Bringing Sanity To The SHTF Discourse

The simple fact is, many of us simply won’t live long enough to see it all fall down. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

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Recently, an interesting discussion unfolded over at the highly-recommended The Organic Prepper concerning the situation in Haiti. The wonderful Daisy Luther, to whom the site belongs, kicked it off with an overview of the unfolding SHTF in the small, beleaguered, Caribbean country. Selco Begovic of Bosnia followed up with an explainer on how Haiti is a textbook SHTF and why everyone needs to pay attention, suggesting it can happen literally anywhere, including in the developed world.

Then Fabian Ommar of Brazil responded with commentary of his own, explaining that maybe we should all take a step back, look at the big picture, and view events in Haiti in context. It made for an interesting exchange of analysis and perspectives. One of my “dreams,” so to speak, is to get Selco, as he’s called, and Fabian, two of the most interesting voices in the prepper-survivalist community, together to debate the likelihood of SHTF and what form it’d take.

Admittedly, a problem in the prepper-survivalist community is our hyper-awareness of danger. Certainly, once you see just how fragile civilization is, it’s difficult to go back to thinking everything’s going to be okay and that the situation is under control, especially when events are clearly spiraling towards the the abyss. At the same time, it’s far too easy to get carried away. Despite years of hearing that collapse can happen at any time, we’re all still here. I think that matters, don’t you think?

So who’s correct? Selco? Or Fabian? Maybe both? To find out, we need to understand what they’re saying and first judge their respective arguments on their own merits.

Let’s begin.

It Could Happen Here

Selco cautions against normalcy bias, that what seems worlds away from us is much closer than we realize:

Why do we not see it and learn from it?

Well, for the usual reasons: we do not think it is relevant, we think people there are (somehow) different from us, or even some think people “there” (wherever there is) deserve that.

And my favorite, of course, is “It can not happen here.”

I do not want to discuss the reasons above, but I really want to tell you that it is good to learn from other folks’ SHTF experiences. It is much better than to wait for your own and be surprised.

It’s absolutely imperative to never succumb to normalcy bias. Part of preparedness is approaching every situation on its own merits, to assess it based on the facts presented. However, such analysis often means drawing on past experience. Also, as I stress ad nauseum, don’t overthink. Just you shouldn’t get carried away by all of life’s “what-ifs?”, you shouldn’t confuse “can happen” with “will happen.” Far too many in the prepper-survivalist world fail to draw the distinction. Some of this is deliberate - when you’re selling products and services, such as books and prepping gear, you’re not going to generate as great a demand telling customers “you might need this” versus “you will need this.”

Selco continues:

You are not as unique as you may think.

Again, I know you’re going to say some reasons why your situation in the future SHTF can not be like in Haiti: your political system is better, your government takes care of people, or simply you believe people are more reasonable in your country.

Sit down for a moment and think about how many times you said something like “it can not happen here” in the last ten years, and yet it happened “here” and it happened to you.

The world is changing, and it is changing in a bad way.

Whatever you think or say, just go and research the situation in Haiti, check how things are happening there, and see what people are doing to survive.

It may be a smart investment of time for the future SHTF that could be coming to you.

Selco is correct - so much of what we once told ourselves couldn’t happen here has, in fact, happened here. However, this doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme, since anything that’s possible could happen and anything that’s never happened before can happen for the first time. But things just don’t happen out of nowhere, either. The conditions and circumstances have to be right. Good preppers focus on what’s most probable, not what’s most dramatic. At least, that’s how our approach ought to be. Just as in our own lives, we’ll experience only a few truly dramatic incidents, a country, our exposure to history-changing moments comes down to a matter of timing. The simple fact is, many of us simply won’t live long enough to see it all fall down. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Selco spends the rest of the article explaining how Haiti is a textbook example of how an SHTF unfolds when it occurs. However, he doesn’t answer the most important question: how do we get from the relatively stable state of today to the anarchy and breakdown of civilization seen in Haiti? Without establishing the link, it’s not particularly useful to cite Haiti as an example of what our future looks like.

For help on that, let’s turn to Fabian Ommar.

“Possible” Doesn’t Mean “Probable”

Ommar explains that we should study Haiti, as well as other examples of SHTFs throughout the world, and learn what we can from it. At the same time, we should understand that not all examples offer lessons which are transferable to our setting. Circumstances and context matter.

Ommar says:

Yes, it makes sense to use Haiti as a case study.

As well as the Balkans, Lebanon, Argentina, WW2, or any other war or disaster. We take these and other historical events and analyze how far humans can go to create and survive SHTFs. Even though we’re doomed to repeat history, we can and do learn a lot from it individually.

However, I am of the opinion that something like that cannot and will not happen in the US, Europe, or other First World Nations. Not in the foreseeable future, if ever. Not even in less prominent and developed countries like mine (Brazil), Mexico, or Argentina. In other words, I see Haiti, Ecuador, or the Balkans as the exception.

