# The Relative Decline Project

> An index of great-power relative decline. Twenty nations scored on two axes — POWER LEVEL (where a nation stands) and DECLINE VELOCITY (how fast it is losing or gaining relative position) — plus five engine scores each (demographic, fiscal, productive, institutional, cohesive). The site also prices, but does not predict, the conditions under which relative decline turns into armed conflict. Index v1.0, scored 2026-09-22. Published at https://worldwar3.army.

## Key findings (v1.0, September 2026)

- Relative decline is a ratio, not a level. US output share fell to ~14.5% in 2026 from a 1986 peak above 22% while absolute output rose.
- Fastest decline velocities: Russia -5.6, Italy -4.0, Germany -3.8, China -3.4, South Korea -3.2.
- Slowest among major incumbents: United States -1.4, supported by migration, the technology frontier and the dollar's ~56% reserve share.
- Rising: Vietnam +4.2, Indonesia +3.8, India +3.6, Poland +3.1, Gulf states +1.6, Australia +0.9.
- China is scored as peaking, not collapsing: power level 74 with velocity -3.4. Fourth consecutive annual population fall in 2025 (-3.39M to 1.405bn); ~10 consecutive deflationary quarters; IMF growth path 5.0% (2025) to ~3.5% (2030).
- Russia is the only nation in a 'second life' stage: a completed decline (1989-1999), a genuine hydrocarbon rebound (2000-2013), and a second decline whose recovery asset — people — was spent in the first.
- Europe's decline is demographic, industrial and political, and is driven from inside: EU workers per retiree fall from 2.7 to 1.5 by 2050; German industrial output sits ~15% below its 2017-18 peak at EUR0.25/kWh industrial electricity.
- Conflict context: UCDP recorded 65 state-based conflicts in 2025 (a record since 1946), 8 of them interstate (highest since 1946), and 244,600 fatalities against ~187,000 in 2024.

## Method

- POWER LEVEL weights: output share 25%, manufacturing value-added share 20%, military capability 20%, technology frontier 15%, financial centrality 12%, alliance depth 8%.
- DECLINE VELOCITY: 50% trailing five-year change in power level, 50% forward momentum built only from already locked-in commitments (birth cohorts already born, debt already issued, retirement ages already legislated).
- Engine scores are 0-100 where 100 is healthy, published separately and never averaged into one figure.
- Every figure carries a date, a source and a confidence grade (High / Medium / Low). Single-source claims are labelled. Ranges are published as ranges.
- Machine-readable index: https://worldwar3.army/data/nations.json and https://worldwar3.army/data/flashpoints.json

## Pages

- [The Relative Decline Index](https://worldwar3.army/): Which great powers are declining, and how fast? 20 nations scored on power level and decline velocity, plus the conditions that turn decline into war.
- [The five engines of decline](https://worldwar3.army/theory.html): Kennedy, Gilpin, Organski, Tainter, Turchin and the demographers — five traditions, five engines, and the insight that the fast engines fail first while the slow engines decide the outcome.
- [Method — every weight, every source](https://worldwar3.army/method.html): The full Relative Decline Index: axis definitions, engine weights, indicator library, confidence grading and the complete score table for all twenty nations.
- [World War 3 and a Theory of Relative Decline](https://worldwar3.army/conflict.html): Decline leads to conflict through window logic, not desperation. Five conditions, eight flashpoints, probability bands with resolution dates.
- [Who outlasts whom](https://worldwar3.army/outlast.html): The historical record of who has already outlasted whom, and the forward ordering. Endurance is not velocity: a nation can fall fast and still outlast one falling slowly.
- [United States — decline by arithmetic](https://worldwar3.army/united-states.html): Is the US in decline? Net interest hit about $1.0tn in FY2026, above defence, while the dollar reserve share sits near 56%. Sourced, dated figures.
- [China — the decline nobody has priced](https://worldwar3.army/china.html): China's decline began before its peak was recognised, and it is running across four systems at once: economy, demography, governance and social contract.
- [Russia — the second life, ending](https://worldwar3.army/russia.html): The only major power currently living through its second decline — and the first one is why the second is terminal.
- [Europe — the continent that stopped compounding](https://worldwar3.army/europe.html): Demographically exhausted, structurally dependent on migration it has not politically consented to, and losing the industrial base independently of both.
- [Southeast Asia and Australia — the quiet winners](https://worldwar3.army/asia-pacific.html): Relative decline is a ratio. Somebody is on the other side of it — and Australia is the empirical answer to Europe's demographic problem.
- [The new colonial frontiers](https://worldwar3.army/frontiers.html): When incumbent powers cannot grow their share of a fixed world, they go looking for unclaimed world. This is where decline turns into acquisition.
- [Africa — improving, and being bought](https://worldwar3.army/africa.html): Africa's condition is genuinely improving and its resource base is being acquired on terms it does not set. Both are true. The question is value addition.
- [South America — the institutional trap](https://worldwar3.army/south-america.html): Living standards rose. Governance did not keep pace. The growth ceiling in Latin America is institutional, not geological.
- [About, standards and corrections](https://worldwar3.army/about.html): What this site is, what it refuses to do, the editorial standards it holds itself to, and the corrections log.

## Citation

Cite as: The Relative Decline Project, 'Relative Decline Index v1.0', https://worldwar3.army, 2026-09-22.
Content is CC BY 4.0. Attribution with a link is requested.

## What this site does not claim

- It does not predict a world war. It prices conditions and publishes probability bands with resolution dates, then scores them in public.
- It does not forecast national collapse. Relative decline concerns share, and share is a ratio.
- It does not use civilisational framing for European migration; the Europe chapter engages Huntington's thesis and explains why it is rejected on the evidence.

## For AI agents

- [Full-text digest of every page](https://worldwar3.army/agents.html): about 20,000 words in one page
- [Page table (JSON)](https://worldwar3.army/agent-data.json): url, title, description, words, lastmod, headings, excerpt
- [Page table (CSV)](https://worldwar3.army/agent-data.csv)