-imprinted" as a Hero, and does not revert to the Nomad archetype.

This has GOT to be an important consideration, given that the data I
posted shows 11 out of 87 mid-cycle periods in the 40s, and 35 in the
50s. That means that a lot of crisis wars begin in what appear to be
Unraveling periods, which means that Nomads play the parts of the
Hero generation.

Here's a sorted list of all the mid-cycle period lengths:
  • 41 42 42 42 43 45 46 47 47 47 49 [11]

    50 50 51 51 51 51 51 52 52 52 53 53 53 54 54 54 54 55 55 55 55 56
    57 57 57 58 58 58 58 58 59 59 59 [33]

    60 61 61 62 63 63 63 63 64 65 65 65 66 66 67 68 68 68 68 68 68 69
    69 69 69 [25]

    70 70 72 73 73 73 74 75 75 76 76 79 79 79 79 79 [16]

    80 81 82 84 [4]

    91 92 93 93 97 98 [6]

    100 101 108 109 [4]

    113 117 [2]


There are 12 mid-cycle periods of 90 years or more. These present a
different issue - the crisis war begins when previous generation of
Prophets are gone. How could that work?

The only way I can think of is that the previous generation of Nomads
now play the role of Prophets.

This hints at a new kind of "imprinting": During the very long
(decades long) unraveling-early crisis period, the Nomads "learn"
from the Prophets.

This is hardly farfetched. S&H's description of Nomads as "alenated"
and "reclusive" are fairly negative, and they develop these attitudes
because of their negative reaction to being in the shadow of the
narcissistic Prophets. Well, suppose the Prophets disappear, and
Nomads are in charge. Won't they happily take on the role of
Prophets? Won't they take what they learned, and reacted against,
from the Prophets, and now adopt it as their own? After having
suffered under the annoying narcissism of the Prophets, won't they
now be glad to be rid of the Prophets so that they can now become
narcissistic themselves?

This whole discussion has an interesting result: That the Nomads are
more flexible than the other archetypes. Born and raised during the
chaos of an Awakening, S&H label them the Reactive generation, since
they react against the older Prophet generation. But they're also an
"adaptive" generation, in the sense that they can adapt to fill the
Hero role in a short cycle and a Prophet role in a long cycle, if
called upon to do so. That's a different kind of "adaptive" than the
Artists, who are adaptive because they have to mediate between the
Prophets and Heroes.

This raises a different point that I've mentioned before: S&H's entire
generational paradigm is extremely flexible and robust, much more so
than even S&H evidently realized.

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
> Leaving aside your other comments for now, I should address this
> one more time. Heroes are not the same as Prophets. I agree. But
> what's more important is that they're not the same as Nomads. When
> Prophets make a call to arms, the Nomad response is "whatever."
> The Hero response is "Where do I sign up?"

> Regardless of Mike's characterization of the youth emergence
> concept as "romantic" -- my contention is not that the Heroes are
> "rebellious" it is that they are more enthusiastic than the
> apathetic Nomads that come before them.
I agree with this now. I've been wondering if the only reasoning we
were arguing is because of some semantic confusion over what it means
to "drive" the crisis.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#429 at 08-17-2004 01:21 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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08-17-2004, 01:21 PM #429
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Highlands

Dear David,

Quote Originally Posted by David Krein
> John - the "15" was the rising of the Scots in support of James'
> II's son, James (the "Old Pretender" or the "King over the
> Waters" assiduously promoted on these threads by Mr. Saari and
> Seadog) in 1715 and marked significant Scottish opposition to
> George I and ghe Hanoverian succession. And the "45" was James'
> son Bonnie Prince Charlie's similar attempt 30 years later. The
> Stuart cause died hard (as did a number of prominent Scottish
> Lairds) in the Highlands.
OK, I see your point now, but did this opposition by the Highland
Scots reach a level of producing a crisis?

My reading (much more limited than yours) of the situation is the
following: The resolution of the Great Civil War put Scotland
(reluctantly) under firm English control, just as the resolution of
King Philip's War put the colonies (reluctantly) under firm English
control. The Glorious Revolution was a compromise that exacerbated
problems, because it gave Scotland a great deal of autonomy. It was
the Battle of Blenheim that forced Scotland to give up all hope of
defying England.

Now, nothing ever gets settled so easily. We had the War of 1812
after the American Revolutionary War, for example. Any further
disagreements over succession at that time would have been mid-cycle
wars, not crisis wars.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#430 at 08-17-2004 01:24 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Re: More on Paradigm Model

Dear Mike,

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
> I considered this sort of thing. The problem is it doesn't really
> explain anything. What makes one generation different from the
> next? Different nurture one must suppose. But why should the
> nurture be different? Since new blood enters the political arena
> continuously, why should there be the discontinuity of a turning
> change? Yet if the change is not abrupt then a contiguous set of
> birth cohorts cannot be assembled into a discrete generation that
> can produce a consistent nurturing environment for ~18 years to
> imprint the next generation.
My view of this question is that there's one HUGE discontinuity that
drives all of the others: The discontinuity in world view between
those who lived during the crisis war (Heroes, Artists) and those
born after (Prophets). That one discontinuity ripples through the
others.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
> The economic cycles are connected to the political cycles. I don't
> have a clear cut direct mechanism for the interaction, but there
> is indirect evidence for it. Consider the regular financial panics
> associated with the cycles in land values that I call the Kuznets
> cycle: 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and 1929.

> Notice that all seven panics occurred in odd-numbered years. Quite
> a coincidence, eh? The probability that all seven would be either
> all odd or all even is 1.6%, which is statistically significant.
> The only relevant commonality of odd-numbered years that I can
> think of is that they are non-election years. Thus, there is a
> statistically-significant correlation between the major
> depressionary panics and election years which strongly suggests
> involvement of politics in the real estate cycle.

> Fourteen of the 21 bear market troughs since 1933 fall in
> non-Presidential election years, most recently in 2002. The
> probability of this arising from chance is 0.001%, providing
> strong evidence for an election-linked cycle in the stock market.
> I will also point out that there exist 18-year secular bull and
> bear markets in stocks that correspond quite well to the S&H
> turnings and their associated Schlesinger cycles.
This is REALLY significant stuff. What it means in terms of today's
world (at least for someone who agrees with me that we're entering a
financial crisis period) is that 2005 or 2007 would be the logical
time for a financial panic. Do you have any opinion on this subject?

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
> And it goes down from there. Generational paradigms forged in
> crises, lead to "ameliorative" efforts in the following liberal
> era, that induce the divisive paradigms in the young people of
> that time (prophets). This divisive paradigms lead to a Crisis for
> the liberal era after that. Just because this political cycle is
> operating to keep a roughly even spacing of liberal eras of
> alternating crisis and non-crisis flavors doesn't mean that the
> S&H-type generational developments cannot still happen. Artists
> will still be born during crises and Nomads during Awakenings.
> Those whose paradigms are of the can-do type will look a lot like
> S&H Heroes and the holders of the divisive paradigms will look a
> lot like Prophets. The difference is that we don't have to rely on
> these generations somehow creating the cycle. The cycle runs
> underneath them, although they will certainly color each era in
> ways that will make them look like turnings. They will also smear
> the boundaries to make the turnings (as opposed to the political
> eras) more uniform in length.
Hmmm. This seems to speak to the comment I made to Kurt that the
Nomad generation can fill the role of the Hero archetype in short
cycles (say, under 55 years) and of the Prophet archetype during long
cycles (say, over 90 years).

On the other hand, since a new crisis does not ever begin less than
42 years after the end of the old one, that would appear to imply
that Artists and Prophets can NEVER fill the role of the Hero
archetype. Only Heroes and Nomads can do that. Similarly, only
Nomads and Prophets can ever fill the role of the Prophet archetype.
So Nomads play a very important role in keeping the generational
paradigm flexible and robust.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#431 at 08-17-2004 05:02 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Re: Mid-cycle periods (Updated 8/18)

I've updated the Mid-Cycle periods table

http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...=103783#103783

to add Egypt.

8/18: Restructured the table to show crisis war lengths, mid-cycle
lengths, and seculum lengths.

John







Post#432 at 08-21-2004 11:33 AM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: More on Paradigm Model

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
My view of this question is that there's one HUGE discontinuity that drives all of the others: The discontinuity in world view between those who lived during the crisis war (Heroes, Artists) and those born after (Prophets). That one discontinuity ripples through the
others.
Yes, this is the central concept of you view of the cycle, if I understand correctly. I was adressing Kurt's YE model.
This is REALLY significant stuff. What it means in terms of today's world (at least for someone who agrees with me that we're entering a financial crisis period) is that 2005 or 2007 would be the logical time for a financial panic. Do you have any opinion on this subject?
Financial panics of the sort I was referencing don't occur anymore. The cycle in land values and building activity once associated with these panics may still exist in an attentuated form (at least I believe it does) but it no longer has the same impact it did before 1930.
************************************************** **********
I don't have a signficant disagreement with the GD theory which I believe is plausible. Where I had issues with GD had more to do with the empirical methods. Kurt doesn't employ much empiricism so any discussions with him must necesarily remain on the level of theory and be advanced based on plausible or logical arguments as opposed to evidence.







Post#433 at 08-22-2004 05:09 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: Differences between GD and TFT

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
I see the older generations as having defined the extremes. The Heroes then choose which camp to back.
One of the problems with youth emergence as a model is it is too-slow a process for modern 18-year turnings. Basically the cause of a turning change in an "emergence model" is the entrance of new birth cohorts with different properties into the group making political decisions.

Let's assume that politically-active adulthood is from age 21 to 65. The entrance of a new cohort into the age 21 position should result in the replacement of 1/44th (2.3%) of the political actors with new actors. Actually the numbers of the entering cohort will be larger than older cohorts, but then the political impact per person of the older folks will be greater due to higher voter participation, more influential positions etc. In all likelihood the political impact of newly entering cohorts will be less than 1/44th of total political impact, but to be conservative, let's stick with 2.3%.

Now consider the "mid-age emergence" mechanism that one gets with the paradigm model. Here what is being entered are the positions of authority held by people largely in late middle age, say age 45-65. Entrance of a cohort into the 45-65 age group would replace about 5% of its membership. But we can go beyond guessing this impact. In S&H's listing of leadership share we can see the rate at which generational share of seats change. The maximum rates at which share rises for the upcoming generation is closely matched by the rate at which share falls for the next-elder generation in decline. Going through the table we can see that maximum rates of change in leadership share run from 9% to 19% per two years with an average of 11% (5.5% per year). This value provides an estimate for the impact of the entrance of a new cohort into the halls of power. The five percent estimate was pretty good.

Let us measure the rate of generational change as the change in the power of the old leaders relative to the new at the time when the 50% leadership threshold is being passed. The theoretical value for this change is given by 1- [(50-0.5*r)/(50+0.5*r)]^2, where r is the impact of the entry of a new cohort (2.3% for youth and 5.5% for mid-age). For mid-age emergence the theoretical value is 20%/yr collapse in relative power, while the impact is 9%/yr for YEM.

