American Civil War II: 2024?

Is America looking down the barrel of its own 1993 Russia constitutional crisis, where tanks shelled the country’s equivalent of the U.S. Capitol?

It seemed just weeks ago that it was only on the fringes of acceptable discourse that serious talk of civil war was taking place. In a span of just a few days, however, such talk has gone mainstream.

As reported in The Washington Post, University of California San Diego professor Barbara Walter believes another American civil war is a very real threat:

If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own.

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.

Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.

The same day in the same newspaper, three retired United States Army generals wrote an op-ed all but predicting an “insurrection” if the 2024 election doesn’t turn out in favor of the Right:

As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.

One of our military’s strengths is that it draws from our diverse population. It is a collection of individuals, all with different beliefs and backgrounds. But without constant maintenance, the potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real.

It’s worth mentioning that the “deadly insurrection” at the Capitol cost only one life, that of protestor Ashli Babbit.

More:

The potential for a total breakdown of the chain of command along partisan lines — from the top of the chain to squad level — is significant should another insurrection occur. The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the “rightful” commander in chief cannot be dismissed.

Imagine competing commanders in chief — a newly reelected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government. Worse, imagine politicians at the state and federal levels illegally installing a losing candidate as president.

All service members take an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution. But in a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser. Arms might not be secured depending on who was overseeing them. Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war.

In this context, with our military hobbled and divided, U.S. security would be crippled. Any one of our enemies could take advantage by launching an all-out assault on our assets or our allies.

This is quite the vote of (no) confidence in the military. The message seems to be that the military is vulnerable to fracturing along political lines, unprecedented in American history, and steps must be taken now to prevent an insurrection from occurring in the wake of the 2024 election. The three generals go on to provide suggestions on how to do this.

I can’t emphasize how jarring it is for representatives and spokespersons for the Regime (yes, retired generals and university professors speak for the major institutions of this country that hold the levers of power) to suddenly declare civil war a plausible scenario. Typically, those in power have an incentive to downplay such risks, as to do otherwise would signal vulnerability and weakness.

On the other hand, it could also be a display of strength. This could be a way for the Regime to say, “We’re aware of the danger certain people, including those wearing the uniform currently, pose to the safety of this country and democracy, and so don’t try anything.”

How worried should we be? Is America looking down the barrel of its own 1993 Russia constitutional crisis, where tanks shelled the country’s equivalent of the U.S. Capitol? Or, more recently, will we see American generals resolve a disputed election by fraud allegations by convincing the incumbent to concede and resign, as seen in Bolivia in 2019? There are several considerations to bear in mind.

The U.S. military remains, officially, a non-partisan entity and have no political power in the country. However, the military has also become increasingly politicized. While military affairs often overlap with politics (after all, war is a continuation of politics by other means), what we’ve come to see is that the military has taken a very clear position on the major cultural issues of our time.

Rhetoric from top leadership sounds little different from what you’d hear from university administrators or even the Democratic Party. The Air Force recently adopted a practice more appropriate for personal social media than a warfighting force. Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology is becoming an integral aspect of a military servicemember’s ethos. Wokeism has consumed the military. Notice, also, in the op-ed by the three generals in WaPo, the presumption the challenging right-wing candidate would be the loser in 2024, a not-so-obscure indication of where their personal political loyalties align.

The military would likely respond to such assertions by saying it’s merely upholding America’s best values. But this is hardly reassuring. The U.S. isn’t a one-party state (or it’s not supposed to be) and both CRT and gender ideology have proven tribalizing, threatening to completely unravel the social fabric of the country at a time when it was frayed to begin with. Given the high esteem in which most Americans regard the military, it seems the Regime would want to ensure its unquestionable fidelity to the cause. It would, after all, be the ultimate endorsement of the ongoing cultural revolution by the Left if the military endorsed and implemented it.

I say this because it’s become clear the elite regards political violence differently depending on the motivation and perpetrator. We saw this in summer 2020, when it was revealed that President Trump was considering invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military to put down protests. Military leadership, both past and present, in coordination with the media, erupted in protest near-simultaneously. There was anecdotal evidence dissension existed within the rank-and-file about having turn their arms against the protesters, and the intelligentsia crafted no shortage of sophisticated analyses, all coming together to send a universal message: under no circumstances is the U.S. military to ever train its guns on the American people, for any reason.

