Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming

Burning Platform ^ | June 4, 2019 | John Wilder

[vannrox]

Way back in 1998, I ended up with one of the neatest jobs that I had – assessing risks to a major corporation.  The Internet was new at work, and I was being paid to research potential disasters.  It was so interesting and so much fun I felt guilty.  In researching disasters and risk, I came across Y2K.  For those that don’t remember, there was a concern that, as a result of programmers only using two digits to store year information in computers, that many computers and computer programs would cease to function when the calendar flipped over to 00.

There were multiple websites and personalities that were writing about Y2K, and one that I went to from time to time was Cory Hamasaki’s Y2K Weather Report.  Hamasaki was a programmer (he has since passed away) and he had an inside perspective of the ongoing work that was required to keep the systems working.  As a result of his insider knowledge he bought an AR, a lot of food, and spent New Year’s Eve at his remote cabin.

Obviously, the systems kept working.

Not my original.  And I’m sorry.

We live, however, in spicy times, with the potential for them becoming even spicier (I got the Spicy Time meme from Western Rifle Shooters (LINK), which really should be on your daily reading list).  I’ve written several articles about the potential for Civil War, and studied and thought quite a bit about it.  As such, this is the inaugural edition of John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report.  I anticipate putting it out monthly.  This first issue will probably be a bit longer than later issues, since I’m putting the framework together and explaining the background.

I’m attempting to put together a framework that measures where we are on the continuum between peace and war.  I’ll even try to develop some sort of measures that show if the level of danger is increasing or decreasing.  Civil wars don’t happen all at once, and like a strong storm, they require the atmosphere to be right.  A weather report is probably a good metaphor.

If you haven’t seen it, the guy with the trident was the weatherman in Anchorman.  And when he has a trident?  People die.

So, to review the future, let’s start by looking at Civil War I so we understand what happened, and what the potential differences are.

Civil War I was:

• Based on philosophical differences – the views of the people, North and South were pretty similar, except that the Northerners were descended from Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower, and the Southerners were descended from the Norman conquerors that took England in 1066 but got booted out after having lost a war in England. Although the North and South were the same people, more or less, with the same heritage, there were enough differences to lead to a war.  And it was a doozy.

Civil War II is different because:

• Certainly we are not the same people today compared to when we generally unified ethnically. Civil War II will likely be fought on the basis of conflicting culture, identity and ideology.

Civil War I was:

• Fought by armies, mostly, with identified geographical centers.

Civil War II is different because:

• At the early stages, at least, Civil War II won’t be fought by armies, and there won’t be defined geographical concentrations. Armies are better at killing people and breaking stuff, but irregulars are way better at atrocity.  Expect the initial stages of hot war to be filled with some pretty rough stuff.

Civil War I was:

• Characterized by a general adherence to the rules of war, though there were some war crimes on either side.

Civil War II is different because:

• There has been a tendency of civil wars in this century to have increasing levels of atrocity during the war. This will continue.

Civil War I was:

• Fought with the intent of reunification (by the North), and separation (by the South). The basic desire of the North was to reunify the country, admittedly under more comprehensive Federal control.  Reconstruction sucked, but the goal was a single country.  That’s why all the Confederate statues were tolerated, and even encouraged.

Civil War II is different because:

• I expect whoever wins to pursue a policy of revenge at the end, especially if it’s the Communists. This is founded based on every single communist revolution ever.  The end of Civil War I occurred in a growing young country with the opportunity to move West.  Now?  Whoever wins will cleanse whatever areas they take.

Civil War I was:

• Fought by organized, elected governments.

Civil War II is different because:

• I’m thinking that one side might be a Caesar-type leading a partial military coalition versus Leftist irregulars, but I might be wrong on this one.