This expression holds that ~3 years would be required to effect a ~50% (= 0.8^3) change in relative power for mid-age emergence, as compared to 7-8 years (0.5 = 0.91^7.5) for youth emergence. This means that turnings produced through a mid-life emergence mechanism would feature ~3 year "cusps" during which the switch in generational power is occurring. Thus 18-year turnings/generations would feature a 15 year "core" with 3-year cusps in between. The large size of the core relative to the cusp would make the turnings/generations easily detectable as 18-year periods.

On the other hand, the turnings produced through a youth emergence mechanism would feature 7-8 year "cusps" during which the switch is occurring. Thus, 18-year turnings/generations would feature a 10-11 year "core" with 7-8 years cusps in between. The similar size of the core relative to the cusp would make the turnings/generations hard to see, instead one might see a series of 8-11 year periods instead.

Since 18-turnings are fairly crisply detected, this argues against the youth emergence concept for modern (short) turnings. However, when we look at the aristocratic era, with an age of entry at 27, the expected turnover might be about 2.6% = 1/(65-27), for which 7-year cusps would be expected. A seven year cusp with 27-year generations would feature 20-year "core" generation, which is much longer than the cusps. This would make the 27-year turnings easily discernable--they would not look like a series of shorter periods--unlike the situation with 18-year generations.

A youth emergent-type mechanism with the aristocratic length was suggested by Quincy Wright (1942) as a mechanism for the War Cycle, which has alternating "warrior"and "non-warrior" generations that are tied to nurture, much as you have active and non-active generations. I have proposed that the War Cycle (actually the related monetary cycle) directly generates regularly-spaced social moments over the 1675-1860 period. An S&H-like nurture mechanism running on top of the debt-generated social moment cycle produces the saeculum. I never thought of Wright's concept as being the same as yours, but essentially it is. And since I employ this sort of idea in my saeculum model for the 1675-1820 period, I guess I am already using YEM and didn't even realize it.







Post#434 at 08-22-2004 05:22 PM by Kurt Horner [at joined Oct 2001 #posts 1,656]
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Re: More on Paradigm Model

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
What makes one generation different from the next? Different nurture one must suppose. But why should the nurture be different? Since new blood enters the political arena continuously, why should there be the discontinuity of a turning change? Yet if the change is not abrupt then a contiguous set of birth cohorts cannot be assembled into a discrete generation that can produce a consistent nurturing environment for ~18 years to imprint the next generation.
To me, no cycle such as this could persist for very long if it relied upon exogenous shocks to maintain itself. While dramatic historical events happen all the time, some gain greater "importance" out of proportion to what would seem to be their objective significance. Thus, I am strongly inclined towards a view that perceptions are shaping history -- and these perceptions are founded in the interaction of the life experiences of those living in a particular historical period. Because of this, I have less trouble seeing a nurturing cycle. Here's how I see the youth emergence model operating:

At year zero, a time of calm begins. At year minus four, children were born who are imprinted by the calm period. They are sheltered by their parents, and develop the "active" archetype. At year e, where e is the average age of social emergence, the mood shifts due to an increase in active personalities. At year e minus four, children were born who will be imprinted by the social moment. They are neglected by their parents and develop the "reactive" archetype. At year 2e. the mood shifts again, altering the turning type and changing nurturing modes at the same time. The turning boundaries (at multiples of e) will be fuzzy. For four years on either side of a turning shift, there will be behavior of both turning types. Sometimes a major event will occur to shift the mood earlier, or a dearth of events will cause it to shift late. This is why I am unconcerned with some turnings starting sharply and others being gradual -- the model only gives the general mood of events not the events themselves.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
I tried to relate educational attainment over time with the sort of Apar that would be needed. The shape isn't right. Amax rises more or less linearly for the two centuries after 1800. To keep constant turning length, Apar has to show the same type of linear rise. But education attainment doesn't extend to ages where it can affect Apar values in the 20's until well into the 20th century. Full participation in elementary education wasn't achieved until about 1930 and full participation in high schoold education until around 1970. We are fairly close to full participation in post-secondary today (i.e. those who wish to get more education after high school can do so). Mass education extending well into the 20's (i.e. that could affect Apar values in the ~25 neighborhood) is a recent phenomenon, yet the need for a rising Apar to make the turnings come out right was already there in the 19th century.
I think those values are misleading. The people who made important decisions in our economy have generally had college degrees going back to the early 19th century. The increase in college graduates has been mainly due to a vast increase in demand for people with advanced degrees. In the 20th century, however, the actual value of a year of education has declined markedly. The typical college graduate today would have been considered functionally illiterate at the turn of the century. Math ability is better today (on average), but in almost every other field of study, performance has declined. A much better measure would not be the percentage of people with advanced degrees but rather something like the average age when engineering licenses were achieved.

Here's a possible example of the shift in Apar. Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867. At age 20, he went to work for Adler and Sullivan. Full time work in architecture at age 20 is basically unheard of today. By 23, Wright was the head of residential design for Adler and Sullivan. This a position that only a licensed architect would be given today (almost none of which are younger than 25). At 26, Wright founded his own firm. Even granting that Wright was unusually ambitious this is an achievement which is legally impossible in most of the country today. Take college entry at 18, add four years of college (very fast for architecture), add 3 years experience, 6 months licensure and starting a firm that's 26 years old right there. Starting your own firm at 26 is almost a best-case scenario. Wright could have done it earlier, he only waited as long as he did because he was gainfully employed at Adler and Sullivan. A similar phenomenon has occurred throughout the technical fields.

There is one exception to this trend -- computing. Computing is the only major technical field to emerge in our economy where professional licensure is not yet operative. This means that critical portions of our economy now have a lower Apar. As computing increases we should expect Amax and Apar to diverge for the first time in over a century -- and turning length should be increasing.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
The easiest way to fit turnings (as oppsed to critical elections) is to use a fixed Amax and Apar that gives 18 year turnings. But if Amax is to have a real interpretation, it should rise with increasing life expectancy more or less like average age in political power does. If you simply employ the regression line from the average age data to get Amax and use fixed Apar and L values, you can obtain a good fit for critical elections. This is because the spacing of critical elections has risen from 28 years to 36 years since 1800.
Except that it hit 36 in 1860, so it's not a steady increase by any means. Is 2004 a critical election? Possibly. (I'm going to comment about this in the "Why does the 2004 Election matter?" thread that Brian started.)

I'm not too clear on professional job entry vs. lifespan for the early 19th century. It's entirely possible that the turning length was increasing before a post-Civil War equilibrium was reached.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
No, 18-year turnings would come from the spacing between age 4 and the age of political entry 22. 26-year turnings would come from the spacing between age 4 and the coming into inheritance at age 30. There would be no 30 year turnings, just as there would be no 22 year turnings.
Ah, yes, that does work. We would have to conclude that the age of coronation for English monarchs was a little below the average for all nobility. That makes some sense, since they would be more likely to be targeted for assassination.
Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
As for a social moment, one needs economic support to get one. Shortly after the paradigm model got going, the interaction between politics and economics ensures that the requisite economic factors will be present by the time a generation reaches Amax so that a social moment can be created. But for the first critical election in 1800, this alignment wasn't in place. Thus, the 1800-1816 liberal era isn't a social moment. What happens is a libertarian experiment is launched that fails on the reality of governance.
Ok, now I'm confused. What, in your mind, is the definition of a "social moment"? In my view, the state of the economy can contribute to a turning's mood, but it doesn't create it. In my view, that period is an "echo" from the English saeculum which is in Crisis at that time and is still partially operative in America.







Post#435 at 08-22-2004 06:00 PM by Kurt Horner [at joined Oct 2001 #posts 1,656]
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Re: Differences between GD and TFT

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
On the other hand, the turnings produced through a youth emergence mechanism would feature 7-8 year "cusps" during which the switch is occurring. Thus, 18-year turnings/generations would feature a 10-11 year "core" with 7-8 years cusps in between. The similar size of the core relative to the cusp would make the turnings/generations hard to see, instead one might see a series of 8-11 year periods instead.
Actually, this is an "error" that is very common in mainstream circles. Most Americans break up recent history by decade and ascribe a character to that decade. When people talk about "the 60s" they are usually referring to the events of '68 and '69. The "70s" are usually a reference to the Carter Administration. The "80s" are the mid-to-late 80s. The "90s" are the tech boom years. People seem to be labeling these decades based on the zeitgeist prevailing just before and just after the cusps.

Given the fact that youth imprint should occur around 4 years of age (when long term memory develops), a margin of error of +/- 4 years around a turning boundary is fully in line with the theory. To use a specific example, 1964 is my presumed start of the Awakening. That means 1960 to 1968 is the cusp. 1960 is still clearly in the High. 1968 is clearly in the Awakening. In between, it's fuzzy -- there are High moments and Awakening moments.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
And since I employ this sort of idea in my saeculum model for the 1675-1820 period, I guess I am already using YEM and didn't even realize it.
There is enough interrelation between the different parts of a society that it is unsurprising that different models produce similar results. The hard part is determining what factors are causes and what factors are effects.







Post#436 at 08-22-2004 10:36 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: More on Paradigm Model

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
To me, no cycle such as this could persist for very long if it relied upon exogenous shocks to maintain itself.
When I speak of exongenous factors (not really shocks) I mean exongenous to the generation mechanism. They are still endogenously generated, just not through a generational "mood" mechanism.

At year zero, a time of calm begins. At year minus four, children were born who are imprinted by the calm period. They are sheltered by their parents, and develop the "active" archetype. At year e, where e is the average age of social emergence, the mood shifts due to an increase in active personalities.
The age of social emergence (e.g. 22 years) is the cycle length (e.g. 18 years) plus 4. Thus e is the age of social emergence minus 4.

I have a problem with this sudden "mood change". What causes the mood change? You would say the emergence of an active generation into the larger adult population. But this emergence would take time to have an effect. It won't happen overnight. My previous post addresses this time. It would take about 7-8 years for a new generation to produce this mood change. To reduce this period requires that one invoke some sort of leverage that essentially amounts to hand waving.

Quote Originally Posted by Ken Horner
I think those values are misleading. The people who made important decisions in our economy have generally had college degrees going back to the early 19th century.
Did the bulk of them? What about businessmen? I don't think James Hill, Andrew Carneige, Jay Gould, Tom Edison, John Rockefeller or Henry Ford went to college. As for politicians, some were educated others were not (e.g. Boss Tweed).

A much better measure would not be the percentage of people with advanced degrees but rather something like the average age when engineering licenses were achieved.
I don't think so. I can see little relation between getting professional licenses and paradigm aquisition. Most engineers get licenses some time after they have left school and entered the real world. They will probably develop their paradigms at more or less the same age as nonprofessionals. I see education retarding paradigm development by keeping you out of the real world. This delay of adulthood on a wide scale is a very recent thing.

Except that it hit 36 in 1860, so it's not a steady increase by any means.
It doesn't have to be steady (although thihs would be nice) but it does have to increase. If there was no increase, then fixed Amax and Apar would fit the data best.

