Civil War in our Near Future?

How Civil Wars Start

Barbara F. Walter

an abstract by Lynn Gerlach

I wish to offer up this terribly important, timely book in a shortened format for those Americans who don’t have the time or won’t take the time to read Walter’s book. My preference would be that you go right to the book and read the author’s own words - in full. If you’re looking for an abbreviated version, though, here it is.

All quoted material comes directly from Walter’s book. In all non-quoted material, I’ve tried diligently to paraphrase and summarize with complete fidelity. Anything in brackets [like this] is my own addition or reflection and should be regarded as such. 

Let’s begin with a very short summary, and then we’ll go to the complete abstract. After that, please, please get a copy of Barbara Walter’s book and read it carefully. This is no laughing matter.

First, a Thumbnail Sketch of the Book

[Barbara F. Walter has been studying civil wars around the world since 1990. Since 1994, our federal government has had a Political Instability Task Force (PITF). Ms. Walter is a member.]

Research now lets us accurately predict where and when a civil war might break out. We know how they start, who starts them, and what triggers them. Today, civil wars start with vigilantes of different ethnic and religious groups, especially in areas with deep racial and geographic (e.g., rural vs. urban) divisions.

We’re all familiar with “democracy” and “autocracy,” but now we need to learn about the danger zone in the middle: “anocracy,” sometimes called a “partial” democracy. A nation’s “polity score,” established by the Center for Systemic Peace, best predicts its likelihood of civil war. No matter whether you are moving toward or away from democracy, data show that being in the middle zone (anocracy) poses the greatest risk of civil war.

Currently our U.S. polity score is +7, very close to anocracy and the danger zone. When leaders ignore the guardrails of democracy, the veer toward anocracy begins. Then emerging “losers” strengthen the threat of civil war. When they form factions, that is a clear warning sign of civil war. Today’s civil wars are not about “left” and “right,” but about ethnic and religious groups trying to dominate each other.

The two best predictors of a civil war outbreak are anocracy and factionalism. Opportunistic leaders (“ethnic entrepreneurs”) tap into fear and resentment. When otherwise rational citizens believe their lives and livelihoods are threatened, they turn to such leaders for protection. Thus, innocent citizens unwittingly play along with the move toward violence. Groups turn violent when they feel left out of the political process OR they see the power they used to have now slipping away. The key is that they feel a loss of status they used to enjoy and feel they’re entitled to. 

“Sons of the soil” are indigenous or long-standing groups who feel entitled to the land and the culture - and they’ll fight to maintain it. Their biggest threat is simply demographics: changing population due to immigration. Feeling forgotten or ignored or “downgraded” is a much more powerful trigger than losing economic status. And when downgraded populations lose all hope, they are ready to fight. When they lose an election in a factionalized anocracy, the chance for violence rises significantly. Most civil wars start, not by one incendiary incident, but gradually, with extremist militias meeting quietly for years - until hatred and fear are accelerated. 

The accelerant is, without question, social media, the biggest cultural shift of the century. 70% of Americans turn to social media for news, and statistics clearly show people prefer posts that incite fear, offer falsehoods, are incendiary, outrageous and angry. Each moral or emotional word in a tweet increases its retweet level by 20%. Facebook algorithms channel users to narrower and more extreme material; the longer a discussion continues, the more extreme the comments. And there’s no incentive to restrict it. 

Social media is such a powerful accelerant of factionalism because it quickly and persistently heightens ethnic, social, religious and geographic divisions, shaping a toxic view of “the other” and getting millions of views on YouTube. That is how it accelerates factionalism.

How close to civil war is the U.S.? Our fluctuating polity score is the answer. We were in anocracy between 1797 and 1800. Since then, our polity score has fluctuated. It decreased dangerously to +7 in 2019 due to the Trump refusal to cooperate with Congress on the impeachment inquiry. But, on January 6, 2021, our score dropped to +5, the lowest since 1800. Remember: A “partial democracy” is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy.

The 1960s drove the focus on racial and ethnic differences. Then the ‘80s and ‘90s saw a clear demarcation of religious views associated with policy issues (abortion, gay rights, etc.). The twenty-first century dramatically accelerated those differences with the explosion of social media. In 2016, we dropped to a rating of “factionalized” - where we remain today, alongside Ukraine and Iraq. When 66% of Republican House members voted against certifying Joe Biden as president, it recalled the worst fear of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton: the dismantling of democracy by a faction’s cynical bid for power.

