L.
Tchijevsky made the first research
in war cycles in 1923. Tchijevsky
was a Fellow of the Archaeological
Institute in Moscow. He constructed
a year-by-year Index of Mass Human
Excitability from 500 B.C. to
1922 by examining the records
of 72 countries from around the
world. The index records
international and civil war battles,
pandemics, riots, revolutions,
insurrections, expeditions, and
migrations. It reveals an
unmistakable cycle averaging 11.1
years long. As an astronomer
as well as historian, Tchijevsky
surmised that the Sun might be
involved since 11-years is the
major sunspot cycle. The
peaks in human excitability, however,
tend to precede, sometimes by
a year, peaks in solar activity. From
what is known about sunspot rate–of-change
and geomagnetism, this anomaly
may be of no significance.
The
next extensive research in war
cycles was done by Raymond H.
Wheeler, Chairman of the Department
of Psychology at the University
of Kansas and president of the
Kansas Academy of Sciences. Professor
Wheeler prepared two indexes. One
was based on international war
battles from 600 B.C. to 1943;
the second covered civil war battles. He
also compiled the data into The
Combined Index of International
War Battles and Civil War Battles
500 B.C. – 1957. The
table below was developed using
Wheeler’s Combined Index. It
clearly shows the correlation
between sunspots and war for the
time period covered. Other
historical periods before 1749
show a similar interconnecting
pattern.
Raymond
Wheeler believed that the climate
has a dominant influence on human
behavior. He found that climate
moves in cycles from warm to cold
and wet to dry. Four distinct
phases are created by the climate
cycle: warm-wet, cold-wet, warm-dry,
and cold-dry. During each
of these climate phases, human
activity varies. Specifically,
nations tend to be built during
shifts from cold to warm periods. Nations
tended to fall during shifts from
warm to cold periods. Within
these long-term weather trends,
Wheeler found that international
wars are mostly warm weather associated,
while civil wars are mostly cold
weather related. Cold-dry
periods (cold droughts) predominantly
tend to foment civil wars. Wheeler’s
work, therefore, supports the
sunspot-war connection.[3]
SUNSPOTS AND BATTLES
Maximums
and Minimums 1749-1957
Maximum /
Minimum
sunspot/battle |
sunspot/battle
|
1750 1750 |
1755 1754
|
1761 1760 |
1766 1765
|
1769 1770 |
1775 1773
|
1778 1780 |
1784 1783
|
1788 1788 |
1798 1795
|
1805 1806 |
1810 1811
|
1816 1814 |
1823 1824 |
1829 1830 |
1833 1835
|
1837 1839 |
1843 1845
|
1848 1848 |
1856 1856
|
1860 1859 |
1867 1865
|
1870 1868 |
1878 1875
|
1883 1881 |
1889 1888
|
1894 1894 |
1901 1903
|
1907 1908 |
1913 1913
|
1917 1918 |
1923 1923
|
1928 1930 |
1933 1933
|
1937 1939 |
1944 1945
|
1947 1950 |
1954 1952
|
1957 1957 |
------ ------
|
After
1957, sunspots diminished to a
minimum in 1964 – this year
marked the height of peaceful
conditions worldwide. The
sunspot maximum of 1968 correlated
with the beginning of America’s
Vietnam debacle and riots in Pakistan,
Malaysia, and the United States.
The
Israeli Six-Day War broke out
in 1967. The sunspot low
of 1976 ended America’s
involvement in Vietnam and brought
a cessation to war in many parts
of the world.
Peaceful
conditions lasted only a short
time after 1976. Three years
later sunspots again reached maximum. Russia
invaded Afghanistan in the last
month of 1979 and battles raged
in many parts of the world, including
Lebanon from 1982-1985. The
Iran-Iraq war started in 1980
and would last for eight years. Attacking
in World War I waves, the Iranian
hordes only tapered off when sunspots
reached minimum in 1986. Struggles
then were small. Rebels in
El Salvador and the contras fighting
the Sandinistas in Nicaragua eased
their struggle during the Contadora
peace initiatives. Conflicts
in Africa also cooled. The
Middle East was more peaceful
than it had been in the late 1970s
and early 1980s. Asian guerrilla
wars and civil unrest were all
at low levels.
Sunspots
were at a high in 1991 and this
was the time of the great Yugoslav
Civil War (1991-1994), which pitted
Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians against
one another. The United States
and United Nations forces also
fought the Persian Gulf War against
Iraq in 1991. The next sunspot
minimum in 1996 was one of the
lowest sunspot number periods. This
coincided with the UN/US peace
accord in 1994. The Yugoslav
conflict also ended in 1994.
The
next sunspot high in 2001 brought
us the terrorist’s attack
on the Trade Center in New York
City and the Pentagon in Washington,
D.C. This started the War
on Terrorism, a United States
led effort to eradicate worldwide
terrorism. The first target
was the perpetrator of the airline
hijackings and suicide attacks,
Osama bin Laden, who was holed
up and supported by the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan. The
Taliban were driven from power
by massive U.S. air strikes and
Northern Alliance ground forces
(Afghans fighting the Taliban). Renewed
levels of fighting also broke
out between the Israelis and Palestinians,
and between India and Pakistan.