Ok, now I'm confused. What, in your mind, is the definition of a "social moment"?
A social moment is an era when people perceive that historic events are radically changing their social environment. First of all it is an eventful era. It can be identified without resort to a model for how social moments are created. Hence you and I can talk about 18-year turning since 1820 or late Republic/early Empire Roman turnings and be in agreement without sharing a common view of the mechanism that produces them.

In my study of the periods S&H call turnings I have identified a number of common properties. One of them is an alignment with economic and political cycles from different cycle traditions. My thinking is if there really is a cycle more or less as S&H have described then it should be been identified by other observers before S&H. It's not like someone has invented "saeculum-viewing spectacles" that allowed S&H to see the saeculum where the unaided eyes of previous workers saw nothing but random variation. No, earlier workers had the same tools (their brains) and the same raw material (history) as S&H. So if the saeculum exists, it should have been seen long before S&H came along.

It was. S&H talk about the other cycles that are manifestation of the saeculum in T4T. For example on page 39 they list various cycles in international politics, several of which are alternate representations of their saeculum. I focus on how the cycle of S&H is related to other cycles, because they often are better documented.

When you and I construct Roman turnings we are just playing around. There is no way to know whether your turnings or mine are closer to the "real" turnings or even if there is such a thing as a "real" turning in Roman times. But when I relate other cycle traditions to the S&H cycle, I obtain additional "witnesses" who have seen the cycle. I can perform statistical tests to ascertain the significance of alignment correlations between cycles.

To the extent that these other workers have obtained empirical support for their cycles, I obtain empirical support for the saeculum through the alignment correlation. I can also track the progress of the saeculum (which cannot be assessed directly) by tracking an aligned cycle that can be tracked and so make predictions that can, in principle, test saeculum-related ideas.

Through this work I have learned that there is a very significant correlation between certain economic cycles and the saeculum. This correlation is sufficiently good to say that a particular kind of turning only occurs with a certain kind of economic era. This isn't to say that economics causes turnings, but that economics is a necessary ingredient to some kinds of turnings.







Post#437 at 08-22-2004 11:30 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: Differences between GD and TFT

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
On the other hand, the turnings produced through a youth emergence mechanism would feature 7-8 year "cusps" during which the switch is occurring. Thus, 18-year turnings/generations would feature a 10-11 year "core" with 7-8 years cusps in between. The similar size of the core relative to the cusp would make the turnings/generations hard to see, instead one might see a series of 8-11 year periods instead.
Actually, this is an "error" that is very common in mainstream circles. Most Americans break up recent history by decade and ascribe a character to that decade. When people talk about "the 60s" they are usually referring to the events of '68 and '69. The "70s" are usually a reference to the Carter Administration. The "80s" are the mid-to-late 80s. The "90s" are the tech boom years. People seem to be labeling these decades based on the zeitgeist prevailing just before and just after the cusps.
With large cusps one won't "see" 18-year turnings. One will "see" ~9 year generations because the cusps and the period between cusps will be seen as different eras. With long cusps only very long turnings can be seen as long periods with "blended regions" in between.

Given the fact that youth imprint should occur around 4 years of age (when long term memory develops), a margin of error of +/- 4 years around a turning boundary is fully in line with the theory. To use a specific example, 1964 is my presumed start of the Awakening. That means 1960 to 1968 is the cusp. 1960 is still clearly in the High. 1968 is clearly in the Awakening. In between, it's fuzzy -- there are High moments and Awakening moments.
Not really. In order to identify a turning, the cusps must be much shorter than the period in between them so they cannot be mistaken for turnings themselves.

The +/- 4 year cusps you suggest would given three distinct eras of similar length: 1942-1950, 1950-1960, and 1960-1968. They would be considered as three separate turnings. The cusps must be quite short so the turnings and cusps are seen for what they are. And short cusps mean a rapid "generational turnover" mechanism is necesary. YE can't give you this, but PM can.

Now with 26-year turnings, the same +/-4 year cusp poses no problem. This is because 18 >> 8. One would not confuse alternating ~18 and ~8 periods as a single repeating unit. One would with alternating ~8 and ~10 year periods.

Hence YE could work for the aristocratic era.







Post#438 at 08-23-2004 06:53 AM by Vince Lamb '59 [at Irish Hills, Michigan joined Jun 2001 #posts 1,997]
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YE might also work for pop music, which seems to have eras of about the right length, i.e., about 9 years, starting in the 1950s (and perhaps even earlier, with the advent of recording).

1954-1963 (50s rock'n'roll)
1964-1972 (classic rock)
1973-1981 (bubblegum and disco)
1982-1990 (new wave)
1991-1997 or 1998 (grunge)
1998 or 1999 to present (whatever era this is--I'm getting too old to care about pop music!)
"Dans cette epoque cybernetique
Pleine de gents informatique."







Post#439 at 08-23-2004 10:26 AM by Brian Rush [at California joined Jul 2001 #posts 12,392]
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Vince, I think the shorter period might have to do with the dynamic of pop music being directed to young people by older people. Those older people are, initially, members of the next-older generation from the target audience, then members of the target audience generation itself. So, it might go like this:

1954-1963 (Silent musicians/Silent audience)
1964-1972 (Silent musicians/Boomer audience)
1973-1981 (Boomer musicians/Boomer audience)
1982-1990 (Boomer musicians/Xer audience)
1991-1997 or 1998 (Xer musicians/Xer audience)
1998 or 1999 to present (Xer musicians/Millennial audience)

You can go back before that, too, and see a transition from GI musicians playing for Silents to the '50s rock era.







Post#440 at 08-26-2004 02:49 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Questions

Dear Kurt and Mike,

I wonder if I can ask you some questions:

(1) How would your models explain very short seculae, say 50 years or
less, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this
case that a crisis war began in an unraveling period, and that Nomads
play the part of the Heroes. Is that possible in your models?)

(2) How would your models explain very long seculae, say 100 years or
more, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this
case that the Nomads play the parts of the Prophets. Is that possible
in your models?)

(3) Assuming, for the sake of this question, that the English Civil
War is a crisis period war, then would your models count Oliver
Cromwell's military dictatorship (1650-60) as part of the crisis
period, or part of the first turning? Would this compare to the
Reconstruction period following the American Civil War? Would it
compare to the period following the Revolutionary War (1782-90) when
the Constitution was drafted? (And remember that this was really a
civil war also.)

(4) I'm coming to believe that Nomads are much more important than
S&H make them out to be. Not only can they take other roles (see (1)
and (2)), but I think they also play a more important role in
"ordinary" seculae than previously suspected. Specifically, Prophets
are "visionary," but each Prophet has a different vision. It's the
Nomads who choose from among the conflicting visions and implement
the one that's selected. Is there anything in your models that
supports or repudiates this view that Nomads are more important?

The reason I'm asking these questions is because I'm in the process
of writing up a complete description of the GD theory, and I'm
looking for more information that might contribute to that
description. So I guess what I'm really asking in the above four
questions is what information in your models would contribute to the
GD model.

Thanks,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#441 at 08-26-2004 05:35 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: Questions

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
Dear Kurt and Mike,

I wonder if I can ask you some questions:

(2) How would your models explain very long seculae, say 100 years or
more, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this
case that the Nomads play the parts of the Prophets. Is that possible
in your models?)
~100 year saecula are readily explained by YEM with an age of emergence in the 28-31 range. The natural length of the population-based saeculum is 100+ years.

(1) How would your models explain very short saeculae, say 50 years or less, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this
case that a crisis war began in an unraveling period, and that Nomads
play the part of the Heroes. Is that possible in your models?)
Very short saeculae are inconsistent with YEM. A fifty-year saeculum is consistent with the paradigm model with Amax = 44 and Apar = 25.

(3) Assuming, for the sake of this question, that the English Civil
War is a crisis period war, then would your models count Oliver
Cromwell's military dictatorship (1650-60) as part of the crisis
period, or part of the first turning? Would this compare to the
Reconstruction period following the American Civil War? Would it
compare to the period following the Revolutionary War (1782-90) when
the Constitution was drafted? (And remember that this was really a
civil war also.)
Cromwell's dictatorship would be in the 1T whereas the other two postwar periods would be in the 4Ts. I don't know what Kurt's model would find.

(4) I'm coming to believe that Nomads are much more important than S&H make them out to be. Not only can they take other roles (see (1) and (2)), but I think they also play a more important role in
"ordinary" seculae than previously suspected. Specifically, Prophets
are "visionary," but each Prophet has a different vision. It's the
Nomads who choose from among the conflicting visions and implement
the one that's selected. Is there anything in your models that
supports or repudiates this view that Nomads are more important?
I can't speak for Kurt on this. With my model Nomads play the role of Grey Champion before 1800 while prophets do afterward.







Post#442 at 08-26-2004 05:53 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Re: Questions

OK, thanks Mike.

John







Post#443 at 08-26-2004 08:47 PM by Kurt Horner [at joined Oct 2001 #posts 1,656]
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Re: Questions

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
(1) How would your models explain very short seculae, say 50 years or less, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this case that a crisis war began in an unraveling period, and that Nomads play the part of the Heroes. Is that possible in your models?)
This is difficult to attain in a YE model. Theoretically, if emergence occurred on average at 16 or younger, saeculum length would drop below 50 years. I'm can't think of any historical society that could have an average age of emergence that low. You would have to have wealth transferred by merit or politics combined with very young age of entry into the primary occupations. Most ancient cultures transferred wealth nd status by inheritance. Even in a subsistence economy, the average age at inheritance isn't that low.

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
(2) How would your models explain very long seculae, say 100 years or more, and how would the turnings be affected? (I would say in this case that the Nomads play the parts of the Prophets. Is that possible in your models?)
Turning lengths over 25 years can occur in any civilized culture where inheritance is the primary means of accquiring wealth and power and life expectancies are sufficiently high to delay inheritance.

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
(3) Assuming, for the sake of this question, that the English Civil War is a crisis period war, then would your models count Oliver Cromwell's military dictatorship (1650-60) as part of the crisis period, or part of the first turning? Would this compare to the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War? Would it
compare to the period following the Revolutionary War (1782-90) when
the Constitution was drafted? (And remember that this was really a
civil war also.)
It depends on what you consider the start of the Crisis. However, the YE model can't accept the Civil War as a Crisis period without ruling out the War with Spain as a Crisis period. They can't both be Crises if YE is correct -- unless turning length is low. However, everything we know about English politics suggest a high turning length (if YE is correct). However, as I pointed out previously, there is an unusual intensity to the English Civil War (arising out of the new literate class). If the Puritan undercurrent is what eventually evolves into the American saeculum then Cromwell's dictatorship is a High for that proto-saeculum. If I assume the Civil War is a Crisis, then presumably the Protectorate falls during late Crisis.

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
(4) I'm coming to believe that Nomads are much more important than S&H make them out to be. Not only can they take other roles (see (1) and (2)), but I think they also play a more important role in "ordinary" seculae than previously suspected. Specifically, Prophets are "visionary," but each Prophet has a different vision. It's the Nomads who choose from among the conflicting visions and implement the one that's selected. Is there anything in your models that supports or repudiates this view that Nomads are more important?
In the YE model, the Nomads are the generation in power during the Crisis. They are advised by Heroes who steer the Nomad rulers toward bolder policies. All of the archetypes of equal importance in that model.

