The debate over the future of the international system has been dominated for years by two persistent illusions: that the world is slowly reconstructing a global order, or that it is drifting toward a predictable multipolar equilibrium. Both assumptions are comforting — and both are wrong.

The global landscape unfolding after 2020 is not one of renewal, balance, or design. It is a landscape defined by fragmentation, systemic sabotage, infrastructural vulnerability, and strategic denial. Powers do not compete to build the next order; they compete to ensure that no order solidifies. The result is a world suspended in managed breakdown — a controlled collapse.

This paper introduces Systemic Collapse Theory (SCT), a new analytical framework that rejects the traditional expectation of global equilibrium. Instead, it argues that we are entering an era in which infrastructures matter more than institutions, vacuums matter more than poles, and systems matter more than states. Power now moves through supply chains, semiconductor chokepoints, maritime corridors, and algorithmic architectures long before it moves through armies.

SCT is not a pessimistic theory.

It is a realistic one — built for an age in which clarity has become a strategic asset.

What follows is a position paper outlining the conceptual foundations of this emerging school of thought.