This white paper challenges the prevailing belief that technological supremacy ensures geopolitical dominance. Drawing on cliodynamics, civilizational theory, symbolic systems analysis, and recent case studies, it demonstrates that military, cyber, and economic coercion — when divorced from symbolic coherence — inevitably provoke blowback. Empires fail not from lack of capability, but from loss of pattern recognition. In an era defined by multipolarity and civilizational resurgence, strategies of domination must give way to strategies of coherence. This paper offers a structural and symbolic reorientation of global strategy — outlining how policymakers can align with emerging patterns of integration, resilience, and narrative legitimacy rather than replicate the fatal conceits of prior hegemons. Strategic recommendations include the dismantling of proxy war logic, reduction of coercive infrastructure, investment in civilizational literacy, and realignment of AI systems with coherence-first design. The path forward is no longer command — but pattern literacy and world-weaving.