All of these models have flaws, IMO. This is probably because a cyclical effect is triggered by all of the factors we have discussed. So far we have discussed the following key points in people's lives:

1) Childhood imprint around 4 years old. Presumed to govern active / reactive social behavior and if this is a controlling factor in archtype generation then turnings and generation birth years should be roughly in synch.

2) Paradigm generation when a person is old enough and independent enough to evaluate world events. This age is presumed to have increased with industrialization. If this is a controlling factor in archtype generation then turnings and generation birth years can easily overlap (Prophets can be born during Awakenings, for example).

3) Youth emergence when a person is old enough to direct economic or political resources. Presumed to have decreased with industrialization.

4) Peak of power when people of a given birth year have the maximum control over a society's resources that they will ever have. Presumed to correlate with life expectancy.

Two and three should have converged on each other. Some would consider Apar and YE to be identical today. It may be fruitful to temporarily scrap any preconceptions like turning and archetype names and try to build a model solely from these psychological imprint points.







Post#444 at 08-27-2004 10:01 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Re: Questions

Dear Kurt,

Thanks for that lengthy exposition. It was very helpful.

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
> All of these models have flaws, IMO. This is probably because a
> cyclical effect is triggered by all of the factors we have
> discussed.
This makes sense, and I may try to pull together a description which
presents some of the alternative views of turnings.

In the list of factors affecting turning length, one would also have
to include external events: financial crises, technological
developments, unexpected invasions, for example.

Seeing today's news from Najaf, where Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani may
have brokered a deal, I'm again impressed with the amount of influence
that a single person in his 70s can wield. Donald Rumsfeld is a
contemporary American example. This is another jigsaw puzzle piece
that has to be fitted to produce a complete picture.

Another issue has to do with what a "turning" means. I think that
all three of us are defining a turning in terms of external events,
such as a "social moment." And yet, I've always understood that S&H
define them psychologically, by the attitudes of the people as
conveyed by the diaries and histories that S&H read.

Quote Originally Posted by Kurt Horner
> It may be fruitful to temporarily scrap any preconceptions like
> turning and archetype names and try to build a model solely from
> these psychological imprint points.
Despite all the confusion, I think we all agree that the concept of a
"turning" does have some valid meaning, even if we're not entirely
sure what that meaning is. It would be nice if we all agreed on what
a "crisis" is and what an "awakening" is, but the fact we see the
English Civil War differently means that we even have completely
different meanings for the basic concepts. This gives rise to the
question of whether we're even comparing apples and apples when we
discuss these different models.

So if we built a new model solely from the psychological imprint
points, as you suggest, then what would we get? Every cyclical model
has to start from some date, and if we can't agree on what a crisis is
and what an awakening is, then how could we even get started? Should
we start with the War of the Roses because S&H start there? But how
could we agree about War of the Roses, if we don't agree about the
English Civil War? Even if we all agree that War of the Roses is a
crisis period war, then we would still have such completely different
reasons for thinking so that it wouldn't matter.

I'm not trying to revive old arguments here. I'm just trying to say
that we don't appear to have common definitions of anything. We all
agree that the concept of a "turning" is valid, but beyond that
general statement, we appear to have nothing in common to use as a
foundation.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#445 at 08-27-2004 02:15 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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YEM and turning length

Kurt, do you see how mechanism of YE would create a high ratio of cusp to core for modern times?

When cusps << core you have this situation:

cusp[ C * O * R * E ]cusp[ C * O * R * E ]cusp[ C * O * R * E ]cusp

and one will tend to focus on the long CORE periods and ignore the cusps, thus dividing history into turnings like this:

sp[ C * O * R * E ]cu

(here the divider is placed on the middle of the cusp period, which is seens as a brief "transition period" adjacent to the main "core" turning)

But suppose cusps are about the same length as cores, then you have this situation:

cuspCOREcuspCOREcuspCOREcuspCOREcusp

and one would break the period up into turnings like this:
cusp CORE cusp CORE cusp etc.







Post#446 at 08-27-2004 04:11 PM by Kurt Horner [at joined Oct 2001 #posts 1,656]
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Re: YEM and turning length

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
Kurt, do you see how mechanism of YE would create a high ratio of cusp to core for modern times?
I see your argument. It could become difficult to tell the cusps from the cores. However if you view the process differently -- as a sine curve with social moments at the peaks, you get a different view of history. If you have a core with high tension and an upslope cusp on one side and a downslope cusp on the other, a clear "period of tension" can be picked out.

The turnings are still visible even with the long cusps because a turning is defined as a change of curvature in a curve depicting the rise and fall of social tension. We know that our society went from low social tension to high social tension over the course of the 60s. The process took about 8 years, but most people "see" the actual curvature change on November 22, 1963 -- at the most astounding event in the middle of the cusp.

The cusps seem to be blurred in our collective imagination (especially to those too young to remember the event). As I noted previously, we seem to be labeling our history based on the zeitgeist prevailing just before and just after the cusps. The short history of this saeculum goes:

The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and we kicked fascist butt only to find a new enemy in our allies the Communists.

Everybody was living Leave-it-to-Beaver-style and then Kennedy got shot and pretty soon there were riots at the Democratic convention.

It was all bell-bottoms and afros, then came the October Surprise and suddenly it was morning again in America.

The dot com boom made us all fat and happy and then the Towers fell and . . .

A gross oversimplification, but I bet if I expanded that to a few pages and used ten-dollar words, 90% of Americans would think I was a professional historian.







Post#447 at 08-27-2004 04:51 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Re: Questions

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
Despite all the confusion, I think we all agree that the concept of a "turning" does have some valid meaning, even if we're not entirely sure what that meaning is. It would be nice if we all agreed on what a "crisis" is and what an "awakening" is, but the fact we see the English Civil War differently means that we even have completely
different meanings for the basic concepts. This gives rise to the question of whether we're even comparing apples and apples when we
discuss these different models.

So if we built a new model solely from the psychological imprint points, as you suggest, then what would we get? Every cyclical model has to start from some date, and if we can't agree on what a crisis is and what an awakening is, then how could we even get started? Should we start with the War of the Roses because S&H start there? But how could we agree about War of the Roses, if we don't agree about the English Civil War? Even if we all agree that War of the Roses is a crisis period war, then we would still have such completely different reasons for thinking so that it wouldn't matter.
There are good points. The first thing to note is there are two questions here. First there is the question of the existence of the repeating segments of history that we call turnings. That is, is a cycle of the 18-30 year periods we call "turnings" a useful way to understand history?

Then there is the question of what causes the succession of turnings, should we decide that this is a meaningful way to look at history. It is in this question that models like YEM, GD or PM are relevant.

To make the assessment of whether turnings are meaningful, or even beautiful, one has to have a set of turnings to contemplate. The simplest approach is to simply borrow someone else's set.



S&H mention Goldstein and Modelski in T4T so I include what would correspond to "turnings" from their cycles. John has a saeculum for England and I have two systems, one for before 1820 and the other for afterward so I included these too.

S&H simply present their cycle dates. They explain their cycle very well and give a lot of examples of the cycle in action, but they do not explain how you can determine these dates for yourself. Many cycle proponents do the same with their cycles, Schlesinger particularly, who provides no information at all about how he obtained his dates.

One can take S&H's cycle dates as the starting place for study. That is, accept them as data and then think about mechanisms that can explain them. That is, we deal with point 1 by simply accepting what S&H have presented, in which case we are free to go on to point 2. If our interests were economics or political science we would probably start with Goldstein's or Modelski's cycles as true and think about mechanisms of causation.

This does nothing about point 1. How do we know if what S&H report is true? That is, how can we tell if the saeculum is "real"? I believe John is interested in point 1 as well as point 2. Now only does he want to explain the cause of the saeculum, he is also trying to obtain a rule for constructing cycles that correspond to S&H's saeculum. This rule would provide an objective way to determine the saeculum for other times and places other than those that S&H considered. It is necessary since S&H provided no such rule.

My goal is similar to John's. The K-S cycle works pretty well up to the Civil War and I go through its construction in tedious detail in The Kondratiev Cycle. The other cycle of mine is based on the paradigm model I have been discussion here. I haven't given instructions on how to get these dates yet.

I too wish to apply my rules to determine the saecula for times and places not considered by S&H. I did this for the three centuries before S&H's saecula began and obtained a cycle that agrees quite well with Dave McGuinness's version of the saeculum. I have tried to extend the cycle back further an have obtained a passable correspondence with Dave's saeculum during the 7th through 11 th centuries and a fair correspondence with Ken Horner's saeculum over the late Republic and early Empire periods. During the late empire all three of us, Dave, Ken and myself have different datings.







Post#448 at 08-30-2004 07:34 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,501]
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Getting back to the earlier topic, I had shown how the frequency of "unrest events" putatively indicative of social tesnion could be represented by a moving average shown in red in thihs figure:



To this plot one can add other indicators. I employ crime rates, alcohol consumption and religious activity. The last is obtained by compiling a timeline of religious events and running a 10 year moving average just as described for unrest events. I discussed the sorts of things I count as reglious events on a March 22, 2004 post. Here are the plots:



One can see rising alcohol use, crime, frequency of unrest events and frequency of religious events in the 1960's. The first three I consider indicators of social tension, while the fourth I consider a direct indicator of spiritual awakenings. The unrest plot peaks in the 1969-1974 period, alcohol use in the 1979-82 period, religious events in the 1974-81 period and crime in the 1980-91 period. I also construct a composite indicator by averaging the four together. This gives a consensus peak in the 1974-81 period. The consensus plot also shows the beginning of the rise in 1959. So this gives 1959-1981 as a period of rising and then high social tension/religious acitivity or what I will call awakening behavior. I also employ an economic indicator, in this case the secular bear market from 1966-1982. The two provide a consensus dating of 1963-1982, which is very close to S&H's dates of 1964-1982. I take it that this analysis provides empirical support for S&H's dates.

This figure shows the same sort of plot for the Great Awakening



The composite plot shows a peak in the 1741-44 era. The rise begins around 1713. The economic indicator in thihs case is the Kondratiev downwave from 1715 to 1738. The consensus is 1714-1741. S&H use 1727-1746. The empirical dates are 9 years early, whcih isn't too bad, but not as good at the recent dates.

Here's the figure for the Transcental Awakening:



The composite indicator suggests 1816-1844. The associated economic cycle is 1814-1843 (Kondratiev downwave) and the consensus is 1815-1843. This is pretty close (about four years distant) to S&H's 1822-1844 dates. This is enough for now, the post is already pretty long with all these figures.







Post#449 at 08-31-2004 08:43 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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War Deaths Lowest Since 1945

War Deaths Lowest Since 1945

Following up on a posting in another thread, what follows is a news
story about a finding from the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute that the number of war deaths in the last 12 years is the
lowest they've been since 1945.