The Trump administration capitalized on the feeling of alienation of the white working class who saw young Indian and Chinese non-Christians starting to live the American dream. We now have a large faction of “sons of the soil” who believe their rightful legacy has been stolen. And they are arming themselves, and they are using social media to organize. Nearly 50% of white Americans now feel “racially resentful,” and they are gravitating toward the Republican party. Our country is now a factionalized anocracy quickly approaching open insurgency.

A second civil war will be waged in the shadows, using encrypted networks, with combatants gathering in small, hidden groups. Planning and communication will be online. Once chaos and fear take hold, Americans will feel compelled to pick sides in order to survive. If you want to develop an understanding of the “manifesto” driving those factions feeling alienated and wronged, read The Turner Diaries, called by the FBI the bible of the racist right. 

Ethnic cleansing often accompanies civil war; we are at the fifth of eight stages in the typical progression of ethnic cleansing. Genocide follows a ten-step pattern; we are at step seven. U.S. gun sales hit an all-time high in 2020 - 17 million sold in ten months! [Surely you know we have had, for a long time, more guns in this country than people.] Buyers are mostly conservatives reacting to liberal election successes, but left-wing-based terrorist attacks are also on the rise. While the left, a more diverse and dispersed group, is unlikely to start a war, fear of a violent leftist faction is a useful narrative for ethnic entrepreneurs.

Americans are losing faith in each other and in democracy. So, how does a country so poised for civil war prevent it? Look to South Africa, even better poised for civil war when (white) de Klerk took office. What did he do? He released (black) Nelson Mandela from prison. And Mandela? He chose to work with de Klerk instead of inciting violence. The two leaders kept their country out of war and won the Nobel Peace prize. Here’s what the U.S. can do:

·      Strengthen the quality of governance.

·      Double down on democracy and increase our polity score.

·      Create more transparent, participatory political environments.

·      Limit the power of the executive branch.

·      End gerrymandering and consider dramatic reform to the electoral college.

o   Let all citizens vote and make every vote count.

o   Let the votes drive the policy.

·      Return to effective teaching of civics and history.

·      Demonstrate, by protecting citizens, that playing within the system is safer than circumventing it.

·      Understand the difference between polarization and factionalism: Political polarity does not cause war. The formation of disgruntled groups (factions) who share ethnicity, religion or a sense of being downgraded - they are what cause war.

Factionalism drives civil war, and conspiracy theories drive factionalism, and social media drives conspiracy theories. We must regain control of our public discourse and mediate it. And we must prepare for the likelihood that, by 2045, “white” will be the minority in this country - and that doesn’t have to mean economic, social and moral loss. E pluribus, unum - from many, one.

__________________________________

-- Now, please read How Civil Wars Start. If you’re not yet ready, read the following abstract. --

Now, a Full Abstract of the Book

 Introduction

Adam Fox, a disenchanted 37-year-old in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was furious at Governor Gretchen Whitmer for imposing a statewide Covid lockdown. He reached out over Facebook to the head of the Wolverine Watchmen and, together, they formed a militia of 14 that trained together regularly. After considering storming the state capitol - or locking people in and burning it - the group decided to kidnap Governor Whitmer, try her for treason and kill her. However, the FBI discovered them on Facebook and ultimately took them into custody and charged them with terrorism and conspiracy. Adam Fox ultimately revealed that the plans against Whitmer were meant to inspire other such attacks, because the time had come for a revolution.

[Here the author begins to speak in first person.] “There had been hundreds of civil wars over the past seventy-five years, and many of them started in an eerily similar way… I first started studying civil wars in 1990… The Cold War was over, and all over the globe, civil wars were erupting.” Much data has been collected on this vast array of civil wars, resulting in high-quality datasets. Now we have patterns and risk factors to predict where and when a civil war might break out. Our federal government convened the Political Instability Task Force (PITF) in 1994, which built a model that can predict where instability is most likely to occur. 

Ms. Walter herself was asked to join PITF in 2017. She began to recognize in the U.S. some of the same signs of instability the group was studying in other countries. The signs are “emerging here at a surprisingly fast rate… Today, civil wars are waged primarily by different ethnic and religious groups, by guerrilla soldiers and militias, who often target civilians.” This is particularly true in areas (like Michigan) “deeply divided along racial and geographic lines.” 