That leads straight to the second question, and to me, it’s more a matter of probability than exemption. To be clear, I believe no one’s exempt from anything, so the Haitization or Balkanization of the US is possible, only highly unlikely.

Don’t overthink the term “exception.” Obviously, much of the world, especially in the less-developed countries, life is a non-stop SHTF. Their reality isn’t our reality, however, nor does it need to be. SHTFs follow similar patterns, but they don’t manifest the exact same way everywhere on the planet. If cultures and peoples are different, so are SHTFs.

Ommar makes a similar point. Just as history rhymes as opposed to repeating itself, SHTFs worldwide are the same:

Some stuff happens to X but not Y, and that applies to people as well to different nations and locations. Before getting into the why that is, let’s review some accepted facts:

1. Humans are capable of great violence and evil.

2. Society keeps destructive instincts under control. Repression systems, infrastructure, and a production system exist for the collective’s good and to provide the conditions for civilization to advance.

3. Once the “thin veneer or civilization” disappears, it’s all-out chaos, the regression of civilization. If the repression system or the production chain breaks down, that’s SHTF.

However, while thin, this “veneer of civilization” (the system) is stronger and more resilient than we think.

That’s particularly true in more advanced and wealthier (i.e., First World) nations, but as I said, also in ones a few stages below in development. Countries with solid traditions in democracy, robust institutions, and stronger educational and technological foundations go into crisis, shake, and tremble. They may even go to war, but they don’t fall as easily into anarchy.

We may debate the fact that Western institutions and values are discredited, being challenged, or under attack and the impact that process has on the pillars of modern civilization and the dynamics of society. Fine, but we cannot argue history so while all that spells “crisis”, it has happened many times before and doesn’t necessarily mean order and law will crumble in these places.

What Ommar says is sure to be controversial with some, but it really shouldn’t be. We may not like our institutions and values as they exist today, but just because we don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s weak or on the verge of collapse. The term “legitimacy” is bandied about a lot these days, but all it concerns is whether the state has the ability to have its way. For the most part, it still can. We don’t have any parallel governments out there, with the most resistance coming from the state level, which is how the United States was always supposed to operate. Despite the reality of anarcho-tyranny, the system still turns its gears, everyone still pays their taxes, and generally does as they’re told. This doesn’t sound like a system in a legitimacy crisis. And again, the fact that anything could happen at any time means nothing in practice.

Ommar follows on by saying that countries that have had historically stronger institutions, tradition of democracy, and higher levels of development withstand the pressure much better than those that don’t. I think many of us have become so cynical and jaded that we think this stuff doesn’t matter, but it does - the idea that there’s no meaningful difference between the First World and the Third World, the developed world and the least developed world, between the U.S. and Haiti, is absurd. Why even bother with having nice things, then, if it’s all going to collapse in short order, anyway?

Even the in-betweeners - i.e., the developing world - are in much better shape than the places caught in the hell of non-stop SHTF:

That’s particularly true in more advanced and wealthier (i.e., First World) nations, but as I said, also in ones a few stages below in development. Countries with solid traditions in democracy, robust institutions, and stronger educational and technological foundations go into crisis, shake, and tremble. They may even go to war, but they don’t fall as easily into anarchy.

We may debate the fact that Western institutions and values are discredited, being challenged, or under attack and the impact that process has on the pillars of modern civilization and the dynamics of society. Fine, but we cannot argue history so while all that spells “crisis”, it has happened many times before and doesn’t necessarily mean order and law will crumble in these places.

Things like social unrest, political instability, corruption, huge debts, and glitches in finance and the economy have been par for most of history. The older generations may have forgotten, and the newer ones are unaccustomed to that, so the whole Fourth Turning thing looks and feels like the end of times. But that’s just the normal state of the world. We’re living at the peak of civilization, and it keeps moving forward despite setbacks.

If this whole thing really was a house of cards, as many insist it is, I’m sure we would’ve collapsed by now. Something that fragile doesn’t remain standing for long. “House of cards” is just a figure of speech, but it hardly gets at what our problems actually are. America isn’t a corrupt country, nor is it weak. It’s being corrupted and weakened, however. We have an entire generation that can’t recall when this country hasn’t been in the midst of a long emergency, what I call the “Great Destabilization.”

Hence, Ommar says to expect the state to remain firmly in control, maybe become more powerful, even as society unravels [bold mine]:

I’ve said it before: the state has tremendous power, even in less functional countries. It takes a lot to challenge that power in any meaningful way and even more to bring it down.

What happened in Haiti and Ecuador is inconceivable in the US, UK or Europe because the conditions aren’t there. Residents of these places will never see warlords and gangs threatening the government, breaking into prisons and freeing thousands of inmates, barbecuing their enemies in the streets, or terrorizing the population at large. There will be issues with mass immigration, the economy, crime, and social unrest, but not a total collapse of authority and order.