Following the news story is the text of the Summary of SIPRI yearbook,
2004, that the story references. The full yearbook isn't available
online.

The summary contains a wealth of information about current events,
including a summary of all the current wars. It would be nice to
have that list historically for the last 100 years, but that doesn't
seem to be available.

Another site referenced in the news story is Project Ploughshares at
http://www.ploughshares.ca/ . This site also lists current wars, and
provides a lot of detail about the history of each one. This
information might be useful for the "Is this a 3T or a 4T?"
discussions that occur on this board.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com



Stockholm International Peace Research Institute - # wars down


http://www.boston.com/dailynews/242/..._sounds:.shtml

The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and...

By Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, 8/29/2004 13:46

The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television
screens worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers
report.

In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in
the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one
measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number.

''International engagement is blossoming,'' said American scholar
Monty G. Marshall. ''There's been an enormous amount of activity to
try to end these conflicts.''

For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq and
Afghanistan have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian
non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a
general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.

The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in
a 2004 Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of
publication, says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in
2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.

The Canadian organization Project Ploughshares, using broader criteria
to define armed conflict, says in its new annual report that the
number of conflicts declined to 36 in 2003, from a peak of 44 in
1995.

The Stockholm institute counts continuing wars that have produced
1,000 or more battle-related deaths in any single year. Project
Ploughshares counts any armed conflict that produces 1,000 such deaths
cumulatively.

The Stockholm report, to be released in September, notes three wars
ended as of 2003 in Angola, Rwanda and Somalia and a fourth, the
separatist war in India's Assam state, was dropped from the ''major''
category after casualties were recalculated.

It lists three new wars in 2003 in Liberia and in Sudan's western
region of Darfur, along with the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. These
joined such long-running conflicts as the Kashmiri insurgency in
India, the leftist guerrilla war in Colombia, and the separatist war
in Russia's Chechnya region.

Other major armed conflicts listed by the Stockholm researchers were
in Algeria, Burundi, Peru, Indonesia's Aceh province, Myanmar, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Israel, and Turkey. Their list also includes the
U.S.-al-Qaida war, mainly in Afghanistan, the unresolved
India-Pakistan conflict, and two insurgencies in the Philippines.

''Not only are the numbers declining, but the intensity'' the
bloodshed in each conflict ''is declining,'' said Marshall, founder of
a University of Maryland program studying political violence.

The continuing wars in Algeria, Chechnya and Turkey are among those
that have subsided into low-intensity conflicts. At Canada's
University of British Columbia, scholars at the Human Security Center
are quantifying this by tackling the difficult task of calculating war
casualties worldwide for their Human Security Report, to be released
late in 2004.

A collaboration with Sweden's Uppsala University, that report will
conservatively estimate battle-related deaths worldwide at 15,000 in
2002 and, because of the Iraq war, rising to 20,000 in 2003. Those
estimates are sharply down from annual tolls ranging from 40,000 to
100,000 in the 1990s, a time of major costly conflicts in such places
as the former Zaire and southern Sudan, and from a post-World War II
peak of 700,000 in 1951.

The Canadian center's director, Andrew Mack, said the figures don't
include deaths from war-induced starvation and disease, deaths from
ethnic conflicts not involving states, or unopposed massacres, such as
in Rwanda in 1994.

Why the declines? Peace scholars point to crosscurrents of global
events.

For one thing, the Cold War's end and breakup of the Soviet Union in
1989-91 ignited civil and separatist wars in the old East bloc and
elsewhere, as the superpowers' hands were lifted in places where
they'd long held allies in check. Those wars surged in the early
1990s.

''The decline over the past decade measures the move away from that
unusual period,'' said Ernie Regehr, director of Project
Ploughshares.

At the same time, however, the U.S.-Russian thaw worked against war as
well, scholars said, by removing superpower support in ''proxy wars,''
as in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Cambodia. With dwindling money and
arms, warmakers had to seek peace.

The United Nations and regional bodies, meanwhile, were mobilizing for
more effective peacemaking worldwide.

''The end of the Cold War liberated the U.N.'' historically paralyzed
by U.S.-Soviet antagonism ''to do what its founders had originally
intended and more,'' Mack said.

In 2003 alone, from Ivory Coast to the Solomon Islands, 14
multilateral missions were launched to protect or reinforce peace
settlements, the highest number of new peace missions begun in a
single year since the Cold War, the Stockholm institute will report.

The recent record shows ''conflicts don't end without some form of
intervention from outside,'' said Renata Dwan, who heads the
institute's program on armed conflict and conflict management.

Most new missions, half of which were in Africa, were undertaken by
regional organizations or coalitions of states, often with U.N.
sanction.

The idea of U.N. primacy in world peace and security took a
''bruising'' at U.S. hands in 2003, when Washington circumvented the
U.N. Security Council to invade Iraq, Dwan noted. But meanwhile,
elsewhere, the world body was deploying a monthly average of 38,500
military peacekeepers in 2003 triple the level of 1999.

By year's end, the institute yearbook will conclude, ''the U.N. was
arguably in a stronger position than at any time in recent years.''


Summary of SIPRI yearbook, 2004

http://editors.sipri.se/recpubs.html

http://editors.sipri.se/pubs/yb04/MiniYearbook2004.pdf

SIPRI Yearbook 2004: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security
(Pocket-size Summary Edition)

Published by SIPRI
40 pages. Available from SIPRI and as a PDF file




--3 Contents
--3 Euro-Atlantic organizations and relationships
--3 Major armed conflicts
--3 The locations of the 19 major armed conflicts in 2003
--3 The Iraq war: the enduring controversies and challenges
--3 Multilateral peace missions
--3 Post-conflict justice: developments in international courts
--3 China's new security multilateralism and its implications
--3 National defence reform and the African Union
--3 Security sector reform in the Western Balkans
--3 Military expenditure
--3 Military expenditure in the Middle East after the Iraq war
--3 Arms production
--3 The arms industries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
--3 International arms transfers
--3 The top 5 exporters of major conventional weapons
--3 Ballistic missile defence
--3 Suppliers of ballistic missile technology
--3 Science- and technology-based military innovation
--3 Major trends in arms control and non-proliferation
--3 Nuclear arms control and non-proliferation
--3 World nuclear forces: numbers of warheads as of January 2004
--3 Biological weapons and potential indicators
--3 Chemical and biological warfare developments arms control
--3 The SARS epidemic: the control of infectious diseases
--3 Conventional arms control
--3 Transfer controls and destruction programmes
--3 Withdrawal from arms control treaties
--3 Arms control and disarmament agreements
--3 Treaties not in force as of January 2004
--3 Acronyms
--3 Governing Board








The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is an
independent international institute for research into problems of
peace and conflict, especially those of arms control and disarmament.

It was established in 1966 to commemorate Sweden's 150 years of
unbroken peace.

The Institute is financed mainly by a grant proposed by the Swedish
Government and subsequently approved by the Swedish Parliament. The
staff and the Governing Board are international. The Institute also
has an Advisory Committee as an international consultative body.

The objectives of SIPRI's research are

(*) to promote transparency in security and arms control

(*) to contribute to conflict prevention and resolution

(*) to disseminate information to the broader public.

SIPRI publishes its research findings in books and on the Internet at
http://www.sipri.org.

This booklet illustrates the type of facts and data you will find in
the 859-page SIPRI Yearbook 2004 Armaments, Disarmament and
International Security which may be obtained through all the main
bookshops or from Oxford University Press, UK.

The SIPRI Yearbook has been published since 1969. It brings together
objective data and state-of-the-art analysis, offered by SIPRI's own
staff and other experts, on all major aspects of arms control, peace
and security. The 2004 edition takes as its connecting theme the
impact of the Iraq crisis in many different dimensions of
international security, but it also highlights important trends
arising elsewhere, in both geographical and functional areas. The
Yearbook is also published in Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian
editions. This condensed version is available on the Internet in
English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish at
http://editors.sipri.org/recpubs.html.

On the Internet, order the Yearbook from OUP through SIPRI at
http://www.sipri.org/pubs/bookorder.html.

For information about recent SIPRI publications, see
http://editors.sipri.org/recpubs.html.

&&3 Contents

Euro-Atlantic organizations and relationships

Major armed conflicts

The Iraq war: the enduring controversies and challenges

Multilateral peace missions

Post-conflict justice: developments in international courts

China's new security multilateralism and its implications for
the Asia--Pacific region

National defence reform and the African Union

Security sector reform in the Western Balkans

Military expenditure

Military expenditure in the Middle East after the Iraq war

Arms production

The arms industries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

International arms transfers

Ballistic missile defence

Suppliers of ballistic missile technology

Science- and technology-based military innovation: the
United States and Europe

Major trends in arms control and non-proliferation

Nuclear arms control and non-proliferation

Biological weapons and potential indicators of offensive
biological weapon activities

Chemical and biological warfare developments and arms control

The SARS epidemic: the control of infectious diseases and
biological weapon threats

Conventional arms control

Transfer controls and destruction programmes

Withdrawal from arms control treaties

Arms control and disarmament agreements

Acronyms


&&3 Euro-Atlantic organizations and relationships

(*) European--US and intra-European disunity during the Iraq war was
rapidly succeeded by efforts to rebuild Euro-Atlantic and European
consensus, resulting in major adaptations of both NATO and the
European Union to new global challenges. The `big bang' enlargement of
both institutions and NATO's transformation away from territorial
defence to expeditionary operations continued largely on schedule.

(*) It proved impossible to adopt the new EU Constitution on schedule
in December 2003. However, the operational and conceptual foundations
of the European Security and Defence Policy were strengthened by
several steps taken from June onwards, including the adoption of the
EU's first Security Strategy.

(*) Events in 2003 demonstrated that no breakthrough is likely to be
made soon in the security dimension of the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe.

(*) The Balkan states coped, in various ways and with different
successes, with the tasks of building democracy and stabilizing their
economies.

(*) Russia pursued a more assertive `managed democracy' in its
domestic policies, while seeking to restore its influence over
neighbouring states, even at the risk of harming its relations with
the West.


&&3 Major armed conflicts

(*) There were 19 major armed conflicts in 18 locations in 2003.

The number of major armed conflicts and the number of conflict
locations were slightly lower in 2003 than in 2002, when there were 20
major armed conflicts in 19 locations. Four of the 19 conflicts in
2003 were in Africa and eight in Asia.

(*) In the 14-year post-cold war period, there were 59 different
major armed conflicts in 48 different locations. The number of major
armed conflicts in 2003 was the lowest for the entire period except
for 1997, when there were 18 major armed conflicts.

(*) Two interstate conflicts were active in 2003: the conflict
between Iraq and the multinational coalition; and the conflict
between India and Pakistan.

(*) The majority of the major armed conflicts today are intrastate.

The persistence of intra-state wars, and their resistance to quick
solutions, was reflected in 2003 by the continuation of the Colombian
and Israeli--Palestinian conflicts.

