The Geometry of War / PSYCHOHISTORY: integration, alignment and network structure Bee Rosa Davis Research note · Version 0.3 · Updated 8 October 2026 PSYCHOHISTORY models bilateral relationships using economic integration and diplomatic alignment. The later manuscript adds a separate treatment for weakly connected dyads where the original ratio becomes unstable. TL;DR The question: Can combining economic integration with diplomatic alignment for each pair of states flag structural stress before armed conflict, and how should such flags be tested? What the work does: A monthly panel of 156 directed state pairs among 42 states, 1990–2022, with integration and tolerance indices, a five-level alert scheme and a separate mode for weakly linked pairs. What is still open: Alerts have not been issued prospectively or replayed with release-dated inputs; scoring across all dyad-months, including quiet ones and base-rate comparisons, is not yet reported. THE RESEARCH IN CONTEXT Quantitative conflict research tries to identify pairs of states (dyads) at elevated risk of militarized disputes. Scholars disagree about the role of trade: the commercial-peace tradition holds that economic ties make war costly and therefore rarer, while the idea of weaponized interdependence holds that dependencies can become instruments of coercion. Disputes are rare relative to the number of dyad-months observed, so a model can look accurate after the fact by describing what is already known. Useful warning requires a stated horizon, a defined event, and only the information that was available on each date. The version 3 manuscript builds a monthly panel of 156 directed dyads among 42 states, the G20 members plus 22 states it classes as higher risk, from January 1990 to December 2022, 61,776 dyad-months in all, with a separate archival reconstruction of the US–Japan dyad from 1930 to 1945. Inputs include UN Comtrade trade, IEA and BP energy dependency, UN General Assembly voting similarity, ATOP treaty data and a sanctions database. An integration index (K) combines trade, investment, energy and supply-chain links; a tolerance index (τ) combines alliances, shared institutions, diplomatic history and communication channels. Divergence is flagged when τ falls while K holds steady or rises. Outcomes are disputes with at least 25 fatalities, of which the manuscript counts 47 in the panel. It scores a Level 4 alert as correct if it falls within 180 days before onset and reports 35 such cases, 12 conflicts without a prior alert and 14 alerts not followed by conflict, while explicitly leaving correctly quiet months out of the count. These are retrospective reconstructions from data compiled after the events. Case studies cover Russia–Ukraine, US–Japan before 1941, US–Iran under the disconnection mode, and a China–Taiwan watch. AVAILABLE RECORD Historical-modeling manuscript with reported retrospective evaluations; causal inevitability and prospective warning are not established. TECHNICAL FIGURE source-informed technical atlas Source: version 3 disconnection-mode definitions. Boundaries are source model thresholds on schematic axes, not calibrated measurements or an inevitability claim. The branch added for weakly connected dyads Manuscript decision rule Source state label | Condition | Which model branch is used CONNECTED | K ≥ 0.05 | Standard helicity DISCONNECTION_TRAP | K < 0.05 and Γd < 0.1 | Disconnection metrics; low diplomatic mobility DISCONNECTION_VOLATILE | K < 0.05 and Γd ≥ 0.1 | Disconnection metrics; diplomatic paths remain K and Γd are model-defined quantities, not direct measures of inevitability. These are source thresholds, not newly calibrated cutoffs. A prospective warning claim needs release-dated data and false-alert accounting. psychohistory_paper_v3.tex — Version 3.0: K-floor gate and disconnection-mode classification table The hypothesis behind the representation The manuscript proposes that persistent economic links combined with deteriorating alignment can indicate structural stress. This translates “weaponized interdependence” into measurable features of a dyad rather than treating all international relationships as a single scalar similarity. The strong historical wording that conflict becomes inevitable goes beyond this representation. Similar feature patterns can precede different political decisions; an observed association does not establish an unavoidable causal outcome. Why version 3 adds a disconnection mode The local version 3 manuscript recognizes that its standard helicity expression breaks down as the stated curvature quantity approaches zero. It introduces a floor and switches to security-posture, hostility, and a disconnection-mode spectral diagnostic. That branch is part of the model specification and needs its own evaluation. It also shows why “one ratio across all dyads” would misrepresent the actual work. The manuscript’s historical lead times require release-dated inputs and frozen alert rules before they can be interpreted as available warning. THE NEXT RESEARCH STEP A representative validation should reconstruct what was knowable at each date and score all dyads at risk, including non-events. Selected conflicts and retrospective case narratives cannot by themselves establish alert calibration. TEACHING CONSTRUCTION (not project measurements) Define the entity or dyad, event label, prediction horizon, and availability date of every feature. Treat the geometric representation as a candidate predictor. Separate forecasting from explanation and from any claim that a conflict was inevitable. score at t uses only information available at or before t Dyad: The declared pair of entities used as an evaluation unit. Prediction horizon: The future interval to which the event label refers. Base rate: Event frequency in the full eligible evaluation population. If a rare event occurs in one of one hundred illustrative periods, a method that always predicts no event is 99% accurate but gives no warning. This arithmetic example shows why overall accuracy alone is unsuitable for assessing rare-event alerts. SOURCE RECORD The Geometry of War: study & book: https://www.davisgeometric.com/research/figures/geometry-of-war.html Psychohistory v3 paper: https://www.davisgeometric.com/research/evidence/geometry-of-war/psychohistory-v3.pdf Predicting Interstate Conflict 72 Days in Advance: A Topological Approach to Weaponized Interdependence: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17905678 local-project/helicity/theory/psychohistory_paper_v3.tex — local source reviewed; not republished Source versions: https://www.davisgeometric.com/research/account-source-records.json No new experiments are reported in this research note. Illustrated study: https://www.davisgeometric.com/research/figures/draft-conflict-modeling.html