power in internationale relations (original) (raw)

Power cycle theory discloses and elucidates the uniquely internationalpolitical "perspective of statecraft." The power cycle, the generalized path of a state's relative power change over long time periods, reflects at once the changing structure of the system and the state's rise and decline as a great power. It encompasses each state and the system in a "single dynamic" of changing systemic share. The principles of the power cycle explain what sets the cycles in motion and the peculiar nonlinearities of relative power change. For the researcher confronting long-standing puzzles of concept and historical interpretation, the power cycle is a potent analytic device that serves to unify, simplify, clarify, and correct. To attain such an encompassing perspective, however, the analyst must first confront the full complexities of structural dynamics and the greatest paradox of power itself. In the hour of its greatest achievement, the state is driven onto unexpected paths by the bounds of the system. The tides of history have suddenly and unexpectedly shifted against it.