(*) The potential for sudden and rapid escalation of intensity was
evident in conflicts such as Burundi, C?te d'Ivoire, Indonesia,
Liberia and Sudan (Darfur). The current international focus on the
threat of terrorism is affecting the strategies, intensity and course
of intra-state conflicts such as those in Indonesia and the
Philippines.

(*) Outside actors cannot enforce a quick peace, as demonstrated in
Afghanistan, C?te d'Ivoire, Iraq and Sri Lanka. The year demonstrated
that intra-state conflicts can be brought to an end only through
sustained and comprehensive external engagement. As illustrated by the
peace agreements in 2003 in Liberia and Sudan, external assistance,
mediation and support are vital to help bring warring parties to a
negotiated end to conflict.



&&3 The locations of the 19 major armed conflicts in 2003

Africa
Algeria
Burundi
Liberia*
Sudan

America
Colombia
Peru
USA

Europe
Russia

Asia
India* (Kashmir)
India--Pakistan*
Indonesia*
Myanmar (Burma)
Nepal*
Philippines (2 conflicts)
Sri Lanka

Middle East
Iraq*
Israel
Turkey

* These 6 conflicts each caused 1000 or more deaths in 2003.

The conflict in the USA refers to that between the al-Qaeda network
and the USA and its coalition partners. The new conflicts
registered for 2003 were those in Iraq, Liberia and Sudan.




&&3 The Iraq war: the enduring controversies and challenges

(*) Operation Iraqi Freedom began on 20 March 2003. On 9 April US
forces took control of central Baghdad and the Iraqi Government fell.
Major combat operations ended formally on 1 May 2003, but as of May
2004 the Coalition Provisional Authority was still active in Iraq.

(*) The Iraq war is likely to remain one of the most controversial
conflicts of modern times. It lacked explicit UN Security Council
authorization, and the degree to which Iraq's nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons posed a threat was the subject of debate.

(*) The operation resulted in the successful overthrow of Saddam
Hussein's regime, but no evidence of weapons of mass destruction was
uncovered and serious security problems continued after the end of the
war.

(*) North Korea, Iran and Syria were seen by some as the most likely
targets for the USA's next regime change. However, the difficulties of
post-war stabilization and the long-term costs of the war may
challenge the view that Iraq has set a precedent for US actions
elsewhere in the world.

(*) The Iraq war may have exacerbated the problem of international
terrorism by creating a new frontline in Iraq and by fuelling Arab and
Islamic resentment. Conversely, by triggering new debate on the
political future of the greater Middle East it may also have created a
chance to address the deeper causes of radical Islamic terrorism.




&&3 Multilateral peace missions

(*) Fourteen multilateral peace missions were launched in 2003---the
highest number of new missions initiated in a single year since the
end of the cold war.

(*) There were 52 multilateral peace missions in operation in 2003, 4
more than in 2002. They were conducted or led by: the UN (14
peacekeeping operations, 4 political and peacebuilding missions, and
1 UN-authorized multinational operation carried out by an ad hoc
coalition of states)

the OSCE (10)
NATO (4)
the EU (5)
Russia and the CIS (3)
the AU (1)
ECOWAS (2)
CEMAC (1)

other organizations or ad hoc state coalitions (7).

(*) The UN's role in post-conflict peace-building was illustrated by
the fact that 2 of the 3 new UN missions----in C?te d'Ivoire and
Iraq----were peace-building missions.

(*) The establishment of 11 peace operations by a range of regional
actors highlights the increasing prevalence of regional organizations
and ad hoc coalitions in multilateral peace missions and the diversity
of their engagement, including out-of-area operations by the EU in the
DRC and by NATO in Afghanistan.

(*) A total of 41 188 military personnel, 4642 civilian police and
3580 civilian staff participated in the 18 UN operations. The total
cost of the operations was $2.3 billion. Regional organizations and ad
hoc coalitions carried out 34 missions, involving 211 294 military
personnel, 1008 civilian police and 1074 civilian staff. The total
cost of these operations in 2003 was at least $58.1 billion.





&&3 Post-conflict justice: developments in international courts

(*) In 2003 the International Criminal Court (ICC) became fully
operational. The court's first priorities will be to address the
situations in the Ituri region of the DRC and in Uganda. There was
continued US opposition to the ICC.

(*) `Hybrid' courts----part international and part national----such
as the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers
for Cambodia became operational.

(*) The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
began the completion strategies which will enable them to end all
activities by 2010.

(*) The Iraqi Special Tribunal, a domestic tribunal with little
international participation, was established. International
involvement in the tribunal will be limited to the use of, i.a.,
advisers, observers and specially appointed judges. The advisers have
little authority, and it is unclear to whom they would report if it
became evident that the tribunal was not following international
standards.

(*) The international community has spent over $1 billion on
international courts. With the establishment of so many courts, the
issue of their financial sustainability has become an important
question.

(*) Developments in 2003 illustrated that the delivery of justice as
an essential element of post-conflict peace-building has emerged as an
internationally accepted norm. A combination of global, international,
national and grassroots judicial instruments, rather than a monolithic
approach, is required to more effectively reduce the `impunity gap'.




&&3 China's new security multilateralism and its implications

China's new security multilateralism and its implications for the
Asia--Pacific region

(*) China has become an increasingly proactive participant in
security multilateralism, taking the initiative to establish and
sustain new regional security mechanisms. These steps mark a dynamic
shift in China's overall foreign policy and have resulted in an
increasingly influential political and security role for China in the
Asia--Pacific region.

(*) Participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum has helped China enhance
stability and improve relations with its neighbours.

It may also provide an opportunity to address conflict prevention.

(*) Within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China has made
progress in military confidence-building measures and held at least 2
multilateral military exercises.

(*) China has become a constant participant in UN military
peacekeeping missions and recently contributed to a police mission in
Timor-Leste.

(*) Another important factor in China's progress will be whether it
can reconcile the tensions between multilateralism and its own
steadfast opposition to third-party interference in what it considers
`internal affairs', meaning primarily the status of Taiwan.

(*) Possible obstacles to China's continued progress in security
multilateralism include unresolved tensions in the China--Japan
relationship and fundamental strategic disagreement between China and
the USA.




&&3 National defence reform and the African Union

(*) The transformation of African defence and security was an uneven
process in 2003. The Peace and Security Council of the African Union
(AU) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development were instituted,
and the Common African Defence and Security Policy and the African
Standby Force process were activated.

(*) A strategic shift towards more robust African peacekeeping and
intervention capabilities is taking place within the AU, the Economic
Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development and the Southern African Development Community. New peace
and security strategies are being developed to give these
organizations a greater role in managing and resolving African
conflicts.

(*) In 2003 security sector reviews, White Paper processes and
defence restructuring initiatives were under way in Ghana,
Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Uganda.

(*) The conflicts in Algeria, Burundi, Liberia and Sudan indicate
that the attainment of peace and security in Africa will be a long
process.

(*) Key challenges for African defence reform include building
capacity at the national level, dealing with the risk of competition
between `African superpowers' for the dominant positions in African
organizations and avoiding the risk of overextending capabilities,
both civil and military.



&&3 Security sector reform in the Western Balkans

(*) Security sector reform throughout the Western Balkans is
encountering the dual challenges of transition from state socialism
and the lingering effects of recent armed conflict and ethnic
cleansing. Common problems have arisen from the phenomena of weak
states, fractured societies, and exploitation by organized crime and
corruption.

(*) In Albania, military and police reforms are handicapped by
corruption and basic failures of democracy, such as interference with
the media. Progress in institutional reform, strengthening central and
local government, and combating organized crime and corruption has
been slow.

(*) In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a key challenge has been to restore a
modicum of authority and control in the realm of security to the weak
central authorities.

(*) Croatia, a credible candidate for NATO membership, is gearing its
defence reforms accordingly.

(*) The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is undertaking
similar reforms but is having difficulties creating internal security
forces that represent and are respected by the ethnic Albanian
minority.

(*) Serbia and Montenegro, despite the country's late start on true
defence reform, is now bidding for membership of the NATO Partnership
for Peace. The question of the ultimate status of Kosovo, a UN
protectorate since 1999, has created an extra dimension of instability
for the province and the region.

(*) The international community is directly driving reform by
controlling some security functions and policies and by attempting to
apply post-conflict justice. Its actions may, however, be reducing
the sense of local ownership of security sector reform.



&&3 Military expenditure

(*) World military expenditure in 2003 amounted to $956 billion (in
current dollars)---an increase of about 11% in real terms. This
remarkable rate of increase is due primarily to the massive US
supplementary spending for the war in Iraq.

(*) The USA accounts for almost half of world military spending.

After reductions in military spending in 1987--98 and moderate
increases in 1998--2001, a series of supplementary appropriations for
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001 resulted in massive increases in US spending in 2002
and 2003.

(*) Other major spenders---China, France, Japan and the UK--- each
account for 4--5% of world military expenditure.

(*) Thirty-two high-income countries account for 75% of world
military spending, allocating over 10 times more to the military than
to official development assistance.

(*) Military expenditure is rising not only in the USA but also in
several other major countries, but these latter increases are much
smaller.

(*) US military expenditure will continue to grow over the next few
years, but the pace is likely to slow. It is doubtful whether even
current levels will be economically and politically sustainable in the
longer term.




&&3 Military expenditure in the Middle East after the Iraq war

(*) Military expenditure in the Middle East increased in 2003 by
almost 10% in real terms, which was more than twice the annual
average rate of the previous years of the 10-year period 1994--2003.
However, the overall effect of the war in Iraq on military expenditure
in the Middle East was limited in comparison to the effect of the 1991
Gulf War, which had increased military spending in the region by 34%.

(*) The increase in 2003 was accounted for mainly by 2 countries that
share contiguous borders with Iraq: Iran and Kuwait. Iran and Kuwait
increased their military spending by 25% and 36%, respectively, in
real terms.

(*) Saudi Arabia, the biggest spender in the region, increased its
military expenditure only marginally, while Israel cut its spending
in 2003. In these two countries it appears that domestic constraints
had a greater influence on military spending trends than did the war
in Iraq.

(*) Other factors accounting for the limited impact of the 2003 Iraq
war on military spending include the non-participation of many Middle
Eastern states in the war, the unpopularity of the war among their
populations, and their limited absorptive capacities for additional
military equipment.




&&3 Arms production

(*) The total arms sales of the top 100 arms-producing companies in
the world, excluding China, amounted to an estimated $192 billion in
2002, an increase of c. 14% over the previous year (in current
dollars).

(*) Three dominant trends are now evident in the global arms
industry. At the company level, arms sales are increasing; and there
is a reorientation towards expanding sectors such as electronics,
communications, IT and services. At the industry level, the
concentration process continues, but at a slower pace.

(*) The war in Iraq highlighted and may reinforce key developments in
the arms industry. Many contracts were won by private military firms
(PMFs). The parallel success of both new and `legacy' technologies in
the conflict is likely to result in a continued debate over arms
procurement policies.

(*) Successful defence--industrial collaboration between Europe and
the USA will require reform of US restrictions governing arms
collaboration with friendly nations and a tightening of European
end-use and international technology transfer controls.