I decided to see what other studies had been done about more recent civil wars, and found that James Fearon and David Laitin (from Stanford) did a study in 2003 on civil wars during the 20^th Century (LINK).  Here’s what they found:

• Civil Wars had a median duration of six years
• Sub-Saharan Africa: 34 wars
• Asia: 33 wars
• North Africa and the Middle East: 17 wars
• Latin America: 15 wars
• Eastern Europe/Former Soviet Union: 13 wars
• The West: 2 wars

Why do civil wars develop?  It’s my bet that political scientists are like economists – six political scientists will generate 15 incorrect theories over coffee each morning, although I, for one, have no idea why we would think we would have a more stable country if we import people who keep having civil wars all of the time.  Fearon and Laitin came up with three different types of civil wars:

• Ethnic: “You other people suck.”
• Nationalist: “We want our own country, because you other people suck.”
• Insurgent: “We want to be the boss, because you suck.”

Okay, I don’t know who the originator was of this meme, but it still cracks me up.

Civil wars were non-existent in ethnically homogeneous and rich countries during the time period of Fearon and Laitin’s study.  As the United States was essentially ethnically homogeneous and rich during Civil War I, you can see that, just like the Revolution, something unique was going on here.  We decided to fight over principles.

Fearon and Laitin had several graphs that pointed out that increased wealth makes up for a portion of ethnic diversity – wealthier, non-homogeneous societies were less likely to go to war than poorer non-homogeneous ones.  Oddly, the very poorest ($48 to $800 a year) societies were less likely to go to war than societies that made just a little more money.  I guess just living was tough enough and going to war against other people who also had nothing was pointless.

One conclusion that Laitin and Fearon found was that civil war onset was no less frequent in a democracy.  Discrimination is not linked to civil war.  Income inequality is not linked to civil war.  Grievances aren’t the cause of civil war – they’re caused by civil wars.  What are risk the factors?

• New nations. I guess they haven’t developed the “don’t kill the president” tradition yet.
• People can hide in mountains.  I guess.
• Higher (absolute) population numbers. I told you big cities were bad.
• Oil exporting.
• High proportion of young males.
• Exporting commodities – risk seemed to peak at about 30% of GDP coming from commodity export.

Okay, not directly on point, but my primary export is memes.

So where does the United States stand as a country today?  I guess I’d throw out the thought that the first prerequisite for Civil War II is economic stress.  Why?  Average Joe won’t pick up an AR to go kill people in the next county if Joe has beer in the cooler and another episode of Naked and Afraid® next week.  If Joe has a job and a wife and a mortgage, well, there just won’t be action.  I meant war, silly.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Our risk now is relatively low based on economics.

The United States is developing a higher absolute population.  That puts us at risk.

With immigration, the United States is forming a higher proportion of young males.  That puts us at risk.

State weakness is generally correlated with civil wars.  I’m torn on this one.  On one hand, we have the largest number of laws ever, along with a very large enforcement mechanism.  On the other?  Laws, both state and Federal are increasingly just ignored.  Victor Davis Hanson describes this paradox in California (LINK).

Nearby civil wars are associated with having a civil war.  Latin America is a civil war factory . . . so we’re at risk.

From the above five predictors of civil war, we have four of them.  Obviously this doesn’t tell the whole story.  The United States has a peaceful history, and, unlike a less established nation, the general populace is going to assume that today was good, so tomorrow will be pretty good, too.  And, generally that’s a good way to predict the future:  tomorrow will look like today.  Building the conditions for civil wars generally take years and what was abnormal becomes normal and tolerated as time goes by.

I’m going to attempt to try to make a metric showing the rise in various societal factors that I think might lead to civil war.  Some of the obvious are:

• Economic metrics – economic growth, unemployment, average wealth.
• Organized violence metrics – news of riots, other organized violence and protests.
• Political instability metrics – use of the term “impeach”, “civil war”, “electoral college.”
• Sites banned – numbers of political speakers silenced.
• Number of illegal immigrants per month. This shows greater economic stress or greater problems at their actual home.

Yeah, you just can’t add the North and the South together and end up with a Civil War.  Unless you do it in binary, then you could have a Bipolar War?

I’ll then combine them into an index.  If you have other items that you think can be tracked and should be tracked, let me know, and I may incorporate them, especially if they’re easy find and to incorporate, because I’m lazy.