It would take something really big, most likely of natural order (a huge CME¹ or something), to create these conditions. In that case, yes things could deteriorate fast and hard but that’s not what I’m talking about. And even in that case, it could, not necessarily would.

Precedence and inertia are among the most powerful forces in the universe. Places like Haiti and Ecuador have never experienced anything resembling the internal stability we’ve long enjoyed in the U.S. and throughout the developed world. Representative government (a term I prefer over the tainted “democracy”) either arrived late, frequently interrupted by authoritarianism, or just never fully developed. Democracy is fading in the U.S. and in the West, but this still puts us in a difference place and time from somewhere that’s never really known it. You don’t go from being the most advanced civilization ever to the most decrepit civilization ever in an instant, even if collapse is something that occurs suddenly.

Even when a total collapse of authority and order does occur, it’s often restored in fairly short order. South Africa is a prime example: it’s been in a non-stop collapse since the end of Apartheid 30 years ago and there’s apparently no bottom. Even after something like the unrest of summer 2021, South Africa recovered (a term I employ loosely here) and things went back to as normal as South Africa could be. There are plenty of other examples throughout the world. Just as it drains your energy to be angry all the time, it’s tough to sustain violence over a long time period, outside of a full-blown shooting war. If one believes people harbor normalcy bias as Selco does, then one must also concede that people will want some measure of order restored following any period of instability. We eventually become accustomed to the new “normal”. Nobody likes change (not even “open-minded” progressives), but we also adapt to new realities.

Anything can happen anywhere, but, as with many things, this is more sentiment than literal reality [bold mine]:

An SHTF like Haiti is less a matter of exceptionalism and more about precedent and vocation.

I’m not an expert, but something of that nature and magnitude has never happened to a superpower in modern times, so history seems to prove that theory. It’s hard to imagine it can happen now just “because it can happen anywhere.” Some things do, others don’t: widespread barbarism and cannibalism aren’t exactly exceptional in Haiti, but they are almost everywhere else, even during tough times, and that makes a big difference, too.

Barbarism and cannibalism do exist in shades everywhere. However, there’s a difference between a crazed vagrant in Bakersfield, California chomping on a severed leg (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT) and it being a widespread phenomenon. If you can’t draw the distinction, there’s nothing anyone can say to change your mind. It happened throughout Europe during World War II and the Japanese engaged in the practice during the same conflict. However, cannibalism isn’t prevalent in either civilization today. Maybe if things get bad enough again, we’ll see a return, but will it ever? Is that something we can even prepare for?

More from Ommar:

I’ve already argued why I don’t see a civil war 2 in the US anytime soon. Some people get mad at me for saying that, but it’s my opinion, and I did my best to base it on arguments, point by point. There’s nothing black and white about these matters, so I’ll admit that a civil war is more likely to occur in the US than a Haiti-style SHTF.

My own perspective is that the U.S. is headed towards civil war. Whether it actually gets there is a different matter. What’s most certain, in my view, is that the U.S. will see much higher levels of crime and disorder in 10 years. The war, even if it pops off, won’t be the same kind of show-stopping event the first civil war was. It’ll be ever-present, yet diffuse enough for many Americans to tune it out and go about their daily lives.

In the final installment of my “The Next 12 Months” series, I elaborated on what I think will happen:

I think the U.S. avoids a knock-out, drag-out civil war. However, it doesn’t avoid armed conflict. By 2030, the U.S. is embroiled in what history will term the “Great American Internal Conflict.” It’ll last a generation, maybe longer. It’ll be defined primarily by high crime and disorder, a more intense and widespread variant of what we’re seeing today. Unrest will be more common, with increasing acts of politically-motivated violence, including terrorism. The term “fourth-generation warfare” (4GW) is a more accurate descriptor of what we’ll be facing rather than “civil war” or “revolution.” At it’s simplest, 4GW is war among the people, primarily involving non-state actors rather than between states or even between states and non-state actors.

In some places, such as the Mountain West region, the conflict will take on civil war-like characteristics, with control of territory at stake. Left-wing militants and right-wing militias will clash regularly with authorities. For the most part, however, the Great American Internal Conflict will be marked by low-intensity conflict, a struggle between the Left - committed to the complete South Africa-like unraveling of the U.S. - and the Right - struggling to find order amid the chaos - and the Regime, committed only to its own survival, unsure on day-to-day basis which of the two sides will be a better guarantor of its continue existence.

So while I agree with Ommar that civil war is more likely than a Haiti-like SHTF bringing the entirety of society crumbling into a heap of smoldering remains, I also believe the civil war will be less cataclysmic than some are anticipating. Then again, this is hardly reassuring, because there’s a “floor” when it comes to how bad things can get before “worse” loses any meaning.

