"In the article by George Modelski, a well-known American researcher, author of a number of scholarly writings in history and theory of global politics, with the Russian translation of which we are acquainting the readers, the many years of his work in the sphere of studying the long cycles and the evolution of global politics have been summed up and prospects outlined for further investigation of spatial-temporal dimensions of the world political process. In the first part of the article, being published in this issue, the causes of rise and fall of world powers are analyzed within the concept of long cycles. The long cycle is interpreted by the author as a four-phased process about 110 years long, through which the global leaders are selected. According to the author’s conclusion, in order to successfully pass the selection process, the future global leader must satisfy four conditions: (1) politico-strategic organization for global reach