Showing posts with label Cycles of War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cycles of War. Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2024

The 500 Year Cycle | Raymond H. Wheeler

The 1000 year cycle tends to break down into halves of about 500 years each. Centering on the dates of 375 BC, 30 AD, 460 AD, 955 AD, and 1475 AD, climate was dry and colder than usual. The warm periods were short and were often disrupted by drops in temperature. Midway between these dates, the warm periods stretched out; the interruptions were not as long, and the cold periods shortened. The result is an intermediate cycle averaging 510 years in length.
 
 » Mass migrations were extensive, and all the ancient civilizations collapsed. «
Vandals sacking Rome, 455 AD.

The beginning of the first of these 500-year rhythms marks an important place in the history of climate. Prior to 575 BC, climatic cycles were longer and more extreme than they have been since then. In the two centuries immediately following, from 450 ta 320 BC, it was warm much of the time. Two 100-year cycles were almost fused into one. The cold period between them, at 420 BC, was very short. After that, the cold periods lengthened. By the end of this 500-year period, at the time of Christ, there was an exceptionally long cold period.

The cold phase centering on 460 AD, at the end of the next 500-year cycle, was also exceptionally cold. Mass migrations were extensive, and all the ancient civilizations collapsed. There was a long-term downward trend in rainfall. Although there were long cold phases in the 600s and 700s, they were frequently interrupted by silts to the warm side and did not seem to be exceptionally bad. The cold phases of the 800s and 900s were extremely severe, causing many migrations, primarily from the northern countries — especially when conditions began to deteriorate approaching 955, near the end of the 500-year rhythm.
 
 » Civilizations broke up and new ones took their places. «
 Migrants storming European Union borders, 2024 AD.

Subsequently, temperatures warmed suddenly. The 1000s were so warm that trees grew in Greenland. This was the period when Vikings crossed the Atlantic, One of the most severe hot droughts in history occurred in the 1130s. The 13th century saw a long warm period. Then climate began to deteriorate again. While the 14th century was warm much of the time, there were frequent and sharp drops in temperature; often it was very stormy. During several winters, the straits between Denmark and Sweden froze over solid enough to support horses and sleds, Greenland began to freeze. In the 15th century, there was no long warm period.

The next 500-year rhythm terminated at 1475. Subsequently, temperatures warmed up again. The 17th century was so warm that the next 100-year cycle had but a short cold phase, centering on 1655, and this was quickly interrupted by a shift back to the warm side. During the 19th and 20th centuries, climate deteriorated again.

 
» The 500 year period beginning at 1475 is drawing to a close. «
 Migrants breaching US southern border, 2024 AD.
Climate change? Sure.

Events of great importance occur every 500 years. Midway between 575 BC and 460 AD, the Roman Empire began its decline as Christianity rose. There were no strong European civilizations for a long time. On the other hand, there were very strong Asiatic empires such as that of the Huns. Midway between 460 and 1475, in the 9th and 10th centuries, a vast change occurred, again involving mass migrations, These events divided the Middle Ages into two halves. In the first half, there were brilliant empires like those of Justinian with its capital at Constantinople, Charlemagne in the West, and the Arabs in the East. The Arabs moved into Spain and India, developing brilliant civilizations at Cordoba and Bagdad. But all this came to an end. These civilizations broke up and new ones took their places. Following 975, the feudal period developed, with the growth of principalities that were to form modern European states. Amazing empires were built by the Mongols in Asia, the Incas in South America, and the Mayas in Central America. In India and Japan, new empires were born. The Balkans achieved their Golden Ages during this period.

All this came to an end in the 15th century. The Medieval economy, customs, and modes of thought disappeared. With the new 500-year climatic cycle came the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the building of modern nations — first under absolute monarchs, then under constitutional governments. This most recent 500-year cycle has witnessed the awakening of modern art, science, and economics. In these more advanced civilizations, the common people have, for the first time in history, come into their own under democratic political and economic systems.