Ommar re-emphasizes the importance of historical precedence in determining future events:

Another example: political coups were common in Latin America (I was born in the thick of a military regime lasting from 1964 to 1985 in Brazil). It’s 2024, and former president Bolsonaro may go to jail for allegedly plotting a coup after last year’s elections. I won’t go into detail because the whole thing – the plot and the investigation – is a circus. Just mentioning it, but that’s the point: flirting with this kind of crap is part of Latin American culture. Determinism aside, that explains a lot of why we’re seeing that kind of crap surface again. However, things never even came close to bad here as they get in Haiti.

Ommar said in a previous essay that just because something happened before doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. Here, however, he’s talking about something which occurred quite often in Latin American history. This is vastly different from there being that one time America fought a civil war almost two centuries ago. Bringing our own personal lives into the discussion for context, we’ve all done things in our lives we regret or could’ve gotten into a lot of trouble had we been caught.

But unless we turn these bad choices into a lifestyle, these errors don’t define us. They’re just mistakes we made when we were growing up, in the process of maturing. Societies are the same way. They make poor choices when they’re young. Some societies, like Latin America, continue making poor choices into adulthood. Therefore, they never find the functionality and stability the U.S. and Europe has enjoyed for so long.

And:

As Daisy [Luther] noted, crap is always hitting the fan somewhere. Democracy, education, culture, economy, institutions, and society are at different stages in countries worldwide. Naturally, some places will see dictatorships, others hyperinflation, others wars or coups, and so on. That’s how the world works.

Point being, if you believe chaos and disorder are the norm, then you shouldn’t be surprised that there’s always an SHTF going on somewhere on the planet. You also shouldn’t be too surprised if it happens here. At the same time, if a society manages to avoid SHTF for long periods of time, that says as much about the strength and resiliency of a society as much as it says about its fragility. Again, think about humans: we’re frail creatures, emotionally and physically. Yet we also recover. We’re all much stronger than we realize; the same goes for societies.

About mass immigration:

Import the Third World, become the Third World?

Not so much. I’m not saying a large influx of immigrants (legal or illegal) over a relatively short time won’t impact the standard of living and bring deep and broad changes to any society because it will. Even more so to already overburdened, overstretched, and highly indebted nations, which is the case in most, if not all, Western countries right now.

That’s happening now.

But these are also the countries with the best infrastructure and the strongest institutions. So again, this wave can damage and weaken any country, even a superpower. Though this process will make the First World more like the Third, it’s unlikely to cause it to collapse entirely, and that’s a big difference.

Obviously, scale is everything. At micro levels, mass immigration most certainly will have a harder hitting impact, with changes seen more rapidly. At the macro level, changes will take longer to manifest. This is why attitudes on illegal immigration take so long to shift, because it simply doesn’t affect everyone the same way. America is already has a few hundreds of millions of people; as deleterious migration can be, it’s not what’s going to topple society.

Ommar has a lot to say, not all of which I’ll cover for the sake of brevity, so I hope you’ll take time to read it all. By now, it should be clear Fabian sees the continuity of civilization as more likely, while Selco sees it as far less so, even if he doesn’t elaborate how it all comes to an end.

We now know what these men believe. But why do they believe as they do?

Perspective Is Everything

When listening to anyone (including good ol’ Max!), it’s important to consider the perspective from which they’re speaking. Everyone brings to the table their unique life experience and story; don’t think for a moment these don’t play a factor in determining how people think.

Selco Begovic is a survivor of one of the most terrible civil wars of the last 50 years. He saw his entire civilization crumble in just a few years and had to live day-to-day for as long, not knowing whether he was going to wake up the next morning or if he was even going to live through the day. Unless you’ve lived it yourself, it’s impossible to relate with that. When you survive it, you can never feel comfortable again. You’ve borne witness to the savagery that lies beneath it all. Your trust in humanity is shattered and you become extremely cynical about the world, along with distrustful of everyone you encounter.

Fabian Ommar has also lived a rollercoaster of a life. He told you he was born in the middle of a 20-year military dictatorship; he also lived through economic collapse, one political crisis after another, hyperinflation, out-of-control crime, you name it. What he never lived through was a total societal collapse and civil war. His experience living in Brazil has been one of bending, but never breaking. As such, it’s no wonder he believes that the veneer of civilization is much stronger and more resilient than given credit for. Despite all the hits, his society still stands. Nothing gets better either, but maybe that’s better than it all tumbling down.

You have two different men with two different experiences. Of course they’re going to draw different conclusions. My own opinion is that Ommar’s insight is more realistic, more useful to us living in the developed world. But this doesn’t mean Selco’s insight is useless, either. I just think Selco’s experience is more a reminder of the general unpredictability of life, the importance of civilization, and that none of us really know what’s up the road. At the same time, Selco’s story can be taken to literal extremes: that what he experienced in 1990s Bosnia is exactly what we’re going to see here in America. For those in the back, possible isn’t the same as probable. Not to mention living in Selco’s world is something that requires a wholesale shift in lifestyles and mentality. How many of you are really prepared to make that transition today?

