The Stagnant Order: And the End of Rising Powers

Introduction

The analysis references a fundamental reframing of modern geopolitics.

As we delve deeper in analysis the argues that continues about an era spanning centuries of global history—one defined by the dramatic rise and fall of great powers—is concluding, fundamentally altering the trajectory of international conflict and competition.

The Historical Context: Salisbury’s Prophecy

The article opens with Lord Salisbury’s 1898 warning about the world dividing into “living” and “dying” nations, a forecast that preceded World War I by little more than a decade.

Salisbury’s neo-Darwinist theory of international relations held that weak states become weaker and strong states become stronger, with the consequence that living nations would gradually encroach upon the territory of dying nations, sowing “seeds and causes of conflict amongst civilized nations.”

That pattern—rising powers challenging declining incumbents—defined the subsequent century. The Industrial Revolution created unprecedented opportunities for rapid state ascendancy through demographic booms, technological breakthroughs, and military expansion.

Nations like Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, and China leveraged these advantages to surge toward great-power status, creating the dynamic competition and catastrophic conflicts that characterized the 20th century.

The Current Stagnation: Conditions Have Fundamentally Changed

The central claim of Beckley’s analysis is that this era of rising powers has definitively ended.

For the first time in centuries, no country is rising fast enough to overturn the existing global balance of power.

The structural factors that once fueled rapid ascendancy are no longer operating:

China, the Last Rising Power, Has Peaked.

China represents the final major challenger of the classical rising-power model.

Yet China faces mounting vulnerabilities that constrain its continued ascendancy. Its economy is decelerating significantly, having slowed from double-digit growth rates to single-digit expansion.

More critically, China confronts a demographic catastrophe: its population is now declining, with working-age cohorts shrinking sharply.

By mid-century, demographers project that China’s potential economic growth could be halved compared to its 2020s levels.

The working-age population—those aged 16–59—is projected to shrink by over 100 million by 2050.

Compounding this, China faces a severe gender imbalance in reproductive-age cohorts, minimal immigration to offset decline, and cultural shifts that contradict government efforts to encourage larger families.

The result is an aging society increasingly burdened by the costs of supporting elderly populations while having fewer workers to generate economic growth.

Japan, Russia, and Europe Have Stagnated for Over a Decade.

Unlike rising powers experiencing rapid transformation, these regions have experienced prolonged economic stagnation and demographic decline without the compensating factors that previously enabled recovery.

Japan pioneered the experience of secular stagnation after its 1990s bubble burst. Russia faces sanctions, military overextension, and long-term demographic decline.

Europe struggles with sluggish growth, aging populations, and political fragmentation.

India Possesses Demographics but Lacks the Capacity to Translate Them Into Power.

India represents a potential counterexample—it has a young, expanding population and is positioned as the world’s most populous nation.

However, India faces a critical constraint: insufficient human capital and state capacity.

India’s adult literacy rate stands at 77%, roughly where China was in 1990.

More strikingly, female literacy in India reaches only 70%—a disparity that limits the effective workforce and perpetuates low-skilled labor pools.

Beyond human capital deficits, India’s state capacity remains weak relative to the scale of governance challenges it faces.

Courts are severely under-resourced, healthcare remains under-regulated, and civil service capacity is insufficient for effective service delivery.

India’s economic growth, while rapid, has been geographically concentrated: the top 100 districts generate 85% of GDP and 87% of exports, while 660 districts remain stagnant.

As one analysis notes, “A weak state has effectively gifted labor-intensive manufacturing to India’s biggest strategic competitor—China.”

Without dramatic improvements in education quality and state institutional capacity, India cannot convert its demographic advantage into geopolitical power in the near term.

The United States Remains Dominant but Faces Its Own Challenges. The U.S. still outpaces all rivals in combined economic, military, and technological power.

However, America confronts significant structural headwinds: mounting federal debt, sluggish economic growth relative to historical patterns, and profound political dysfunction.

Critically, while the U.S. faces troubles, its competitors are “sinking into deeper decay.”

The U.S. retains the advantage of absorbing immigration that partially offsets demographic decline—a structural advantage absent in East Asian and European competitors.

The Absence of Historical Drivers

Beckley’s analysis emphasizes that the technological and demographic drivers of historical power transitions have exhausted themselves.

Modern innovations have not fundamentally transformed daily life in the way the Industrial Revolution did; an American apartment from the 1940s remains recognizable today, whereas a home from the 1870s would be transformed by indoor plumbing, electricity, and modern appliances.

Population growth rates globally are collapsing due to decreased child mortality, increased life expectancy, improved economic opportunities for women, and rising costs of living.

The result is a world of aging incumbent powers surrounded by middle powers, developing nations, and failing states—not a world of ambitious young powers seeking to overturn the established order.

Additionally, the mechanisms of territorial expansion and resource conquest that once drove great-power competition have become economically irrational and strategically constrained. In the modern era, conquest is costly and growth is difficult to achieve through territorial acquisition.

The Geopolitical Consequences: Short-Term Dangers in a Stagnant System

Beckley’s argument contains a paradox: the end of rising powers may reduce the long-term risk of hegemonic war, but stagnation and demographic shock create acute near-term dangers. Several risks emerge.

Fragile States Under Stress

Weak and developing states are buckling under debt burdens, youth unemployment, and demographic imbalances. These conditions create environments where state collapse, civil conflict, and humanitarian catastrophe become more likely.

Militarization and Irredentism Among Struggling Powers

Powers unable to generate growth through economic means may turn to military expansion and territorial revisionism to distract from domestic failure or to secure resources to sustain their populations.

This creates flashpoints: border disputes, regional conflicts, and renewed nationalism.

Democratic Erosion and Extremism

Economic stagnation and inequality feed political extremism, undermine democratic institutions, and corrode social cohesion.

The combination of slow growth, high inequality, and perceived loss of status fuels both authoritarian consolidation in fragile democracies and the rise of populist movements.[johnlocke]

American Unilateralism

With traditional rising powers stalled and the structural competition that drove post-Cold War internationalism diminished, the United States may increasingly pursue what Beckley has termed “rogue superpower” behavior—aggressive, powerful, and increasingly out for itself without sense of obligation to international norms or alliance commitments.

This represents a shift from the Cold War model of hegemonic stability toward unpredictable unilateralism.

Conclusion

Historical Implications

This represents a genuine historical inflection point. For roughly 200 years, from the rise of industrial powers through the post-Cold War era, the central dynamic of global politics involved rising and declining powers competing for status, resources, and territory.

That cycle created both extraordinary opportunities and catastrophic conflicts.

The end of that cycle suggests a fundamentally different geopolitical landscape—one characterized not by transformative competition but by the management of stagnation, the prevention of state collapse, and adaptation to demographic contraction.[johnlocke]

Whether this represents liberation from the cycle of hegemonic war or merely a transition to a different class of international dangers remains to be seen.