 » The same types of events occurr with almost clock-like regularity. «

The 500 year period beginning at 1475 is drawing to a close. We are now witnessing many of the same types of events that have occurred under similar circumstances with almost clock-like regularity five times before in history. These events are of the utmost significance for the businessman and student of today — and tomorrow.
 
Quoted from:
Raymond H. Wheeler (1943) - The 500 Year Cycle. 
With a Forecast of Trends Into the 21st Century.
 
  » A 500-year cycle is now terminating, which belonged to Europe.
The next 500-year cycle will belong to Asia.
«
Raymond H. Wheeler, 1951.

See also:
Raymond H. Wheeler (1943) - The 100 Year Cycle - Climate, Regime Change and War.
Donald A. Bradley (1943) - Cycles Write World History.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

War And Regime Change Soon In The US ? | L. David Linsky

Most, if not all, cycles in nature and human events can be shown to have a high correlation to astronomical periodicities. Some propose they provide the "cause" and basis for the cyclical structures involved in all cycle research. As with anything, cycles cannot occur out of thin air and cannot exist without scientific foundation. Cycles must be based upon something, since by their very nature they exist and are mathematically coherent. It can be shown that when specific astronomical cycles repeat, so do the same or similar events correlated to them. Below is a proposed case of potential and significant major conflict for the United States in +/- 2026.

» If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. «
Asian proverb.

This conflict can manifest itself as either internal, external, or a combination of the two. In most cases, wars do not simply start randomly one day. They build slowly over time, and often brew for years as we are potentially seeing now. The following will show a pattern of significant and major conflicts in American history within a framework of an 84-year cycle. Every 84 years, Mars and Uranus form an initial conjunction or come together and meet at almost the exact same celestial longitude in that part of the sky astronomically known as Gemini. This is the foundation of the 84-year war cycle proposed and examined.

[...] The planetary positions between 1692, 1776, 1861, 1941 and 2026, represent a highly correlated synchronization of the planets mentioned with similar human events occurring on Earth, the associated major war cycle affecting the United States. Based upon the cycles illustrated, the data suggests there could be a serious war and or conflict in 2026 involving the United States, whether internal, external, or both. Circumstances do not need to be 100% identical, for they can "rhyme" or be similar in nature. This similarity could manifest itself as a significant internal conflict such as another kind of Revolution or Civil War, if not another major physical conflict overseas.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Major Power's Military Expenditure │ 1830 - 2007

Source: OurWorldinData.

Max Roser and Mohamed Nagdy (2016) - There are two ways in which we might want to measure military spending; the first way is spending in real terms and the second is as a percentage of GDP. Military expenditure in real terms is important since the absolute level of expenditure matters for the outcome of war. The US spending 10% of its GDP fighting a war is likely to defeat a low or middle income country spending 50% or more of its GDP. Yet, military expenditure as a percentage of GDP allows us to get a handle on the priorities and ambitions of a country. The military expenditure of a country is largely determined by the whether it is at war or not. Outside of wartime, countries continue to spend substantial sums on maintaining their military capability. [Above] are two time series plots of military expenditure in real terms; the first is in thousands of 1900 UK pounds for the period 1830-1913, the second is in thousands of 2000 US dollars for the period 1914-2007. 

The UK’s military spending as a percentage of GDP in peacetime fluctuates around 2.5%, in times of war however, military spending rises dramatically. At the height of the Second World War, the UK was spending around 53% of its GDP on its military. Such a dramatic rise is consistent with the existential danger faced by the UK during the Second World War.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Where did Steve Bannon get his Worldview? From my Book. │ Neil Howe

Steve Bannon - Trump’s chief strategist.

Neil Howe (Feb 24, 2017) - The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider). “Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (Huffington Post). “Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III” (The Nation). A common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.

I wrote that book with William Strauss back in 1997. It is true that Bannon is enthralled by it. In 2010, he released a documentary, “Generation Zero”, that is structured around our theory that history in America (and by extension, most other modern societies) unfolds in a recurring cycle of four-generation long eras. While this cycle does include a time of civic and political crisis — a Fourth Turning, in our parlance — the reporting on the book has been absurdly apocalyptic.

