Abstract:The cornerstone of Hyman Minsky's work is the concept of systemic instability. His work showed how systemic dynamics inherent to capitalism bread systemic fragility and crisis, as stability spurs risky behavior. Like Minsky himself succinctly articulated, "stability is destabilizing" (Minsky 1985). Moreover, this key notion is not only based on a clear and detailed analysis of modern financial capitalism, but is also essentially rooted on human psychology and behavior. As such, it is astonishing how little has been done to expand Minsky's basic conceptual framework to other fields of study of social science. This paper represents an effort to fill this vacuum, as it attempts to expand Minsky's theory of financial fragility to the realm of international relations. The objective of this project is to analyze the cycles of international relations in the light of a modified version of Minsky's famous analysis of hedge, speculative and Ponzi finance.