Power Transition Analysis

Power transition analysis examines when and why war breaks out between a dominant state and a rising challenger as their relative power converges. Originating in A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler's The War Ledger (1980), it holds that the international system is hierarchical and most dangerous not at moments of clear preponderance but when a dissatisfied rising power approaches parity with the dominant state — and it operationalizes this by tracking relative national capabilities over time and relating overtaking to the onset of major war.