Modern civil wars start with vigilantes “who take violence directly to the people.” Militias are a key feature in civil wars around the world. The group initiating the violence is often a mix of hundreds of small, loose-knit groups with no central command. They “rely on guerrilla warfare and organized terror.”  Their targets are not necessarily government soldiers. Most Americans see the attempted kidnapping of Whitmer or the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. capital as isolated incidents, “because they don’t know how civil war starts.”

Actually, civil wars do follow a script; the same patterns emerge over and over. We now know where civil wars tend to start, who starts them, and what the triggers tend to be. As in other democracies around the world, our demographics have shifted, inequality has grown, institutions have been weakened, and some are served while others are not… “violent extremist groups, especially on the radical right, have grown stronger… Since 2008 over 70 percent of extremist-related deaths in the U.S. have been at the hands of people connected to far-right or white-supremacist movements.” They tend to organize slowly and clandestinely. 

Now the evidence seems to be everywhere in the U.S.: armed men at rallies, Confederate flags, American flags with a thin blue line, and more, like bumper stickers symbolizing far-right militant groups. Like countries around the world, we have anger and resentment and the desire for domination. And we buy guns when we feel threatened. Civil war could sneak up on us as it has to people in other countries.

 CHAPTER 1: THE DANGER OF ANOCRACY

When American troops arrived in Baghdad in 2003 and the statue of Saddam Hussein came down, Iraqis believed they had been liberated. In fact, rapid democratization in a deeply divided country is often highly destabilizing, creating the perfect conditions for civil war. Political rivalries, both ethnic and religious, plagued Iraq. Huge segments of the population previously locked out of power by Saddam now saw their opportunity. A failed power-sharing agreement devolved into chaos as various factions sought to establish power in the new democracy. Within months insurgent organizations had formed, easily recruiting aggrieved citizens whose status had been reversed. Guerilla war broke out by the end of the year.

Acts of violence escalated as dozens of regional and religious militias sought to gain control. Snipers, roadside bombs and military checkpoints became facts of life. What had been intended as a quick removal of a dictator to set Iraq on the path to democracy descended into a brutal civil war that would last for more than a decade.

“Over the past one hundred years, the world has experienced the greatest expansion of freedom and political rights in the history of mankind. In 1900 democracies barely existed.” 1948 saw the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights around the world, and now 60 percent of the world’s countries are democratic. “Full democracies are less likely to go to war against their fellow citizens… but the road to democracy is a dangerous one.”

Just as the number of democracies has surged, so has the number of civil wars. From 1870 to 1990, the number of civil wars around the world reached its highest point in modern history - until now. “In 2019, we reached a new peak.” Active movement toward or away from democracy is one of the best predictors of the likelihood of civil war.[1]

Countries in the middle, between democracy and autocracy, are called “anocracries.” Their citizens have some elements of democracy (perhaps voting rights), but leaders might have some authoritarian powers, or checks and balances might be askew. That’s why the failure of democracy in Iraq didn’t surprise the experts; they’ve seen the pattern repeated around the world. “… the biggest civil wars raging today… were born from attempts to democratize.”

The most respected system for categorizing countries as democracies, autocracies or anocracies originated with the Polity Project at the Center for Systemic Peace. That dataset produces a “Polity Score” to show how democratic a country is in any given year. It’s a 21-point scale I would draw like this:

[1] My own gratuitous note here: This is why every thoughtful American should also read How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt.

Fareed Zakaria [one of my most trusted sources, personally] refers to anocracies as “illiberal democracies.” The CIA first discovered the relationship between anocracy and violence in 1994, attempting to watch intelligently for warning signs of violence. From that effort came PITF’s predictive model of 38 variables. It surprised everyone when the best predictor turned out to be NOT inequality or poverty but a nation’s polity index score: Being in the “anocracy” zone posed the greatest danger. Anocracies, especially those more democratic than autocratic (“partial democracies”) were more likely to experience civil war:

·      twice as likely as autocracies

·      three times as likely as democracies

Living in a partial democracy “made citizens more likely to pick up a gun and begin a fight.” The middle zone on the scale above is the danger zone for civil war. Why? Rulers in anocracies are usually not as powerful as autocrats; their governments often have internal division and experience challenge and resistance. Rebellion often arises from impatient citizens, disgruntled military officers, or “anyone with political ambitions.” Democratic transitions create new winners and losers; roles are often reversed, creating anxiety. Starting the fight quickly and surprisingly might seem like the best bet, and a weak government can’t control it. And, when one discontented group gets power or privilege, others claim the same for themselves.