I want to wrap up this section with Ommar’s own concluding thoughts, which I think are very important:

That’s not to say everything will be fine in the First World, but again, that’s life on planet Earth, and we’ll survive. Unless you live in a real, actual sih*thole [sic], Haiti is a sad but distant reality, so relax and enjoy that privilege. Keep praying, helping your family and others around you, following the events and trends, studying history, and preparing accordingly.

I don’t understand people who seem so deathly convinced something like Haiti can happen here. Sometimes, it seems like they want it to. I’ve explained this psychology before - it’s rooted in deep dissatisfaction with modern society, with an SHTF collapse or civil war viewed as an opportunity to “start over” and make things right. Maybe it is, but here’s the thing: who says you and your loved ones will be alive when it’s all said and done? Who says your “side” is going to prevail? This isn’t a movie and terms like “good” and “evil” don’t mean a whole lot in the real world.

As Ommar says, just enjoy life when you can. There’s no use in spending all your time anticipating SHTF. Until it actually happens, it’s all inside your head. Treat it like any other potential life event. None of us obsess over getting into a car accident - at least, we shouldn’t - even though it’s by far among the highest-probability incidents that could possibly happen to any of us. Why is SHTF something worth losing sleep over or spending so much of your hard-earned money preparing for? By all means, prepare for it, but within reason. Don’t reduce your quality of life over it, build your entire existence around preparedness, or make it a central component of your identity.

One last thing before moving on. Last Friday, I was conversing with a friend, who’s also Brazilian, about crime in his native country. Life in Brazil is a real crazy ride and not a single Brazilian, who are absolutely wonderful people, will tell you otherwise (unlike Mexicans, who take offense when you point out their country is embroiled in civil war).

When I mentioned that America seems to be going the same direction as Brazil, my friend adamantly said “no.” He said that no matter how bad it gets in America, it’ll never be so bad as to be like Brazil. He couldn’t say why, of course, except for the fact he lived Brazil’s reality and is now living in ours. When you come from a country like his to a country like ours, the difference is like day and night. It gives you a perspective you just can’t gain any other way, a realization of just how far we’d have to fall before day-to-day life is little different from navigating a war zone.

Speaking of war zones, this is what Ommar’s native Brazil looks like these days:

Yet life manages to go on. People are still more worried about the next soccer match than they are the war in the favelas. Call them apathetic, call them ignorant. Just remember - we’re not so different. Eventually, all that gunfire and those explosions becomes background noise.

America is headed to a bad place, but we should also keep our concerns in perspective and not end up wishing for bad outcomes just to feel vindicated. There are places in the U.S. which are as dangerous as Brazil, but these places are, thankfully, fewer in number. Most of us will be fortunate to go through life without being a victim of a major crime. In most cases, things will feel worse than they are as we continue to decline because we’ve been so long accustomed to life where we didn’t need to constantly watch our backs like they do in Brazil.

Stay prepped and aware, but always live in reality. See life for what it is, not what might become of it.

The Futility Of Civil War

One of my favorite YouTubers is “Monsieur Z” (he goes by “US_of_Z” on X). He discusses speculative history and is second to few in this area.

He recently put out a video on a potential future civil war, specifically the presumptive right-wing faction’s prospects for success. It’s about 36 minutes long, but I strongly recommend you watch before reading on. It’s excellent:

There are several points “Mr. Z,” as we’ll call him, makes throughout the video. I can’t touch them all, regrettably - it’s worth an entire essay - so I’ll instead talk about what I felt were his more important points.

Bottom line up front: civil war of any kind, according to Mr. Z, is all downside, no upside, especially for the Right. Insurgency is viewed as the most likely form the next civil war is likely to take, but even this is likely to end poorly for the rebelling faction. There’s a popular meme circulating in right-wing circles; it exists in different variants, but the message is the same:

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The message is that the U.S. was defeated by insurgencies throughout its military history - by the Viet Cong in Vietnam, by the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, Mr. Z points out this is a distortion of history. The reason why the U.S. lost these conflicts is because we were fighting entire countries, not just insurgencies. America faced tremendous opposition in these countries and had no real answer to the fact so much of the population simply didn’t want us there. I’d add that insurgencies and rebellions in general actually have a consistent track record of failure and the perception of the damage they can cause is worse than the actual damage they do cause.

There’s also the question of military loyalty. Politicization of the armed forces aside, expecting the military to refuse to follow orders is a fool’s errand. The U.S. has never experienced a major civil-military relations crisis, nor has the military ever possessed any real political power, even as they clearly hold tremendous sway over political decisions and public sentiment. At the end of the day, however, the military is loyal to the managerial state. There doesn’t exist a civil-military divide so much as a managerial state-public divide. The two are at constant odds, with the former not only failing to represent the interests of the latter, but also increasingly acting against it. To do so successfully, the state needs the military on-side.