I don’t know Bannon well. I have worked with him on several film projects, including “Generation Zero,” over the years. I’ve been impressed by his cultural savvy. His politics, while unusual, never struck me as offensive. I was surprised when he took over the leadership of Breitbart and promoted the views espoused on that site. Like many people, I first learned about the alt-right (a far-right movement with links to Breitbart and a loosely defined white-nationalist agenda) from the mainstream media. Strauss, who died in 2007, and I never told Bannon what to say or think. But we did perhaps provide him with an insight — that populism, nationalism and state-run authoritarianism would soon be on the rise, not just in America but around the world.

Because we never attempted to write a political manifesto, we were surprised by the book’s popularity among certain crusaders on both the left and the right. When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial Generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing social values. Beyond ideology, I think there’s another reason for the rising interest in our book. We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order.

Along this cycle, we can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20 years — the length of a generation. Think of these as recurring seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of life.
The cycle begins with the First Turning, a “High” which comes after a crisis era. In a High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if many feel stifled by the prevailing conformity. Many Americans alive today can recall the post-World War II American High (historian William O’Neill’s term), coinciding with the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies. Earlier examples are the post-Civil War Victorian High of industrial growth and stable families, and the post-Constitution High of Democratic Republicanism and Era of Good Feelings.

The Second Turning is an “Awakening”, when institutions are attacked in the name of higher principles and deeper values. Just when society is hitting its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of all the social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Salvation by faith, not works, is the youth rallying cry. One such era was the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some historians call this America’s Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending on whether they start the count in the 17th century with John Winthrop or the 18th century with Jonathan Edwards.

The Third Turning is an “Unraveling”, in many ways the opposite of the High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Third Turning decades such as the 1990s, the 1920s and the 1850s are notorious for their cynicism, bad manners and weak civic authority. Government typically shrinks, and speculative manias, when they occur, are delirious.

Finally, the Fourth Turning is a “Crisis” period. This is when our institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. If history does not produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action. Civic authority revives, and people and groups begin to pitch in as participants in a larger community. As these Promethean bursts of civic effort reach their resolution, Fourth Turnings refresh and redefine our national identity. The years 1945, 1865 and 1794 all capped eras constituting new “founding moments” in American history.
Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire).

September 11, 2001: The sinister Neocon Project for a New American Century, engineering "some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor
" — one generation ahead of time
(HERE).

In our paradigm, one can look ahead and suggest that a coming time period — say, a certain decade — will resemble, in its essential human dynamic, a time period in the past. In “The Fourth Turning,” we predicted that, starting around 2005, America would probably experience a “Great Devaluation” in financial markets, a catalyst that would mark America’s entry into an era whose first decade would likely parallel the 1930s. Reflecting on the decade we’ve just lived through, we can probably agree that the 1930s parallel works well. In the economy, both decades played out in the shadow of a global financial crash, and were characterized by slow and disappointing economic growth and chronic underemployment of labor and capital. Both saw tepid investment, deflation fears, growing inequality and the inability of central bankers to rekindle consumption.

In geopolitics, we’ve witnessed the rise of isolationism, nationalism and right-wing populism across the globe. Geostrategist Ian Bremmer says we now live in a “G-Zero” world, where it’s every nation for itself. This story echoes the 1930s, which witnessed the waning authority of great-power alliances and a new willingness by authoritarian regimes to act with terrifying impunity. In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: falling rates of fertility and home-ownership, the rise of multi-generational households, the spread of localism and community identification, a dramatic decline in youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a blanding of pop youth culture. Above all, we sense a growing desire among voters around the world for leaders to assert greater authority and deliver deeds rather than process, results rather than abstractions.

September 1, 2005: FEMA-camp, New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (HERE).