Unfortunately, “the faster and bolder the reform efforts, the greater the chance of civil war… a six-point… fluctuation in a country’s polity index score almost always precedes instability.” Opening of democratic freedoms can simply happen too fast. “… the risk of civil war fades when a country takes its time… slow reform reduces uncertainty,” including for incumbent elites. “Backsliding” is in evidence, with many new democratic leaders since 2000 starting to consolidate authoritarian rule: controlling the courts, restricting free speech, controlling the media, silencing dissent. “… twenty-five countries are now severely affected by a wave of international autocratization including… the United States.”

Democracies veer toward anocracy when elected leaders “start to ignore the guardrails that protect their democracies.”[1] Then would-be autocrats play to citizens’ fears, touting “strong leadership” and law and order. Once in power, they legally exploit the weaknesses of the system, increasing autocratization and putting their countries at higher risk of civil war. 

Peak risk is right in the middle of the scale above, no matter which direction the country is moving. “As a democracy drops down the polity index scale - a result of fewer executive restraints, weaker rule of law, diminished voting rights - its risk for armed conflict steadily increases.” If countries can weather the movement toward the middle, regardless from which end they started, they can change course and avoid civil war. Whether an anocracy is stumbling toward or away from democracy, “losers” emerge in the process, strengthening the threat of civil war. Sometimes a democracy is simply rendered too weak to function. (Consider, for example, the history of Ukraine over the past twenty years.)

[1] My second shameless personal note: Learn about these guardrails in How Democracies Die.

“The love affair with democratization that marked the twentieth century and the very beginning of the twenty-first century is over. It ended in 2006, when the number of democracies around the world reached its peak.” That doesn’t mean all anocracies will experience civil war, though. They navigate that middle territory in various ways, some democratic in nature, others repressive. A sudden interest in “factions” - religion or ethnicity - can be a warning sign.

 CHAPTER 2: THE RISE OF FACTIONS

From 1953 to 1980, the most ethnically diverse country on the planet, Yugoslavia, was held together single-handedly - and ruthlessly - by one man: Josip Tito. His goal was to maintain Communist party control and solidify his own power, of course. He used the divide-and-conquer approach, and he quashed any displays of ethnic identity. And then he died; tensions broke out immediately, and violence quickly erupted. The economy collapsed, unemployment soared, and corruption was rampant.

Slobodan Milosevic rose up to capitalize on the ethnic divisions and despair in Yugoslavia, emphasizing ethnic identity (in contrast to Tito). He restored all power to the ethnic majority and brutally crushed protests; his Serbian majority seized control of police, judiciary and security forces. When leaders of non-Serb regions proposed a multi-party system with elections, Milosevic called on the majority to rise up, even considering “armed battles” in the future. “Within two years, a once-united Yugoslavia would violently disintegrate, and the world would come to know the term ‘ethnic cleansing.’”

In the early twentieth century, civil wars were provoked by ideology or class. Consider, for example, the Mexican Revolution, Russian Revolution, China in 1927, and the Greek Civil War in the 1940s. In such classic battles of ideology, the dividing lines are “drawn down the middle between left and right.” By the middle of the twentieth century, though, civil wars were being fought by opposing ethnic and religious groups trying to dominate each other. Since the Cold War, about 75% of civil wars have been of this type.

Ethnicity then became the focus of study: Might it be the underlying cause of violence? Early datasets cast doubt on that theory: “…ethnically diverse countries were not necessarily more prone to war than ethnically homogeneous ones… If diversity didn’t matter, then why did so many civil wars break down along ethnic or religious lines?”

More nuanced measures indicated that number of ethnic or religious groups is not the key; how they are connected to power - and their attempts to exclude one another from power - are more important.Acute political polarization, called factionalism, is strongly related to instability and violence. In factionalized countries, political parties are based on ethnic, religious or racial identity rather than on ideology. These parties “seek to rule at the exclusion and expense of others.” Instead of coalescing around liberalism, conservatism or communism, they seek total domination.

For five years PITF reevaluated its thinking about this, concluding “the biggest warning sign of civil war, when a country is in the anocracy zone, is the appearance of a faction… Two variables - anocracy and factionalism - predicted better than anything else where civil wars were likely to break out.” In a “factionalized” country, identity-based political parties can be intransigent and inflexible. They can be competitive and combative; if they are roughly the same size, the balance of power spawns fierce rivalry. Sometimes parties become personalized, “revolving around a dominant figure who often appeals to ethnic or religious nationalism to gain and then maintain power. A coherent policy platform is often absent.”