Mr. Z points out that an insurgency, be it on the Left or Right, is likely to be unpopular with the American public. If you doubt that, look at the reaction to the pro-Palestinian protesters. Even in our center-left society, too much is too much. Z asks: how many troops would really risk everything and support an unpopular rebellion? Any insurgency in America today or the near future would be political in nature. Strongly polarized as we are today, politics and ideology make for very poor motivators. Most people fight for land, family, and people. This is more so the case for the Right, whereas the Left is more likely to fight over ideology, but people like this are fewer in number than you might imagine.

Even if large numbers of troops secretly support the motivations of the insurgents, if not their tactics, they’re not going to risk their families, careers, and futures by siding with the rebels. The only way I see a major fracturing within the military is in the event of a scenario like the one depicted in the movie Civil War. If it happened, the military faction that turns against the state would more likely attempt a coup d’état, overthrowing the state and seek to prevent a knock-out, drag-out civil war. Again, I find this unlikely. Even the Russian military following the collapse of the Soviet Union remained largely intact, despite tremendous political infighting that often drew in those wearing uniforms. You can bet the institutionally firmer armed forces of the West will do a better job of maintaining organizational integrity and ensuring compliance out of its people in uniform.

Mr. Z stresses the significance of public support. Though many on the Right deny it, primarily because they’ve been the less popular faction for so long, people do have to agree with your aims, if not your methods, in order for your movement to be successful. Otherwise, only overwhelming force can defeat the state. Americans, especially “Red” Americans, own lots of guns, but this doesn’t amount to superiority in firepower. Gun ownership does provide means of resistance and raises the cost of the state crossing red lines, but unless literal millions of gun-toting Americans descend upon Washington, D.C., you can’t win a civil war, successfully secede, or overthrow a government through gun ownership alone. The public needs to support your cause. One of the reasons why the Black Lives Matter protests took off like they did is because, early on, most Americans supported the cause. When you have public sentiment on your side, you can get away with a lot.

As a side-note, being a long-time subscriber of his, it was a bit jarring to hear Mr. Z get angry as he did during this video. It served to underscore, however, how exasperating the Right’s own nihilism has become, exemplified by it’s tack on the potential for another civil war. The fact is, the Right is often not living in reality when it comes to how to deal with the Great Destabilization. Dealing with an insurgency wouldn’t be a cakewalk for the Regime and I think, despite their open hostility towards the American people, they’d stick to the proven strategy of allowing criminals and social predators to do the “enforcing” on their behalf. I’ve always found scenarios like mass gun confiscation unlikely, since disarming the population is something that never goes over well in any society.

This is all to say deterrence is in place to prevent civil war from breaking out, even an insurgency. If the Right comes out of its crouch, however, and starts to actively rebel, all it’d be doing is accelerating its own demise. Mr. Z notes that the American Right is like a flash in the pan: it lacks the “explosiveness” of the Left and fizzles out quickly. A lot of this is attributable to the lack of institutional support, but if the Right had control of the institutions, their behavior would be different from that of the Left today. Being in a constant state of revolution isn’t the Right way (pun intended).

Mr. Z talks about much more in his video, so I hope you’ll watch and share it with others. I shared it with people I know and got interesting responses. The most interesting response I got was from someone of fair prominence, though I’m withholding their identity here to protect them.

Here’s what they said, edited for clarity [bold mine]:

Finally listened to the whole thing. It was entertaining. Though he makes lots of obvious points, I don’t think he’s entirely right. I don’t think we are even close at this point to a civil conflict. 

Whether Biden or Trump wins makes no difference. Why? Because there is no difference. The old Republic is dead. The race to the bottom is almost over. Overseas we are finished. At home it will take longer for most Americans to figure this out. 

As you know, the French Revolution broke out when the population of Paris could not buy bread. Nothing will happen here until access to food, fuel and medical care becomes really problematic. 

Affluent classes and well-off minorities, like Jewish Americans, will cower inside their gated apartment complexes or rush to the airport to fly to Israel [despite the war, Israel is still a safe haven for Jews]. Lots of Indians and Northeast Asians will likely follow suit. After all, only a fraction of these people are truly assimilated. In addition, these groups have countries to which they can return. The Latinos don’t. The wealthy whites are cosmopolitan in their values and will hide or leave. The government will vanish the way it did in Sri Lanka.

In rural areas Americans will pull together and care for themselves. It’s those of us who live between rural and urban areas that will take matters into our own hands because the old order will be gone. When the financial system and economy go down the urban Blacks will become violent and some Latinos will too. Both will try to steal what they need, but it won’t be enough. They will break out of their enclaves and meet the opposition described above. Many Latinos are actually Americans, but how many will side against their race is unclear. Most violence will be local.