We live in an increasingly volatile and primal era, in which history is speeding up and liberal democracy is weakening. As Vladimir Lenin wrote, “In some decades, nothing happens; in some weeks, decades happen. Get ready for the creative destruction of public institutions, something every society periodically requires to clear out what is obsolete, ossified and dysfunctional — and to tilt the playing field of wealth and power away from the old and back to the young. Forests need periodic fires; rivers need periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new golden age. If we look at the broader rhythms of history, we have reason to be heartened, not discouraged, by these trends. Anglo-American history over the past several centuries has experienced civic crises in a fairly regular cycle, about every 80 or 90 years, or roughly the length of a long human life. This pattern reveals itself in the intervals separating the colonial Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II. Fast-forward the length of a long human life from the 1930s, and we end up where we are today. 

America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we move toward the halfway point. Further adverse events, possibly another financial crisis or a major armed conflict, will galvanize public opinion and mobilize leaders to take more decisive action. Rising regionalism and nationalism around the world could lead to the fragmentation of major political entities (perhaps the European Union) and the outbreak of hostilities (perhaps in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Baltic states or the Persian Gulf).  

September 18, 2008: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke met with key
legislators to propose a $700 billion emergency bailout. Bernanke reportedly told them: "If we
don't do this, we may not have an economy on Monday.
" (HERE)

Despite a new tilt toward isolationism, the United States could find itself at war. I certainly do not hope for war. I simply make a sobering observation: Every total war in U.S. history has occurred during a Fourth Turning, and no Fourth Turning has yet unfolded without one. America’s objectives in such a war are likely to be defined very broadly. At the end of the 2020s, the Fourth Turning crisis era will climax and draw to a close. Settlements will be negotiated, treaties will be signed, new borders will be drawn, and perhaps (as in the late 1940s) a new durable world order will be created. Perhaps as well, by the early 2030s, we will enter a new First Turning: Young families will rejoice, fertility will rebound, economic equality will rise, a new middle class will emerge, public investment will grow into a new 21st-century infrastructure, and ordered prosperity will recommence.

"Prestige lasts at best four generations in one lineage."
Muqaddimah (1377), Ibn Khaldun.

During the next First Turning, potentially the next “American High,” millennials will move into national leadership and showcase their optimism, smarts, credentials and confidence. Sometime in the late 2030s, the first millennial will be voted into the White House, prompting talk of a new Camelot moment. Let a few more years pass, and those organization-minded millennials may face a passionate and utterly unexpected onslaught from a new crop of youth. Welcome to the next Awakening. The cycle of history keeps turning, inexorably (see also HERE).

The Global Financial Crisis catalyzed by the 2008 financial meltdown in the US was the most severe
economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s. With public trust continuing to ebb, the
regeneracy phase of this crisis still seems years away. Most likely, this Fourth Turning will come
to an end in the late 2020s, just as the Generation Zero/Millennials will embark on careers
 
(HERE).

Monday, February 6, 2017

The Wheel of Time | Raymond H. Wheeler's Drought Clock

Peter Temple (Feb 5, 2017) - Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler (1892-1961) developed a clock to forecast recurring droughts, which coincided with colder climates. He found that every 170 years, the climate would turn colder and dryer, social mood would turn negative, civil wars would proliferate, and the economy would suffer from financial collapse.


Although he completed his work during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, he was able to accurately forecast the second half of the 20th century, based upon the cycles that occurred over and over again like clockwork from 600 BC through today. The Drought Clock shows shorter 100 Year Cycles of cold and dry which are compounded by the larger degree 170 Year Cycle, when they happen at the same time. You can see that he forecast the start of a cold, dry 170 Year Cycle just before the year 2000. Cold dry periods in history have almost always led to droughts (limited access to food), civil wars, riots, and economic recessions or depressions [...] The 515 Year Climate Cycle is also a major Civilization Cycle where virtually everything around us changes (more details Here + HERE).

