Here is a reconstruction of the recent more-than-seven-decade geo-political-economic history of the relative global geo-economic positions of the three principal participants of the Persian War of 2026, as of 10:30 CET, February 28, 2026. The graphs below are based on Angus Maddison’s widely used, long-durée global estimates for economic performance. They depict data for each country’s economic performance. The horizontal axis is GDP estimates for each country as percentage of the world total for the given year. The vertical` axis shows per capita GDP for each country as percentage of the world mean for the given year. For rough orientation, the darker region in the middle of the graph marks the semiperiphery [S]. (For most readers in the post-state-socialist “world”: That is where most of our region has been throughout this period) defined here empirically (and of course arbitrarily) as 50% < [S] < 200%–i.e., roughly, the middle-income region of the world economy in the given year. The area below the darker field comprises countries typically referred to in the world-systems tradition as the periphery; that above is the core.
Graph 1.
Observations concerning Graph 1:
- Throughout this period, the USA has remained in the core, hovering between approximately 275% and 400% of the world mean per capita GDP.
- The USA saw its global economic weight considerably reduced (going from 21.7% to 12.1% of the world-economy between 1950 and 2022) during this period.
- Except for 1972 and the 1974-76 period (when it briefly entered the criterion for core membership), Israel has been a semiperipheral state.
- Meanwhile, Israel has increased its global economic weight from .05% to .2.%.
- Iran has been a steadfastly semiperipheral state. Its shaky geo-economic history is illustrated by its GDP/cap that has varied between 54% and 135% of the world mean GDP/cap.
- Iran’s global economic weight has osocillated between .03% and 1.08% of the world total, amounting to between 21 and 35 times less than that of the USA and between 5 and 6.3 times greater than Israel.
Graph 2.
For Graph 2., I have added China, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom, three countries that might, under some scenarios, also be drawn into the Persian War of 2026.
Observations from Graph 2:
- The geo-economic history of the position of Russia / the Russian Federation between 1950 and 2022 shows almost as many ups-and-downs as that of Iran. Overall Russia has had a per-capita-GDP-based world-system position quite similar to Iran, at a considerably greater global economic weight.
- The United Kingdom has been a core power almost the entire period under study here, albeit somewhat below the USA in terms of its per capita GDP position, and considerably below the US in terms of its share in the GWP, approximately in the same “region” as Russia.
- As it is widely known by now, China underwent a stellar geopolitical-economic transformation during the last seven-eight decades. It went from 3.4% to no less than 16.9% of the GWP, and its per capita position skyrocketing from 17% to 97% of the world mean per capita GDP.
IN SUM,
Of course it is impossible to predict the outcomes of a military conflict / war, on any basis, let alone purely on comparisons of economic statistics. I am also intentionally ignoring here the most striking implication, i.e., that, should more significant global powers be drawn into this conflict, that could lead to a new, nuclear, biological, chemical, etc. world war. Should that happen, humankind is staring down the possibility of the eradication of all carbon-based life, let alone human life from Planet Earth. Gaia will shed no tears for us. I ignore that possibility as that is so consequential that I am not able to deal with it here. That might also require a reaction of a genre that is beyond the scope of a blog post.
So, with that proviso in mind, we can derive the following types of tentative inference:
- As of today, February 28, 2026–a military situation featuring a joint Israeli-US strategic attack on Iran–this is an extremely asymmetrical situation in terms of the available gross amount of economic resources available to the warring parties. Iran is in the weaker position, making it considerably likely that Iran’s interests will be in one, or a combination, of the below outcomes:
- symbolic surrender to avoid major destruction of its infrastructure,
- seeking the involvement of strategic allies (e.g., Russia and the PRC),
- making an attempt to move the war to asymmetrical, nonconventional, guerrilla, etc. warfare.