Arms sales of the 5 largest arms-producing companies in
the world (excluding China), 2002

1 Boeing (USA) $20.5 billion
2 Lockheed Martin (USA) $18.9 billion
3 Northrop Grumman (USA) $17.8 billion
4 Raytheon (USA) $15.3 billion
5 BAE Systems (UK) $14.0 billion




&&3 The arms industries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

(*) The output of the Russian arms industry has grown rapidly since
1999, but this growth has been fuelled by export orders rather than
domestic procurement. The Russian workforce and capital stock have
undergone only modest renewal, and restructuring to create large
corporations has progressed much more slowly than envisaged.

(*) Russian arms exports reached a record level in 2003, but it will
be difficult to sustain this level. Future prospects for the Russian
arms industry remain uncertain. Much will depend on the pace of
industry restructuring and on the extent to which private companies
can supply both external customers and the armed forces.

(*) Ukraine may decide to gradually weaken its dependence on Russia
and increase its links with West and Central European arms-producing
companies, given that Ukraine's leadership is attempting to strengthen
relations with the EU and NATO.

(*) There is likely to be only modest procurement of new systems in
Belarus in the next 5 years. Belarus is unlikely to remain a
front-rank actor on the arms export scene.

(*) The arms industries of Belarus and Russia are strongly
integrated.

Future prospects for the arms industry in Ukraine and Belarus will
depend to a considerable extent on the evolution of their relations
with Russia.







&&3 International arms transfers

(*) The 5 largest arms suppliers in the 5-year period 1999--
2003---the USA, Russia, France, Germany and the UK--- accounted for
81% of total transfers of major conventional weapons.

(*) In 2003 the USA accounted for almost 23% of all transfers and, for
the third year in a row, ranked second after Russia.

(*) The 5 largest arms recipients in 1999--2003---China, Greece,
India, Turkey and the UK---accounted for 35% of all imports of major
conventional weapons.

(*) The war in Iraq in 2003 does not seem to have had a strong impact
on orders for or deliveries of major conventional weapons.

Instead, it seems to have supported previous decisions, particularly
those made as a result of the war in Afghanistan. Still, the war may
have increased international interest in new weapons such as
precision-guided `beyond visual range' missiles, ABM defence systems,
UAVs and MANPADS.

(*) The financial value of the arms trade in 2002 is about $26--34
billion, estimated on the basis of official government and industry
data on the value of their arms exports. This value represents
0.4--0.5% of total world trade in 2002.

(*) There was one new international arms embargo in 2003: on 28 July
2003 the UN Security Council established a mandatory embargo on arms
exports and other military assistance to some armed groups in the
DRC.

(*) UN sanctions against Libya were lifted on 12 September 2003, and
the UN embargo against Iraq was modified in May 2003 after the formal
ending of hostilities by the military powers and the establishment of
the Coalition Provisional Authority.




&&3 The top 5 exporters of major conventional weapons

The top 5 exporters of major conventional weapons in 1999--2003

Shares of world exports

1 USA 34%
2 Russia 30%
3 France 7%
4 Germany 6%
5 UK 5%


The trend in transfers of major conventional weapons,
1994--2003

[[Histogram omitted]]

SIPRI trend-indicator value in US $m. at constant (1990) prices

The histogram shows annual totals and the line denotes the 5-year
moving average. Five-year averages are plotted at the last year of
each 5-year period.




&&3 Ballistic missile defence

(*) In 2003 the US Department of Defense (DOD) accelerated R&D and
procurement programmes to begin deploying by the end of 2004 an
initial missile defence system to protect US territory.

(*) There was considerable criticism that the DOD was rushing to
deploy anti-missile systems before they had been adequately tested and
shown to operate effectively.

(*) NATO awarded a contract for the study of a missile defence system
to protect the territory of its European member states and its
peacekeeping forces from attack by short- to intermediaterange
ballistic missiles.

(*) Russia and the USA continued to discuss possibilities for missile
defence cooperation.

(*) Israel carried out further tests of the Arrow 2 anti-missile
system, which it developed jointly with the USA. The Arrow 2 is the
most mature of the collaborative missile defence programmes.

(*) India and South Korea expressed interest in developing their own
missile defences.

(*) Japan announced is intention to develop a multi-layer missile
defence system in cooperation with the USA.

(*) The growing international interest in missile defence systems was
motivated in part by the desire of some countries to promote their
defence industrial cooperation with the USA. Another factor was
concern about the proliferation of short- and intermediaterange
ballistic missiles in East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.





&&3 Suppliers of ballistic missile technology

(*) There is considerable concern, especially among Western
governments, about the proliferation of ballistic missiles. These
missiles are generally only militarily useful if armed with nuclear,
biological or chemical warheads.

(*) Many countries with missile programmes have or are suspected to
have WMD programmes.

(*) Missile exports are an important source of income for North
Korea, a supplier of missiles and technology. The USA has also been
involved in several transfers of ballistic missiles and related
technology.

(*) China, Russia and Ukraine are suppliers of ballistic missile
technology. Most European involvement in the supply of ballistic
missile technology has now ended, and European states have extended
their export controls to prevent further involvement.

(*) There has been some success in limiting the number of suppliers of
ballistic missiles and related technology. Ballistic missiles,
particularly those with ranges of over 1500 km, are complicated
systems. Countries often require foreign help to develop them, and
many of the key technologies required for them are quite distinct.

(*) Access to data on Iraqi and Libyan missile programmes will
increase knowledge about the trade in ballistic missiles and related
technology and will improve non-proliferation efforts. The `war on
terrorism' has increased controls on financial transactions and on the
movement of weapons and related materials, contributing to reducing
the uncertainty about ballistic missile programmes.




&&3 Science- and technology-based military innovation

Science- and technology-based military innovation: the United States
and Europe

(*) Major arms-producing countries are now increasingly using science
and technology for military purposes, a phenomenon called S&T-based
military innovation. This innovation involves the cooperation of
defence ministries, armed services and related research organizations
on basic and applied research and exploratory technology development.

(*) The USA has been using S&T-based military innovation as standard
procedure at least since World War II.

(*) Of the major European military producers, the UK has most clearly
demonstrated a new emphasis on S&T-based military innovation.

(*) The reasons why Europe lacks a coordinated S&T-based military
innovation policy---in spite of the European Security and Defence
Policy---include national competition within Europe, the relatively
recent inclusion of defence as an EU task and the lack of a clear
allocation of competences between the pillars of the EU.

(*) It is open to question whether European S&T will be sufficient to
meet the capability ambitions of the European Union.

Exploiting foreign S&T for EU military innovation could enhance
European national S&T-based military innovation and multinational
research programmes.

(*) A shift towards EU S&T-based military innovation will have
long-term consequences for data and transparency; for research
ethics; and for finding a political balance between cooperation,
competition and technology controls among friends as well as foes.




&&3 Major trends in arms control and non-proliferation

(*) In 2003 several previously unknown weapon-related activities came
to light, highlighting the need for more accurate information on the
development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapon programmes. In
the case of Iraq, new information made it clear that widely held
assessments about its weapon-related activities were inaccurate.

(*) Multilateral arms control treaty regimes made little progress in
agreeing on how to identify and respond to treaty violations.

(*) In May 2003 President George W. Bush announced the implementation
of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), allowing the
interdiction of ships, aircraft and vehicles suspected of carrying
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), ballistic missiles and related
technologies to or from `countries of proliferation concern'. The
PSI's legal basis is controversial, but the initiative could improve
international coordination on export controls. On 4 September, in
Paris, a Statement of Interdiction Principles was agreed to outline
the scope of the PSI.

(*) On 12 December 2003 the EU Strategy Against the Proliferation of
WMD was adopted, guaranteeing continued high-level attention by
European states to non-proliferation.

(*) Arms control has focused primarily on managing the risks posed by
weapons held by states. In 2003 consideration was given to the use of
legal instruments to manage 2 new threats: weapons in the hands of
non-state actors; and the use of materials and technologies not
traditionally considered weapons.





&&3 Nuclear arms control and non-proliferation

(*) The nuclear non-proliferation regime faced serious challenges in
2003. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) suffered a setback when North
Korea formally withdrew from the treaty and later announced that it
had a nuclear weapon capability. Talks aimed at resolving the North
Korean nuclear crisis made no progress.

(*) Evidence emerged that Iran had been secretly pursuing nuclear fuel
cycle technologies with direct military applications without declaring
these activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran
signed an Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement and stated
that it would suspend all its uranium enrichment and reprocessing
activities.

(*) The US Congress decided to lift its 10-year ban on research work
on low-yield nuclear weapons.

(*) US inspection teams continued to search for evidence of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. The Iraq Survey Group released an
interim report that presented evidence of Iraq's ambition to acquire
nuclear weapons, but analysts released several other reports that were
critical of pre-war US intelligence assessments of Iraq's nuclear
capabilities.

(*) The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions was ratified by
Russia and the USA and entered into force, committing each party to
reduce the number of its operationally deployed nuclear warheads so
that the aggregate numbers of these warheads for each country do not
exceed 1700--2200 by 31 December 2012.

(*) A positive development was Libya's announcement that it would
verifiably abandon and dismantle its WMD. It also ratified the
Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.


&&3 World nuclear forces: numbers of warheads as of January 2004



World nuclear forces:
numbers of warheads as of January 2004

Year of first Deployed
Country nuclear test warheads

USA 1945 7 006
Russia 1949 7 802
UK 1952 185
France 1960 348
China 1964 402
India 1974 30--40
Pakistan 1998 30--50
Israel -- c. 200
Total c. 16 033

(*) The USA's active deployed nuclear weapon stockpile consists of
5886 strategic and 1120 non-strategic warheads.

Russia's active deployed stockpile consists of 4422 strategic and
3380 non-strategic warheads. The nuclear arsenals of India, Israel and
Pakistan are thought to be only partly deployed.

(*) As of early 2004 an estimated total of about 16 033 warheads were
deployed. If all nuclear warheads are counted---including
non-deployed spares, those in active and inactive storage, and `pits'
(plutonium cores) held in reserve---the nuclear weapon stockpile of
the 5 states defined by the NPT as nuclear weapon states---the USA,
Russia, the UK, France and China---amounts to 36 500 warheads.





&&3 Biological weapons and potential indicators

Biological weapons and potential indicators of offensive biological
weapon activities

(*) Recent developments in biotechnology could be a driving force to
encourage states to pursue a biological weapon capacity, opening new
possibilities for future military or terrorist misuse.

(*) Today researchers have standard methodologies to alter an
organism's genetic make-up. Rapid progress in biotechnology could lead
to a new class of biological warfare agents that will be engineered to
target specific human biological systems at the molecular level,
shifting the focus from traditional biological warfare agents and
making defence more difficult.

(*) It is difficult to distinguish between permitted and prohibited
research activities under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
(BTWC). From a technical and scientific standpoint, no single measure
can distinguish conclusively between permitted and prohibited
activities, but a combination of measures could serve this function.