Thursday, November 26, 2015

NATO Opens Another Front Against Russia in Crimea

SouthFront.org (Nov 26, 2015) - [NATO, Turkey and Ukraine] have made a strike at another front. As result of a terrorism act near the border with Russia, the four main transmission lines between Ukraine and Crimea were blown up. About 1,7 million people in Crimea are cut from the power supplies. Some experts believe that the terrorism act was conducted by Turkish intelligence services in concurrence with the US. Formally, the terrorism act was made by Crimea Tatar extremists and the “Right Sector” terrorist group. The Crimea’s blackout could be described as a clear war provocation against Russia. At the moment, we could observe an escalation in a diplomatic sphere and military build up of the all sides involved in the Syrian crisis. If the US and its allies continue their provocative and shallow policy, there is a serious threat of an open military escalation in the region (see also HERE).

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

NATO's Loose Cannon Erdoğan Attacks Russia

Turkish F-16s Shoot Down Russian Sukhoi Su-24 Warplane (HERE)
The Russian jet crashed in the mountainous Jabal Turkmen area of
Latakia, where air strikes and fighting between rebel terrorists and
Syrian government forces were reported earlier on Tuesday. The Kremlin
recommended not jumping to conclusions. NATO is to hold an urgent meeting
to discuss the downing.
The ES futures dipped 1%.
European, Turkish and Russian markets plunged after confirmation that Turkey had shot down a Russian jet near its border with Syria and Moscow warning Ankara of "serious consequences".
 

Turkey’s Borsa Istanbul 100 was down almost four percent after Russian President Vladimir Putin called Ankara's action a “stab in the back made by accomplices of the terrorists.” He also warned Turkey of “very serious consequences” for relations.

The Russian stock market also fell on the news from Syria. As of 6:00pm MSK, the ruble-traded MICEX index was down 3.30 percent, while the dollar-denominated RTS index fell 3.56 percent. On Monday, the MICEX skyrocketed to 1,865 points, its highest level in seven years.


The crisis also affected European stock markets. London's FTSE was down 1.19 percent as of 3:00pm GMT. The markets in France and Germany were losing 1.90 and 1.42 percent, respectively.


The Turkish lira is the worst performer among the currencies. As of 3:00pm GMT the lira was down 0.87 percent against the US dollar.


The downing of a Russian jet fighter over Syria’s airspace was undertaken by Turkey in consultation with Washington and Brussels. Turkey did not take this decision without getting the greenlight from the Pentagon. Is this an act of revenge against Russia for bombing the US-sponsored Islamic State in Syria? The unspoken truth is that Russia is undermining US-NATO’s ground operations inside Syria. The latter are made up of various Al Qaeda affiliated formations which de facto constitute the foot-soldiers of the Western alliance. These ISIS and Al Nusrah rebel forces are in turn led by intelligence operatives and Western special forces, many of whom are deployed by private mercenary companies on contract to US-NATO (see also HERE + HERE).

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Barbault's Cyclic Index and Ganeau's Index of Cyclic Equilibrium | 1700 - 2050

In André Barbault's Cyclic Index better times are at the highs, bad times at the lows. In Claude Ganeau's Index of Cyclic Equilibrium
general mundane circumstances are considered to be better above the zero-line. Periods below the zero-line are generally less favorable
and oftentimes coincide with major military conflicts.
See also HERE + HERE


Monday, October 5, 2015

Claude Ganeau's Index of Cyclic Equilibrium | 1900 - 2100

Calculated with Timing Solution

Inspired by André Barbault's Cyclic Index, back in the 1970s French astrologer Claude Ganeau (1912-1991) developed a method of determining periods on Earth that were positive or negative, and termed this “Index of Cyclic Equilibrium”. Time has always been measured by the Moon’s cycle. This begins with the New Moon, when the Sun and Moon are conjunct. The waxing phase is from the New Moon to the Full Moon, while the waning phase is from the Full Moon to the New Moon. The waxing phase is one of growth and positive vibrations, while the waning phase is one of decay and negative vibrations. Claude Ganeau applied this principle to the ten cycles of the outer planets, from Jupiter to Pluto, and explained:

