The Temporal Structure of Collective Advantage: How Compound Erosion Undermines Dominance

Why do even the most formidable collective advantages---imperial dominance, ideological consensus, corporate market power---inevitably erode? Prevailing explanations invoke proximate causes: military overreach, economic miscalculation, or the sudden rise of a peer competitor. Each captures the surface dynamics at work, yet each overlooks a deeper structural regularity---analogous to attributing the collapse of a massive dam solely to the final storm, while ignoring the decades of material weathering, internal micro-fracturing, and seepage that had already compromised its foundation. This article advances a framework of compound erosion that moves beyond event-driven accounts to uncover the structural temporality of power itself. Drawing on historical sociology, network science, and generational theory, we identify three endogenous, mutually reinforcing mechanisms: generational mnemonic dissipation, societal equilibrium stress, and technological connectivity permeation. An illustrative case study of the post-1945 liberal international order, using United Nations General Assembly voting data (1979--2024), demonstrates the framework's utility.