For this pattern to continue uninterrupted, it seems to me that you’d need to discount the entire technological revolution that’s happened since the early 19th century. That means the internet, nuclear weapons, automobiles, airplanes, international travel, etc. have had no significant effect on the underlying political structure of human society.

That seems like a hugely unlikely thing to me, and it’s probably more likely that we’ll see something very different and unexpected, not a continuation of the pattern.

For one, I would bet more on regions merging into a single loosely connected political entity than on continued divided states battling it out.