Gilpin’s seminal work argues that international systems stabilize only when no state sees profit in overturning the status quo. When power shifts—due to uneven economic growth, technological advances, or military expansion—rising states calculate the costs and benefits of challenging the established order. If the expected gains outweigh the risks, they pursue territorial, political, or economic expansion until equilibrium is restored, often through hegemonic war. Gilpin illustrates this with historical turning points: Britain’s naval dominance, Germany’s pre-WWI ambitions, and the Cold War’s bipolarity. Central to his thesis is the idea that nuclear weapons and globalization have not abolished this dynamic; they merely alter its expression.

The book introduces three types of change: systemic (shifts in governance, like the transition from British to U.S. hegemony), system (changes in actor identities, such as the rise of nation-states), and interaction (new rules or institutions). Gilpin emphasizes that declining hegemons, burdened by the costs of maintaining global stability, face inevitable challenges from ascendant powers. This „differential growth of power“ creates disequilibrium, where rising states like China today or Germany in the 19th century seek to redraw borders, influence norms, or control resources. The result is a world where war remains a tragic but rational tool for redistributing power