(*) In order to identify and prevent prohibited activities, there is
a need to better understand these security threats, and the
transparency of R&D efforts to protect populations against biological
weapons must be increased. All biodefence programmes should be
declared as part of the annual, politically binding information
exchanges that are designed to help strengthen the BTWC.





&&3 Chemical and biological warfare developments arms control

Chemical and biological warfare developments and arms control

(*) In 2003 the states parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention met to assess the implementation of the convention's
provisions and of national measures for security and oversight of
pathogens and toxins.

(*) The First Review Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC) was held, and a plan of action was
implemented to ensure that member states implement national measures.

(*) The parties to the CWC should monitor relevant scientific and
technological developments and ensure that OPCW procedures take them
into account. For example, if the OPCW does not formally consider that
the CWC provisions apply to non-lethal weapons and incapacitants and
does not agree relevant policy decisions, there is a risk that the
applicability of the provisions will be decided on the basis of
implementation practice rather than on policy.

(*) No prohibited chemical or biological weapon stockpiles were found
in Iraq, and questions were raised about the reliability of
intelligence assessments on Iraq in 2003.

(*) Libya announced that it would disclose its NBC missile programmes
and would become a party to all multilateral arms control and
disarmament regimes related to these weapons. The disclosure followed
months of negotiations with Libya by British and US officials. Libya's
decision suggests that ad hoc coalitions of states acting on specific
issues of concern to meet perceived threats can be effective under
certain circumstances.



&&3 The SARS epidemic: the control of infectious diseases



The SARS epidemic: the control of infectious diseases and biological
weapon threats

(*) The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in
early 2003 was perceived by a number of governments as a challenge to
their national security because of its impact on their economies and
health care systems.

(*) The disease also contributed to concern about the potential
threat posed by the use of infectious disease as a method of warfare,
a concern which had been heightened since the 11 September 2001
terrorist attacks in the USA.

(*) The experience gained from the SARS epidemic has shown that, with
strong leadership, scientific experts from around the world can
collaborate effectively to identify and contain novel pathogens. The
best strategy for fighting future epidemics will be to strengthen the
existing global institutions that deal with these events to improve
preparedness and openness at the national level and to allocate
responsibility for such tasks as patient containment, disease
surveillance and monitoring during emergencies.

(*) Measures have been proposed to link the Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention to specific measures for fighting infectious
disease, e.g., the establishment of a global disease surveillance
programme.

(*) Global leadership by the UN and greater international cooperation
will be required in order to effectively deal with the security risks
posed by infectious disease.




&&3 Conventional arms control

(*) More than 4 years after the signing of the Agreement on
Adaptation of the CFE Treaty, the conventional arms control process
in Europe remained deadlocked, and the states parties are concerned
about the possible adverse effect on regional security.

(*) Russia's concern with sustaining political influence on its
southern perimeter stands in the way of satisfying Western demands
under the CFE Treaty and creates a tension with its generally
cooperative stance towards the West.

(*) The efforts of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe to combat terrorism led the participating states to propose
new arms control-related initiatives, such as removing surplus
munitions and taking action on man-portable air defence systems
(MANPADS).

(*) In Latin America, work progressed on the further elaboration of
confidence- and security-building measures within the framework of the
Organization of American States (OAS). At the OAS Special Conference
on Security, a new concept of security was adopted for the region,
emphasizing such new threats as terrorism, organized crime and
corruption.

(*) Four more states acceded to the Treaty on Open Skies and by the
end of 2003 four other states were in the process of becoming
parties.

(*) The new Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War of the CCW
Convention and the work on limiting the use and transfer of
anti-vehicle mines demonstrate the continued pressure on states to
mitigate the consequences for civilians of the use of weapons.




&&3 Transfer controls and destruction programmes

(*) During 2003, international export control regimes focused on the
challenge of adaptation to deal with non-state actors, such as
terrorists, and to prevent their acquisition of WMD materials and
man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS).

(*) States participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) conducted
the second WA assessment and agreed major changes to the founding
document. They pledged to tighten export controls on MANPADS,
brokering and equipment that is not included in the WA control lists.

(*) The Australia Group added 14 human pathogens that could
potentially be used in WMD to its Biological Control List. It
continued its work to prevent the acquisition of biological or
chemical weapons by terrorist groups.

(*) The EU initiated both a peer review process to evaluate national
controls of dual-use exports and the first fundamental review of the
EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.

(*) In 2003, governments participating in the G8 Global Partnership
Against Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction eliminated some of
the obstacles to the implementation of cooperative threat reduction
(CTR) projects.

Multilateral export control regimes and number of participating states
as of 1 January 2004


Australia Group 33
Missile Technology Control Regime 33
Nuclear Suppliers Group 40
Wassenaar Arrangement 33
Zangger Committee 35






&&3 Withdrawal from arms control treaties

(*) In 2003 North Korea withdrew from the NPT and in 2002 the USA
announced its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. North Korea invoked the
withdrawal clause after having violated the NPT, while the USA invoked
the withdrawal clause as a preventive measure to avoid treaty
violation when it proceeded with its missile defence programmes.

(*) The actions taken by the North Korean and US governments are
unprecedented in the modern history of international arms control and
raise fundamental questions regarding the role of the treaty as a
legally binding tool for arms control.

(*) When North Korea withdrew from the NPT, several states and
international organizations expressed regrets, but there was neither a
statement from the NPT depositaries nor a resolution adopted by the UN
Security Council.

(*) Reaction was also muted when the USA's withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty took effect in 2003. Russia expressed regrets over the USA's
action, but it did not openly challenge the arguments presented in
support of the unilateral withdrawal.

(*) These treaty withdrawals could set a future standard and may in a
sense `lower the threshold' for the invocation of a withdrawal clause
in order to terminate legally binding relationships. This would in
turn go against the interests of stability and predictability in
international relations.




&&3 Arms control and disarmament agreements

Arms control and disarmament agreements and agreements on humanitarian
law of armed conflict in force as of January 2004

1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating,
Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare
(Geneva Protocol)

1948 Treaty for Collaboration in Economic, Social and Cultural
Matters and for Collective Self-defence among Western European states
(Brussels Treaty)

1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (Genocide Convention)

1949 Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian
Persons in Time of War

1954 Protocols to the 1948 Brussels Treaty (Paris Agreements on the
Western European Union)

1959 Antarctic Treaty

1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer
Space and Under Water (Partial Test Ban Treaty, PTBT)

1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the
Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other
Celestial Bodies (Outer Space Treaty)

1967 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America
and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco)

1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT)

1971 Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons
and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Seabed and the Ocean
Floor and in the Subsoil thereof (Seabed Treaty)

1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and
Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on
their Destruction (Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, BTWC)

1974 Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests
(Threshold Test Ban Treaty, TTBT)

1976 Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes
(Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, PNET)

1977 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile
Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (Enmod Convention)

1977 Protocol I Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and
Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed
Conflicts

1977 Protocol II Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and
Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed
Conflicts

1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material

1981 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain
Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious
or to have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW Convention, or `Inhumane
Weapons' Convention)

1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga)

1987 Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and
Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty)

1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty)

1991 Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive
Arms (START I Treaty)

1992 Treaty on Open Skies

1992 The Concluding Act of the Negotiation on Personnel Strength of
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE-1A Agreement)

1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production,
Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction
(Chemical Weapons Convention, CWC)

1995 Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (Treaty of
Bangkok)

1996 Agreement on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the
Republika Srpska

1996 Amended Protocol II to the 1981 CCW Convention, on Prohibitions
or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-traps and Other Devices

1996 Agreement on Sub-Regional Arms Control concerning Yugoslavia
(Serbia and Montenegro), Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia (Florence
Agreement)

1997 Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of
and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related
Materials

1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling,
Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their
Destruction (APM Convention)

1999 Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional
Weapons Acquisitions

1999 Vienna Document 1999 on Confidence- and Security- Building
Measures

2001 Concluding Document of the Negotiations under Article V of Annex
1-B of the 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and
Herzegovina

2002 Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT)



&&3 Treaties not in force as of January 2004

1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM
Treaty): not in force as of 13 June 2002

1993 Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic
Offensive Arms (START II Treaty)

1996 African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba)

1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)

1999 Agreement on Adaptation of the 1990 Treaty on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe


&&3 Acronyms

ABM anti-ballistic missile
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations
AU African Union
BMD ballistic missile defence
BTWC Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
BW biological weapon/warfare
CCW Certain Conventional Weapons (Convention), also
called the `Inhumane Weapons' Convention
CEMAC Communaut? ?conomique et Mon?taire de l'Afrique
Centrale (Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa)
CFE (Treaty on) Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
CPA Coalition Provisional Authority
CSBM confidence- and security-building measure
CTBT Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty
CW chemical weapon
CWC Chemical Weapons Convention
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
EU European Union
FYROM Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
G8 Group of Eight (industrialized nations)
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
ICC International Criminal Court
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development
ISG Iraq Survey Group
MANPADS man-portable air defence systems
MTCR Missile Technology Control Regime
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NBC nuclear, biological and chemical (weapons)
NPT Non-Proliferation Treaty
NSG Nuclear Suppliers Group
OAS Organization of American States
OAU Organization of African Unity
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OPCW Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
PMF private military firm
PSI Proliferation Security Initiative
PTBT Partial Test Ban Treaty
R&D research and development
SADC Southern African Development Community
SARS severe acute respiratory syndrome
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SORT Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty
UAV unmanned air vehicle
UN United Nations
WA Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for
Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies
WMD weapons of mass destruction



&&3 Governing Board

Ambassador Rolf Ek?us, Chairman (Sweden)
Sir Marrack Goulding, Vice-Chairman (UK)
Dr Alexei G. Arbatov (Russia)
Dr Willem F. van Eekelen (Netherlands)
Dr Nabil Elaraby (Egypt)
Rose E. Gottemoeller (USA)
Professor Helga Haftendorn (Germany)
Professor Ronald G. Sutherland (Canada)
The Director
Director
Alyson J. K. Bailes (UK)
Ingeni?rskopia, Solna, 2004







Post#450 at 08-31-2004 08:47 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
08-31-2004, 08:47 AM #450
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Tense Situations

Dear Mike,

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
> Lot's of "tense situations" here: race riots, labor
> confrontations, demonstrations and a couple of assassinations. But
> by itself such a list doesn't really mean anything. After all,
> events like this happen all the time. The statement "society went
> from low social tension to high social tension over the course of
> the 60s" implies that the "quantity of tenseness" was greater in
> the 1960's than in the 1950's.
This rings a bell from an earlier discussion. Is this how you define
"social moments"? As I recall, you look for periods in which such
events occur, but such that no (or few) such events occur in the
period 20 years before and 20 years after. However, I note that the
Vietnam War isn't mentioned in the 1960s list. Does that mean that
external wars are not included -- but internal wars or civil wars are?
What are the criteria for an event to be included in this list?

On another subject, the previous message posts the news story that
the number of wars and war deaths has gone down dramatically in the
last 12-15 years.

I know that this is the kind of thing you study. What would be your
explanation for this phenomenon? Did the same thing occur prior to
World War II?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
-----------------------------------------