The people left to deal with the fallout will constitute “the Americans.” They will be majority white, but not necessarily radicalized, just disgusted with the failure of the government. The men who will lead this revolution are not yet visible, but when the facade of law and order finally collapses they will surface. They always do.

Now what will “the Americans” do? First, they will crush the girlie men, committed liberals, and wealthy elites who sold them out. Tolerance for criminality will end in short order. Then, the Americans will set out to restore order. It won’t be pretty, but it will happen.

I find little there to disagree with. The key point is that until food, fuel, and healthcare become difficult to procure, a civil war isn’t likely to happen. The U.S. may be on a path to civil war currently, but until life’s basic needs fail to be met or become prohibitively expensive, the spark that’s going to light the country ablaze isn’t there. Political discontent alone is never enough to spark a civil war. Political violence? Yes, but not at a widespread scale. There’s always a certain level of political violence occurring regularly in any society.

Regardless of how or why it begins, I think the next civil war won’t be military in nature. It’ll instead be a period of markedly increased crime, disorder, and political violence the authorities find difficult to deal with.

It’ll be a whole lot more of this, except you’re going to see the citizenry fighting back:

Source

What happened here?

A typical Sunday evening in Vallejo turned into a scene of chaos and violence as a sideshow escalated into a series of dangerous incidents, leaving residents shaken and authorities scrambling to piece together the events on February 25th, 2024.

The ordeal began at the intersection of Springs Road and Rollingwood Drive, where attendees of the sideshow were engaged in reckless behavior, blocking off the area and performing burnouts.

Among the vehicles caught in the mayhem was a jacked-up white pickup truck, whose driver found himself at the center of disaster.

Eyewitnesses reported that the situation took a turn for the worse when the pickup truck collided with a Mustang while attempting to navigate through the closed-off intersection.

This collision sparked outrage among the sideshow participants, who quickly surrounded the truck, climbing onto its hood and vandalizing the vehicle.

Amidst the escalating tension, the driver of the truck, made a frantic attempt to find safety, darting into a nearby 7-Eleven store.

However, his moment of relief was short-lived as the assailants pursued him into the store, launching a vicious attack.

During the altercation, the driver sustained gunshot and stab wounds, making the volatile situation even worse. Fortunately, the man lived and is currently recovering.

A war requires at least two sets of belligerents. For now, there’s only one. It may be a long time from now, but when people decide they can’t afford to become victimized and start fighting back against criminals and social predators like the ones who perpetrated the above incident, that’s when the civil war will begin.

This period will also see high levels of political violence like we saw in the 1960s and 1970s. Many who comment on the matter are quick to say there will be extremists on both sides carrying out these acts, but historically, the Left has been far more active on this front. The Right’s extremists act out at lower levels, meanwhile. I’d expect this trend to remain the same in our next period of internal conflict.

For the rest of us during this time, the war, if it finds us, will involve battling criminals, social predators who use fear and violence to get their way, and a government that can’t decide who’s the bigger threat: you or the robbers, murders, rioters, and brutes. Basically, what’s already happening today, except at a higher level of intensity.

Nobody knows how long this period will last, though my own guess is that it’ll last at least a generation. By the end of this long cycle, it should become clear what shape the country will take, or whether the country continues to exist in its current form or not.

At worst, the next civil war may look more like Colombia’s La Violencia than any other historical example, including our own 19th century civil war. La Violencia was a 10-year conflict defined by widespread political violence and partisan atrocities. Watch this video for a description of what this terrible conflict looked like [set to begin when La Violencia is discussed]:

Watch the whole video when you can; it’s extremely informative, though I do take issue with some of the sources used. The video’s author, Simon Whistler, is careful to point out how imperfect examples like La Violencia can be. One thing he didn’t mention is that the U.S. isn’t divided along partisan lines, not necessarily. The Democrat-Republican, Left-Right split is one among many divides in the country today. In my opinion, the real divide is between those who favor a peaceful, orderly existence and those who seek a turbulent, disorderly one because they either benefit materially from it or because it fulfills some innate desire to see “bad” people get what they supposedly deserve (describes the motivations of many on the Left).

The utility of studying examples from history and around the world is in understanding that all civil wars involve tremendous carnage and suffering on some level. The wounds often don’t heal and the hard feelings last for generations. We may be fortunate enough to avoid a La Violencia-level catastrophe, but it doesn’t mean the civil war as I’ve described will be just a walk in the park. It’ll change the way we live and the way we relate to one another, among many other things. Just think about how much you seethe with anger seeing stories like the poor man being assaulted and chased out of his own car, his only error being that he drove into a gathering of thugs. If you think you’re angry today, just wait until the next civil war.

Is Civil War The Answer To Civilizational Suicide?