The stability or instability of the world is directly related to the difference in the sum of the phases of all waxing cycles of the five outer planets, and the sum of the phases of waning cycles of planets. While the resultant figure remains positive, the earth will tend to experience relative stability and a period of evolution; when the resultant figure is negative the earth enters a period of crisis and involution.
He calculated his Index of Cyclic Equilibrium for 1900 to 1999 and found a remarkable correlation with the state of the world in terms of war and peace, prosperity and depression, and several other factors. For example, the index accurately forecasted WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. It also pinned the Iranian Revolution, the Russian Afghanistan War, the Irak-Iran War, the 1st and the 2nd Gulf Wars, the so called Arab Spring, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine Wars. In 2015 the Index of Cyclic Equilibrium plunges back into negative territory again, and will remain there into 2021. After 2021 the breakdown and collapse of the unipolar world order should be followed by a period of global post-war recovery, growth, prosperity and the establishment of a more beneficial multi-polar international regime anchored on Eurasian powers.


Claude Ganeau's original 'Indice d'Equilibre Cyclique' for the XXth century.
'Indice de Concentration Planétaire' 1485-1983 of Henri-Joseph Gouchon (1898-1978),
André Barbault's and Claude Ganeau's common inspirator.

André Barbault's Cyclic Index of Global Tension, Conflict and War 1900 - 2100

André Barbault's Cyclic Index of Global Tension, Conflict and War is a composite of the angular distances between the five outer planets. In mundane
astrology Pluto, Neptune and Uranus are known as ‘Collective Planets’. Their cycles correspond to long-term cultural-historic periods. Saturn
and Jupiter are the social planets which relate to social-political and economic developments.
Calculated with Timing Solution. See also HERE
André Barbault's original Cyclic Index (Indice de concentration planetaire) for the XXth century.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The 100 Year Cycle - Climate, Regime Change & War│Raymond H. Wheeler

In the 1940s, while at the University of Kansas, Professor Raymond Holder Wheeler engaged in an immense project: He summarized all of recorded history. He compiled 2,500 years of records from which he derived many brilliant hypotheses. At one time he employed as many as 200 scientists. He concluded that climate and human history were intimately related. He discovered many related cycles but declared the most important one was the 100 Year Cycle.
 
 » The turning points between old and new civilizations
occur when cold-dry times reach their maximum severity.
«
 
The climate of the earth shifts from warmer to colder periods and back again, frequently in rhythms. Throughout history, there has been a sequence of  four seasons on many diverse time periods, including  1,000 Years, 500 Years, 100 Years, 10 Years, 1 Year and likely others. The Earth’s coldest periods were usually followed by excessive warmth. Such was the case when temperatures moved from the Medieval Warm Period between 900 and 1300 A.D. to the sudden ‘Little Ice Age’ which peaked in the 17th Century. Since 2,500 B.C. there have been at least 78 major climate changes worldwide, including two major changes in just the past 40 years. History shows that nations are usually built on shifts from cold periods to warm, when the human energy level temporarily reaches a maximum, while nations crumble on the shift from warm to cold. International wars occur mostly during warm periods, civil wars during cold ones. Each phase, warm and cold, begins wet and ends dry. Cold droughts and centers of civil war epochs generally coincide. A major cold drought and civil war period occurs about every 510 years; generally less severe ones every 170 years (171 Year Neptune-Uranus Cycle). There are also shorter rhythms: The generally warmer period at the beginning of the 20th century ended during World War II. Totalitarianism is typical of late-half warm periods; democracy is revived during cold times.

Raymond H. Wheeler (1943): The Effect of Climate on Human Behavior in History. In: Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, Vol. 46.