Finally, Civil War won’t show up all at once, it may take years to get people to the idea that war is better than dealing with your weird neighbor by going into your house and watching a marathon of YouTube® videos where people turn $40 of propane and a bunch of aluminum cans into $10 worth of aluminum ingots.  It’s easier than fighting, right?

Following is my take on the steps that will lead to actual civil war.  I humbly call it the Wilder Countdown to Civil War II™.

1. Things are going well.
2. People begin to create groups.
3. People begin to look for preferential treatment.
4. Opposing ideology to the prevailing civic ideology is introduced and spread.
5. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
6. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
7. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
8. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
9. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
10. Open War.

I bolded number six.  That’s where I think we are right now.  Violence is occurring, but it’s not monthly, so I don’t think we’re at step seven.  Yet.  And I think we can live at step nine for a long time as long as we don’t have the bottom drop out of the economy.  Might there be some trigger that takes us to nine in a hurry?  Sure.  But I’m willing to bet that we see it take a few years, rather than a few months.  My bet is no sooner than 2024, but I’ve been wrong before, way back in 1989.

This is a project where I’m not only very open to contributions and anonymous contributions, I’m actively soliciting them.  Let me know if you’ve got commentary, criticism, news stories, or suggestions to make issue two (probably in early July) better, either down below or at my email, movingnorth@gmail.com

While we can’t predict catastrophic storms with 100% accuracy, it’s probably about time that someone started looking at the horizon to see what they could see.  Because I see what might be a storm coming.

[Joe Brower]

You're correct -- Y2K was no hoax. I did a bunch of work on some COBOL systems, as well as some smaller apps in less well-known languages, and if we hadn't piled on and had everything retrofitted by the time 2000 AD rolled over, it would have been chaos.

It was actually quite eye-opening how insidious some of the problems were and how things would instantly fly, not run, but fly off the tracks.

Made a nice chunk of change for the work, too.

[gogeo]

Very astute.

[SVTCobra03]

By 2025 we will be in the Tribulation and most muslims will have been killed in the Ezekiel 38 War.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yes, it wasn’t merely a problem of the electrical system shutting down. You had the very real potential for extremely serious physical damage to big components like steam turbines and generators. The machines could have been destroyed and might have taken taken years to replace.

[sport]

It could be.

[MuttTheHoople]

I was talking about the South in the 1780’s. Loyalists and Patriots both used the pretense of the war to settle scores with their neighbors.

[Alas Babylon!]

Thanks! Sorry for my Southern paranoia!

[x]

There will be no civil war in the foreseeable future

True. Most people just aren't motivated.

But the Troubles, yes. If a few flag-waving conservatives would wander into the wrong neighborhood, bad things would happen. If a few antifa types would wander into the wrong neighborhood, bad things would happen.

You're talking about very small groups that might be motivated to get violent. Most people are just "live and let live" types. The "wanderers" would have to be really looking for a fight.

There could be violence if something really divisive happens - another undecided election, a major supreme court decision, a complete collapse of the economy - but most people are too fat and happy. And that's good.

It takes a long time for the kind of troubles familiar from Ireland or the Balkans or the Caucasus or the Middle East to develop. Groups were living side by side, but divided and hostile to each other for a long time. You knew which group you belonged to and people told you your whole life long not to trust those in the other group. I could see outbreaks of racial violence in a few parts of the country, but red and blue Republicans and Democrats attacking each other is less likely.

Now an anecdote: I had to go to a family meeting this week. My brother and I stopped at McDonald's. The TV there was showing Fox News. I was a little surprised, and my liberal brother made some sarcastic comments quietly to himself. But most people just sat there eating their food. This was in a very liberal town outside a very liberal city in a very liberal state and nobody was jumping up and down screaming. You read stories about that on the Internet, but they don't reflect the reality that well.

[matthew fuller]

Great post vannrox. This one has legs. I will be coming back here.

[The Duke]

CW2 will go to whoever commands the Warthogs.