In view of all that's going on I'm reposting something I posted on tMB. Kind of lengthy but very important. Weird format because I copied and pasted from the other board.
It's a fair question and I'm going to defer to someone with a lot more experience in these matters. Michael Vlahos is an expert in the study of civil wars and he has written and discussed the subject on many platforms. Here are his bona fides:
Michael Vlahos teaches strategy and war at Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs and formerly, at the Naval War College. He is the author of the book
Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change.
He has a seminal paper which I'm posting a link to and will also post some excerpts as teasers. This paper is a roadmap for how a civil war occurs. IT IS A MUST READ!!
Link:
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/11/americans-civil-war-michael-vlahos.html
Vlahos describes 5 incremental phases that lead to civil war. Some brief excerpts.
Moving apart
American kinship today is fissuring into two visions of the nation’s future way of life. “Red” virtue imagines a continuity of family and community within a publicly affirmed national community. “Blue” virtue imagines personally chosen communities mediated through the individual’s relationship with the state.
Way of life
Today, two righteous paths are gridlocked in opposition. Both perceive themselves as champions of national renewal, of cleansing corrupted ideals, and of truly fulfilling America’s promise. Both fervently believe that they alone own virtue. Yet the banners of each course are absolutist mirrors of one another, pro and contra, all or nothing. Moreover, lightning rod issues, as in the 1770s and 1850s, make the space between battle lines a no man’s land, forcing majority moderates and compromising fence-sitters to choose or be called out as willing collaborators with the other.
Othering
Here, the barren and inhospitable new civic space is dominated along looming, fortified lines. Warring identities have concluded that the only solution is the complete submission of the enemy party, and both sides are beginning to prepare for an ultimate showdown. Othering is a transforming process, through which former kin are reimagined as evil, an American inner-enemy, who once defeated must be punished.
The Decision
Othering’s most decisive effect is to condition the whole of society to believe that an existential clash is coming, that all must choose, and that there are no realistic alternatives to a final test of wills. Remember, in past times, Jacobins on both sides were small minorities. Yet for either one of these two angry visions to win, there must be a showdown. This demands, perversely, that they work together to bring on open conflict, successfully coercing the majority of Americans to buy into its inevitability. At that point, only a trigger pull is needed.
The Fight
If the political balance shifts dramatically, then conflict checks—held in place by lingering political norms and a longstanding electoral standoff—disintegrate. Suddenly, both newly advantaged and disadvantaged parties rush to a test of wills sooner rather than later. A triggering incident becomes a spark—yet the spark itself does not ignite. Rather, it is the readiness for combat in this emerging “community of violence” that makes a fight the natural way forward.
This article is 3 years old. At the time it was written Vlahos thought we were deep in Phase 4.
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