Wheeler’s cycle averages 100 years, although it may run as short as seventy years and as long as 120 years. The cycle is divided into four phases, also not precisely equal in duration, but in general, the cycle has a warm and a cold phase, with each of these having a wet and a dry period (18.6 Lunar Nodal Cycle): 

 
(1) The Cold-Dry Period (early 1870s to early 1900s and early 1960s to late 1970s): This is a time of general individualism, with weak governments, migrations, and other mob actions such as race riots. Class struggles and civil wars ranging from palace intrigues to revolutions occur during the general anarchy of the cold-dry period. People are cosmopolitan, borrowing culture and living by superficial and skeptical philosophies. As this phase nears an end and fades into the next phase, leadership emerges and societies become stabilized; new governments develop and nationalistic spirit revives. Wars take the form of expansion and imperialism. In the transition from the cold to the warm era, human energies operate at a high level (just as in the spring of the year). Learning is revived, genius appears, industrial revolutions occur, crops are good, and times are prosperous.

Temperature fluctuations over the past 20,000 years showing the abrupt cooling and warming events during the
Younger Dryas. The late Pleistocene cold glacial climate that built immense ice sheets terminated suddenly
about 14,500 years ago, causing glaciers to melt dramatically. About 12,800 years ago, after about 2,000 years
of fluctuating climate, temperatures plunged suddenly and remained cool for 1,300 years.
The mammoths disappeared at about the same time, as did some Native American and Siberian cultures that thrived
on hunting them. About 11,500 years ago, the climate again warmed suddenly; the Younger Dryas ended and the
Holocene Interglacial Period began. Soils developed, agriculture and permanent settlements became possible due
to relatively high temperature levels during the past 10,000 years.Large parts of Northern Africa began to dry
up and convert into desert during the Egyptian Warm Period 3,300 years ago. Animals and humans moved to the
Mediterranean, the Nile Valley and the Sahel (arabic for 'shore'), the southern edge of the Sahara desert.
 
(2) The Warm-Wet Period (early 1900s to early 1920s and late 1970s to late 1990s): This period sees the climax of the trends started in the previous transition, with achievement becoming organized, and the emphasis put on cooperation and integration of views and effort rather than individual accomplishment. Interest in the state rather than the individual develops and governments become more rigid and centralized. 

(3) The Warm-Dry Period (early 1920s to mid 1940s and late 1990s to early 2020s): As climate changes from a general warm-wet phase to warm-dry phase, the rigid governments of the previous period become despotic, police states emerge, personal freedom declines, behavior-patterns are introverted. In art, surrealistic, impressionistic and nihilistic patterns develop, and in business, aggressiveness and self-confidence decline with subsequent depressions and the collapse of economic systems. During the transition to the next cold period wars reflect the culmination of the decadence of the previous period and become the cruelest type of struggle with entire populations slaughtered or enslaved. However, as the temperature falls and rainfall increases, activity increases, crops are again good, and general revival begins.

(4) The Cold-Wet Period (mid 1940s to early 1960s and mid 2020s to late 2040s): This phase sees the reemergence of individualistic philosophy, with decentralizing and reorganizing trends in government and business. It is a period of emancipation and natural behavior; art is straightforward and simple; scholarship follows mechanistic lines. These trends continue and grow until they reach a climax of general anarchy during the cold-dry period to follow. In 1949 Wheeler indicated that the US were passing through a cold-wet period and heading for a Cold-Dry Period.

Within these 20-30 year periods or ‘seasons’, there are smaller ‘seasons’ - in the same sequence that account for variations within each bigger ‘season’. Once this 100 Year Cycle is complete, it blends into a larger cycle. We are currently witnessing the conclusion of a 500 Year Cycle and the breakdown of the global 'Western' hegemony - a period similar to the early 16th century in Europe (491 Year Neptune-Pluto Cycle or 3 Neptune-Uranus Cycles). The early 1500s were characterized by technological innovation, population growth and migration, productive and capitalistic expansion, religious secessionism and wars, regime changes and breakdowns, as well as by the emergence of new empires and global players. Today we are obviously in another warm period that started in the mid 1970s and had reached its peak around 2000.