All that changed on 1/6. Despite the crowd being largely unarmed and no more violent in word and deed than your average left-wing protest, the fact it was a direct challenge to the authority of the federal government is what woke them up. They believe, next time, the reaction to losing an election would be even bigger and more dangerous. Here’s Newsweek getting in on the civil war fever:

According to the Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court are supposed to settle those sorts of dueling claims. Given the growing intensity and polarization of political life, would either side accept a decision that handed a contested 2024 election result to the other?

Such a decision would more likely bring tens of millions of protesters and counter-protesters into the streets, especially around the U.S. Capitol and possibly many state capitols, plunging the country into chaos. Although many Democrats might be inclined to demonstrate, a larger percentage of Republican protesters would almost certainly be carrying guns. If the Supreme Court ruling, expected in mid-2022, on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen establishes an unrestricted right to carry a gun anywhere in the country, bringing firearms to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. could be perfectly legal. Says Winkler: "The Supreme Court may be close to issuing the ruling that leads to the overthrow of the U.S. government."

If armed violence erupts the 2024 elections, quelling it could fall to the U.S. military, which may be reluctant to take arms against U.S. citizens. In that case, the fate of the nation might well be decided by a simple fact: a big subset of one of the two parties has for years been systemically arming itself for this very reason.

"I hope it's just too crazy to happen here," says Erica De Bruin, an assistant professor of government at Hamilton College, who studies coups around the world. "But it's now in the realm of the plausible."

There’s no question: a battle line is being drawn. The Regime, which proves itself increasingly incapable of protecting the American people, clearly sees a threat among citizens on the other side of the political divide who also happen to be armed (never mind the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution) and believe they will exercise violence against the state in the event of a disputed election. Even saying such things makes it more likely something like this will happen, since the state, with its wide array of enforcement resources at its disposal, will be on knife’s edge for any indication of such a threat and any state action or rhetoric will be interpreted as evidence of hostile intent. Wars have started this way.

Unbelievable as such a scenario might seem today, events of the last few years have accelerated the timeline considerably, making the once-inconceivable at least worth serious consideration. 2024 is less than three years away and emotions get hotter and the stakes higher with every election. The sort of commentary by the university professors and retired generals certainly adds fuel to the fire, making it prudent for both sides to start thinking more clearly about what a civil war would look like.

Which brings us back to the op-ed written by the three generals. Is the military really at risk of fracturing along political lines? Civil-military scholar Lindsay Cohn, quoted in the Newsweek piece, doesn’t think so:

As for the possibility that the Guard or military rank and file might refuse to follow orders to take up arms against armed Trump supporters, the Naval War College's Cohn deems it unlikely. "There isn't a ton of evidence that the rank and file are solidly behind Trump," she says. "But whatever their beliefs, they're highly professional. No more than a tiny percentage would refuse."

For now, I’m inclined to agree. While I believe there to be increasingly serious problems concerning the professionalism of the U.S. military, obedience is one area where the military has almost never had major issues throughout its history. The military brass will more than likely obey President Biden if he were to give the order to use force against right-wing protesters - look at how quick they were to obey Biden’s order to depart Afghanistan despite their objections, compared to the shirking and borderline disobedience towards Trump.

If the military brass stands firmly behind Biden come election day, this makes any dissension within the rank-and-file highly unlikely or an utterly meaningless gesture. Military coups, insurrections, and rebellions are almost always led from the very top and, unless there are flag officers loyal to the other candidate who also possess the ability to mobilize military forces in support of the candidate, any sort of insurrection is impossible.

On one hand, it’s reassuring to think the military would, ultimately, remain loyal to the state. But, not only will the military indeed fire upon Americans when given the order, they’re not exactly an unbiased participant, either. As crisis after crisis threatens the future viability of the republic and each election becomes more fraught than the last, the Regime will inevitably tighten the screws of anarcho-tyranny on the country, and the military will focus more on shoring up the state’s legitimacy than defending the republic.

It all sounds so bizarre and foreign and most would probably prefer to not entertain such thoughts. But, this time, it’s the Experts sounding the alarm, not anonymous voices in the dark corners of the Internet, making it all the more difficult to ignore.

After all, if the Experts say so, it must be true, right?

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

If you liked this post from We're Not At the End, But You Can See It From Here, why not share? If you’re a first-time visitor, please consider subscribing!