There was a tweet from popular evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad that made the rounds on X and beyond:

For many years now, I have warned that the path that the West is taking will result in civil war. It might take 5 years, 50 years, or 100 years but it is inevitable. The West could have repeatedly resolved these issues peacefully but it refuses to auto-correct from its path of civilizational suicide. Many Western men who are currently asleep at the wheel will wake up, and realize that they don't like being pushed around in their homelands; they don't like their women attacked; they don't like their freedoms curtailed; they don't like their faiths disrespected. Once this happens, prepare for some gargantuan ugliness. Those who think that they are gaining inroads in the West will soon find out that not all Western men are invertebrate castrati. Save this tweet and never forget who warned you.

Like the man says, save that tweet. I have a feeling we’re going to refer back to it often in the coming years. It’s already as relevant now as it’ll ever be.

Look at what’s happening in Ireland these days:

Source

In case you missed it, Gardai, Ireland’s national police force, is using force against the Irish people who oppose the settlement of migrants in their communities without their consent. Ireland, once open to mass immigration of their country, has now soured against it once they realized what it actually meant. Polling done over the last several months has consistently shown the Irish public is overwhelmingly against the immigration situation in the country. Of course, none of this matters. Western democracy is elected officials privileging their interests over that of the citizenry, which ironically sounds like authoritarianism.

It’s leading to rapidly rising tensions in the country:

Source

This is a warning of the “gargantuan ugliness” Saad refers to. We’ve been indoctrinated into seeing something like that and recoiling in disgust, but ask yourself: when a country is undergoing a Great Replacement as Ireland is and your own government, who’s supposed to represent you and your interests, not that of the whole world, is in on the plot, what’s the rational, reasonable reaction supposed to be?

I said several paragraphs above that a war won’t start until two sides agree there’s a war to fight. Until then, it’s one side imposing its will with impunity on the other. What’s happening in the West are the cosmopolitan, culturally Marxist regimes, with the help of criminals and migrants (or maybe it’s the other way around?), abusing the populace, many of whom were foolish enough to support such designs in the first place. Now that the citizenry are putting up resistance, it’s forcing the regimes to come back with stronger measures that are putting countries like Ireland on the path towards civil war.

Ireland? Civil war? 100 years after their last civil war? History really does work in cycles, doesn’t it? It tracks with the broader destabilization of the West, Europe in particular. France seems one major blow-up away from civil war, order in Sweden is breaking down, and it all points back to migration.

We could talk for days about each country. Coming back to Ireland, I don’t know the internal situation of the country well enough, aside from what I can gather on social media (which is never the entire story, I assure you). But here’s something from someone on the inside:

Source

Ireland is a relatively small country, with little over seven million residents, and remains more homogeneous than the U.S. It simply cannot absorb immigrants the way America can and there’s not a whole lot of places to run off to like here. If the Irish regime continues to impose mass migration on their people, a major backlash is inevitable. We’re already seeing the early stages of it. Just how far will they go to “enrich” Ireland?

We’ll close on a more recent tweet from Dr. Saad. This is what ails the West:

A society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct. It truly is that simple.

Suppose that a person tries to attack your children. Kin selection has ensured that you will die trying to defend your children. But let's now suppose that an ideological parasite has taken over your brain such that you are now convinced that the most noble thing to do is to help the attacker abuse your children. Tough break for your children, I guess but at least you were empathetic and tolerant toward the aggressor.

This is the state of the West. No hyperbole. Suicidal empathy will bring down the West. Get ready for my next book.

Empathy towards the less fortunate has been weaponized into demoralizing and rendering Westerners defenseless. Never in history has there been so many people who lack even a reflexive propensity for self-preservation. One of the things any good self-defense course will teach you is that the ability to protect ourselves and our loved ones is innate, built in to us as a matter of biology. For the West, this biological feature has been nearly socially engineered out of us completely, at least at a societal level. Yet it remains, buried somewhere deep within. When it resurfaces, the savagery we see today will seem orderly in retrospect. If you think this is a matter of bad, racist, xenophobic people doing bad things, you’ve drank too much of the Regime’s Kool-Aid.

Just watch anyone who tries defending themselves from an attacker, if they manage to fight back. Better yet, watch a mother who tries to protect her children. We’re all capable of violence. All it takes is the right trigger.

Bottom line: for things to ever have a chance of getting better, we, the peaceful, law-abiding people of the West, need to re-discover our propensity for violence. Tell me any other way to fend off attackers and invaders.

It’s A Long Way Down

What are your thoughts on anything discussed here? Are you on Team Selco or Team Fabian? Do you think a worst-case SHTF like Haiti can happen at any time in the U.S. or where you live? Or do you think SHTFs are unique on a society-to-society basis, defined by the culture, history, and people who populate a given society? What did you think of Mr. Z’s commentary? Do you agree or disagree with him? What about your reaction to Gad Saad’s commentary? Do you think the West will ever find their survival instinct again in our lifetimes? Or is it already too late?

Talk it out in the comments section.

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

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1. Unsure what he means by this - coronal mass ejection, maybe?