Richard Smith, CEO, Chairman of the Board, and Executive Director of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, presented research on long-term cycles in war and human conflict. His analysis reveals deep interconnections between warfare, economic activity, food production, and solar phenomena, potentially mediated by solar radiation and Earth’s geomagnetic influences on biological and social systems.
» All three cycle families show rising phase conditions in the current window. A convergence appears around 2027-2032. «
Building on the Foundation's archives and the work of Edward R. Dewey (1895–1978) and Raymond H. Wheeler (1892–1961), Smith's analysis revives and extends early 20th-century cycles research using modern tools, including AI-assisted digitization and the Foundation's Cycle Analyzer. Wheeler's landmark dataset spans roughly 2,600 years (from 600 BC onward), meticulously documenting and ranking battles by severity. Dewey, motivated by his experiences in World War I and II, identified recurring rhythms across diverse phenomena to better understand and potentially mitigate societal calamities.
Dewey observed a prominent 54-year cycle manifesting across multiple domains—including international battles, wheat prices, sunspots, tree rings, and financial instruments—with major peaks in 1917, 1971, and a projected crest in 2025. He also highlighted a 17.7-year cycle in warfare data derived from Wheeler's records through 1957. Projections of this cycle similarly converge on 2025. Unlike much of today's single-series technical analysis, Dewey's approach emphasized cycles that appeared independently across unrelated phenomena. The consistent recurrence of the same wavelengths across disparate datasets served as strong evidence of meaningful underlying rhythms.
Smith has validated and extended this historical research with contemporary conflict datasets, including the Correlates of War (COW) Project, battle-related deaths statistics, and the UCDP Conflict Data Project. He also incorporated long-term economic and solar series such as wheat prices (from 1259), commodities, gold, silver, and sunspot records. Statistical analysis confirms several robust cycle families appearing consistently across war, economic, agricultural, and solar data:
Dewey observed a prominent 54-year cycle manifesting across multiple domains—including international battles, wheat prices, sunspots, tree rings, and financial instruments—with major peaks in 1917, 1971, and a projected crest in 2025. He also highlighted a 17.7-year cycle in warfare data derived from Wheeler's records through 1957. Projections of this cycle similarly converge on 2025. Unlike much of today's single-series technical analysis, Dewey's approach emphasized cycles that appeared independently across unrelated phenomena. The consistent recurrence of the same wavelengths across disparate datasets served as strong evidence of meaningful underlying rhythms.
Smith has validated and extended this historical research with contemporary conflict datasets, including the Correlates of War (COW) Project, battle-related deaths statistics, and the UCDP Conflict Data Project. He also incorporated long-term economic and solar series such as wheat prices (from 1259), commodities, gold, silver, and sunspot records. Statistical analysis confirms several robust cycle families appearing consistently across war, economic, agricultural, and solar data:
■ 16–20 year cycle (≈18 years, the Dewey cycle)
■ 28–30 year cycle (Mogey cycle)
■ 39–40 year cycle
■ 56–60 year cycle
■ 85–100 year cycle
■ 28–30 year cycle (Mogey cycle)
■ 39–40 year cycle
■ 56–60 year cycle
■ 85–100 year cycle
These cycles frequently achieve high statistical significance (often 90%+ on Bartels tests) across independent datasets. Smith's chart above titled "Three Cycles Rising — Where Are We Now?" illustrates the combined phasing of the three most prominent cycle families from 1975 to 2035:
■ 16-year Dewey cycle (brown)
■ 26-year Mogey cycle (red)
■ 63-year long-wave (blue)
■ 26-year Mogey cycle (red)
■ 63-year long-wave (blue)
The analysis shows that all three major cycle families are currently in a rising phase simultaneously—a convergence that appears around 2027–2032. This alignment suggests heightened conditions for conflict, instability, and related phenomena through the early 2030s, with broader peaks possible before 2040.
» The tallest peak, and hence the strongest average cycle, is at the 4th fraction of 214 years (top scale), or 53.5 years (bottom scale). [...] Could this cycle be the well-established 54-year cycle? «Edward Dewey, 1967.
See also: