Systemic Collapse Theory (SCT)
Rethinking Power, Order, and Geopolitics in the Age of Managed Breakdown
Author’s Note:
This paper inaugurates a new analytical school in international relations: Systemic Collapse Theory (SCT).
It offers an alternative to liberal expectations of order and realist predictions of multipolarity.
SCT argues that the 21st century is defined not by transition, but by managed fragmentation—a world where major powers no longer build global architecture, but actively prevent alternative architectures from emerging.
This is the foundational statement of the theory.
Abstract
This paper introduces Systemic Collapse Theory (SCT) as a new conceptual framework for analysing global politics in the 21st century. Contrary to prevailing assumptions that the world is transitioning toward a renewed international order or a stable multipolar system, SCT argues that the emerging global condition is one of controlled collapse—a deliberate, uneven, and strategically managed fragmentation of the international system. Major powers no longer compete to construct order; they compete to prevent the consolidation of any alternative order.
Sovereignty has shifted from states to systems—semiconductor chains, data infrastructures, maritime chokepoints, mineral ecosystems, and algorithmic governance structures. Power now operates through systems of denial rather than systems of construction. Africa becomes the material core of the century, while “hinge states” such as Sudan function as nodes where global, regional, and technological competitions intersect.
This paper outlines the theoretical premises, conceptual innovations, and geopolitical consequences of SCT, offering a new epistemology for understanding power in an age of systemic fragility.
1. Introduction: Beyond Order, Beyond Multipolarity
For three decades, international relations scholarship has oscillated between two dominant narratives:
1. the liberal expectation that a renewed global order would eventually emerge;
2. the realist conviction that multipolarity would establish a new, predictable balance of power.
Both narratives increasingly fail to capture the realities of the post-2020 world. We are not witnessing the reconstruction of global institutions, nor the consolidation of stable power blocs. Instead, the international system is characterised by: infrastructure fragility, contested maritime corridors, algorithmic vulnerabilities, supply-chain shocks, cyber sabotage, and the strategic weaponisation of vacuums.
Traditional paradigms misinterpret the moment because they assume that the world seeks equilibrium. Systemic Collapse Theory proposes the opposite:
The global system is not transitioning toward a new order.
It is entering an era of deliberate, uneven, and managed breakdown. In this emerging environment:
Power no longer shapes order — it shapes disorder. Strategy no longer builds structures — it interrupts them.
Influence no longer depends on dominance — but on the ability to restrict, delay, and fragment.
This is the analytical foundation upon which SCT is built.
2. The Core Proposition: Controlled Collapse as the Global Condition
At the heart of Systemic Collapse Theory (SCT) lies a single, structural proposition:
The international system is not collapsing accidentally; it is being kept in a condition of controlled, partial disintegration as a strategic choice by major powers.
This distinguishes SCT from theories of:
ungoverned chaos,
systemic failure,
or spontaneous fragmentation.
Controlled collapse is:
Intentional
Major powers increasingly use disruption, not construction, to preserve strategic advantage.
Structured
Breakdown follows recognisable chokepoints — maritime corridors, semiconductor nodes, mineral chains.
Managed
Powers seek not to resolve crises, but to contain and instrumentalise them.
Cumulative
Each disruption compounds systemic fragility without tipping the system into full collapse.
Reversible only selectively
Powers restore stability only when it serves specific strategic objectives.
Examples of controlled collapse in practice:
The United States blocking China’s semiconductor sovereignty rather than designing a new technological order.
Russia escalating in grey zones (Ukraine, Syria, Africa) to prevent Western consolidation.
China leveraging asymmetric dependencies while remaining trapped in chokepoints it cannot break.
Cyber actors crippling pipelines and ports without triggering interstate war.
Maritime theatres (Red Sea, Taiwan Strait) functioning as experimental laboratories for hybrid conflict.
Controlled collapse is not a symptom of disorder. It is the modus operandi of contemporary power.
3. Shifting the Units of Analysis: From States to Systems
Traditional IR theory is still built upon the classical triad:
states → territory → power
But this triad no longer captures the architecture of the 21st century. SCT argues that systems, not states, are now the primary containers of sovereignty.
3.1 Infrastructure Power
Sovereignty increasingly depends on:
ports and maritime corridors
semiconductor supply chains
undersea cables and data routes
orbital satellites
AI infrastructures
energy interconnectors
mineral extraction corridors
These infrastructures determine which states survive systemic shocks and which become structurally dependent. In SCT, infrastructure is not a support structure — it is power.
3.2 Algorithmic Sovereignty
Power now moves through dataflows, AI governance systems, cyber architectures, autonomous naval and aerial platforms.
A state may control territory, but if it does not control the algorithms governing its infrastructure, it does not control its sovereignty. Algorithmic sovereignty is therefore a higher form of power than territorial sovereignty.
3.3 Material Determinism (Mineral Power)
The 21st century is defined by a new materialism. Gold, cobalt, lithium, and rare earths are to this century what oil was to the 20th. Thus:
Africa becomes the central material hub of the global system.
States with critical mineral reserves become indispensable.
And the contest for mineral corridors becomes a primary geopolitical fault line.
Material power is not peripheral to SCT. It is its structural foundation.
4. Power Reconfigured: The Age of Strategic Denial
SCT asserts that major powers are no longer attempting to build a new order or even to dominate existing ones. Instead, they pursue a strategy of strategic denial:
Power is now the ability to prevent others from organising the system. This is a profound shift in world politics.
4.1 The United States: From Architect to Global Veto Power
The U.S. no longer has the capacity to engineer a global order. But it remains the only actor capable of preventing alternatives from emerging.
Its strategic tools include: semiconductor chokehold policies, naval containment of China, bleeding Russia’s long-term power in Ukraine, financial weaponisation of the dollar system, reconfiguring Red Sea security architectures.
America no longer designs order — it blocks alternatives. This is the essence of U.S. strategy in the era of controlled collapse.
4.2 China: A Constrained Giant
China grows in scale but remains constrained by structural vulnerabilities:
dependency on Western semiconductor technologies
chokepoints in lithography (ASML)
reliance on maritime routes dominated by U.S. naval power
demographic decline
inability to secure Taiwan’s technological sovereignty
China is a rising power — but not a rising hegemon. Its rise is shaped, limited, and managed by external constraints.
4.3 Russia: The Disruptive Realist
Russia is not dangerous because it is strong, but because it understands its long-term weakness. Its strategic objective is not to restore empire, but to prevent others from consolidating alternative orders. Thus:
escalation in grey zones
persistent disruption
unpredictable thresholds
leveraging instability as strategic currency
Russia functions as a force of structured disruption, not as a competing pole.
4.4 The Gulf: A Differentiated Sovereignty Axis
The Gulf is not a bloc; it is a differentiated ecosystem:
Saudi Arabia → balancing power, energy stabilisation, global investment state
UAE → network power, ports, logistics, space, digital corridors
Qatar → diplomatic mobility, narrative influence, mediation power
The Gulf is building functional sovereignty independent of great-power alignment. They do not seek a new order — they seek strategic insulation within a collapsing system.
5. Vacuums, Not Poles: The Geopolitics of Absence
Systemic Collapse Theory introduces a conceptual shift from poles to vacuums:
A systemic vacuum is a space where no single actor can establish stable authority, yet multiple actors compete to ensure that none of the others can do so either. They are not failures of governance; they are arenas of competitive non-resolution.
SCT argues that vacuums are now central to global politics because they allow major powers to:
extend influence without responsibility,
weaken competitors at low cost,
test hybrid tools (cyber, drones, mercenaries),
disrupt corridors vital to rivals,
generate long-term strategic leverage.
Examples of systemic vacuums:
The Sahel → fractured sovereignty exploited by Russia, France, Gulf states.
The Horn of Africa → U.S., China, UAE, Turkey competing through ports and bases.
The Red Sea → nine regional and five global powers entangled in maritime contestation.
Eastern Mediterranean → Turkey, Egypt, EU competing over gas architecture.
Caucasus → Russia, Türkiye, Iran, Western ambitions colliding.
Northern Mozambique → insurgency leveraged by global security actors.
Vacuums are not peripheral spaces. They are strategic theatres where controlled collapse is most visible.
6. Africa as the Material Core of the 21st Century
SCT breaks decisively with Western IR traditions that treat Africa as a passive periphery. The 21st century is profoundly material, and Africa is its material centre. The continent holds: 40% of the world’s critical minerals, 60% of global solar potential, the world’s fastest-growing demographic zones, and the most strategically contested
This material centrality explains the increasing presence of competing powers:
China
Dominates East African infrastructure, ports, and logistics corridors.
Russia
Entrenched across the Sahel and Central Africa through security networks and resource agreements.
United States
Anchoring the Horn of Africa with security cooperation and naval projections.
The Gulf
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar extending influence through ports, free zones, energy corridors, and food-security projects.
Turkey
Projecting power through drones, military training, and industrial partnerships.
Iran
Seeking maritime reach from Yemen into African shores through ideological and proxy networks.
Africa is not being stabilised — it is being reconfigured as the logistical and mineral backbone of the emerging global system.
7. Sudan: The Hinge State Paradigm
A foundational concept in SCT is the hinge state:
A hinge state is a state whose geography and material assets connect multiple collapsing systems, transforming it into a node of global re-engineering rather than a site of isolated conflict.
Sudan is the archetype. Its significance does not lie in its domestic politics alone, but in the structural role it plays within the emerging system
7.1 Geographical Intersections
Sudan links the Middle East’s security architecture, the Horn of Africa’s maritime corridors, the Sahel’s instability belts, East Africa’s economic sphere, the Red Sea’s global trade artery. Few states occupy such a confluence.
7.2 Material Assets
Sudan possesses:
vast gold reserves.
critical mineral deposits.
agricultural capacity.
control over Nile corridors.
borders with seven states.
proximity to the Central African mineral belt.
These assets make Sudan foundational to Africa’s material future.
7.3 Competing External Ambitions
Sudan is encircled by actors seeking to prevent each other from consolidating influence:
United States → blocking China’s Belt and Road extensions.
China → securing port access and long-term mineral corridors.
Russia → pursuing a permanent Red Sea naval base.
Gulf States → stabilising corridors critical to post-oil economic futures.
Iran → extending an arc from Yemen to Africa’s western shore.
Israel → countering Iranian maritime influence.
Sudan is therefore not merely a conflict zone. It is a strategic hinge on which multiple systems turn.
7.4 Sudan as a Laboratory of Controlled Collapse
SCT sees Sudan not through the lens of “state failure”, but as a testing ground for: hybrid warfare, proxy competition, resource extraction politics, maritime militarisation, and strategic denial between great powers.
Sudan is where the future of:
Red Sea governance, African mineral pathways, Gulf security architecture, and U.S.–China competition converge in one theatre. It is not the edge of the system — it is one of its pivotal centres.
8. The Systemic Race to 2030: Allocation, Not Rebirth
SCT challenges the widely shared assumption that the world is approaching a renewed global order by 2030 — whether liberal, multipolar, or technologically integrated.
The emerging landscape suggests a far more consequential reality:
2030 will not mark the beginning of a new world order. It will mark the final allocation of who remains inside the strategic system —and who becomes raw material for it.
SCT classifies actors into four systemic categories:
Systemic Actors
These shape the architecture of global breakdown and possess the capacity to manipulate systemic vulnerabilities.
Examples:
United States
China (within limits)
Fragmented EU clusters
Gulf sovereignty projects (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
Infrastructure Actors
States whose significance lies in their control of critical infrastructure and technology.
Examples:
Taiwan (semiconductors)
South Korea
UAE (global ports, logistics)
Saudi Arabia (energy stabilisation)
Material Actors
States whose strategic value derives from mineral abundance and resource geography.
Examples:
DRC (cobalt)
Sudan (gold, corridors)
Mozambique (gas)
Namibia, Zimbabwe (lithium)
Guinea (bauxite)
Vacuum Actors
Fragile states embedded in systemic competition, where no single actor can establish stable authority.
Examples:
Libya
Somalia
Mali
South Sudan
Syria
These states are neither sovereign nor irrelevant, they are arenas of systemic contestation.
This taxonomy reframes global politics as a competition not for order, but for positionality within a collapsing system.
9. Implications: Toward a New Epistemology of Power
Systemic Collapse Theory proposes a profound shift in how power is conceptualised. Traditional IR frameworks assume that:
systems seek stability.
actors seek equilibrium
power seeks architecture.
SCT rejects all three assumptions.
9.1 Ontological Revision: The System as Fragment
The international system is not a coherent unit. It is a dynamic fragmentation, held together not by order but by interlocking dependencies and managed vulnerabilities. The system persists not because it is stable, but because no major power benefits from total collapse.
9.2 Methodological Shift: From States to Systems
States remain visible, but they are no longer the primary agents of global transformation. Analytical primacy must shift to:
Supply-chain networks.
Cyber infrastructures.
Maritime architecture.
Semiconductor ecosystems.
Algorithmic governance systems.
These structures determine the behaviour of states, not the other way around.
9.3 Normative Reorientation: Order Is No Longer the Objective
In SCT, the pursuit of “order” is replaced by the management of fragmentation. Powers sustain instability at tolerable levels to maximise leverage. Stability is instrumental, not intrinsic.
9.4 Strategic Doctrine: Anticipatory Power
SCT introduces the notion of anticipatory sovereignty:
The capacity of an actor to read shifts in systemic infrastructures before those shifts become politically visible.
In a world governed by controlled collapse:
Foresight is power.
Adaptability is survival
Visibility is a disadvantage.
Actors succeed not by dominating, but by pre-empting and insulating themselves from systemic shocks.
10. Conclusion: Reading Power Before It Becomes Visible
Systemic Collapse Theory concludes with a fundamental insight:
Power in the 21st century moves through systems long before it moves through armies. Those who understand these invisible currents will shape the visible world and those who do not will be shaped by it.
The international system is entering a period in which: infrastructure eclipses territory, denial outweighs hegemony, vacuums replace poles, minerals replace institutions, algorithms replace armies, and fragmentation replaces order.
SCT does not seek to restore stability. It seeks to provide the conceptual clarity needed to navigate its disappearance. In an age of managed breakdown, survival belongs not to the strongest but to the most anticipatory — those who can read the system before the system reveals itself.