Factionalism and polity go hand in hand: a less politically competitive country becomes less democratic, and the “right-in-the-middle” spot is again the danger zone. In repressive, authoritarian systems, citizens have no ability to form factions if they want to. In countries where citizens are able to form political parties, however, if one party is based exclusively on race or ethnicity, it uses its power unyieldingly, favoring its own constituents at the expense of everyone else. This is often a precursor to war. Syria and Lebanon provide good examples of religious factions seeking political power at the expense of others. Georgia and Rhodesia provide examples of such parties’ combat based on ethnicity.

 The pattern is predictable: 

·      A point of weakness or heightened sense of grievance is perceived. 

·      Rallying cries are related not to policy but to identity. 

·      Separateness increases. 

·      Suppression encourages open militancy. 

·      Tensions escalate, and force seems the only resolution. 

The division becomes politicized (e.g. Hutus and Tutsis), and crafty leaders quickly cement their power and their future. Switching sides becomes impossible if your loyalty is based on your identity.

Politicians with such a base can pursue a narrow agenda and become predatory and exclusive. Compromise is discouraged, and loyalty based on identity grows. Violence erupts when opportunistic leaders tap into fear and resentment. Citizens give up on their government and rally around one who is perceived as able to protect them and their way of life. Concern about the good of the country gives way to concern only about self and membership group. At this point, history shows, the chance of civil war doubles. “And if the country was an anocracy at the time, it was as much as thirty times more likely to become unstable.”

When a faction becomes a superfaction (a group whose members share ethnic or racial identity and alsoreligion, class, and geographic location), war is twelve times more likely. Ethnic groups tend to settle together in concentrated regions, interacting exclusively with their own kind. When economic resources are distributed unevenly, class differences are added. When the country has only two such groups, one is likely to dominate, leading to armed conflict.

When one superfaction prevails, they recognize only their own as “constituent people”; others are second class. Symbols and slogans evoke factionalism, and “others” are fired from public administration jobs and the police force. Differences become irreconcilable; the two superfactions are “entrenched, each feeding on the other.” War begins.

One of the greatest fault lines that tends to emerge between superfactions is the urban-rural divide, having deepened with globalization and technological innovation. Cities are now diverse; rural areas are not. Cities “are also younger, more liberal, more educated, and less religious.” Lucrative industries are flocking to cities. Rural communities become increasingly 
“dominated by less-educated manual laborers who often compete with new immigrants and who feel looked down upon by the urban elite.” 

Urban citizens embrace change and multiculturalism; rural citizens value stability and tradition. And rural dwellers have less access to varied media. Ultimately, ethnic cleansing becomes “a means to control and change the demographics and identity of an entire region.”

Such deadly societal fracture requires “mouthpieces” - usually those seeking political office or trying to stay in office. Fear will lock in their constituency. Experts call them “ethnic entrepreneurs.” To secure a future that is in doubt, they “foster identity-based nationalism,” trying to provoke change against steep odds. They steer the argument toward their group’s position and status, suggesting the only salvation is banding together under the entrepreneur. They often employ incendiary or demeaning language.

In an unstable political climate, multiple such ethnic entrepreneurs might rise up. They publicly question a rival faction’s language, history, geography and religion. The rhetoric creates a self-sustaining circle through media and, particularly, social media. Many average citizens see through all this, but if they feel a mounting threat to their lives or livelihoods, they will show support. If they get to the point that they believe the opposition might destroy them, “they will turn to a leader who offers them protection, no matter how unscrupulous.” Eventually, both factions are convinced that violence is the only way to save their culture.

Non-political figures such as business tycoons, religious leaders and media figures might also become ethnic entrepreneurs because they also stand to lose in a changing society. Where no ethnic rivalry exists, they might seek to craft rivalry, even if that means twisting and misrepresenting the facts. On the airwaves and screen, they can portray their opposition however they wish. Hammered home often enough, such messaging can actually change how people perceive themselves and others. 

Predatory differentiation is sometimes the result. In Yugoslavia in the early ‘90s, “Serbs and Croats raped, massacred, and exiled thousands of Bosniaks. In Visegard… more than 1500 Muslim men, women and children were rounded up and killed, then thrown off its famous bridge over the Drina River. Others were burned alive in their homes.” The Bosniaks in Visegrad were almost entirely wiped out. “It was them or us.”

Modi, elected prime minister of India in 2014, is a good example. He grew up believing all Indians are of a “Hindu race.” He hired accordingly, including a man who’d called Muslims a “crop of two-legged animals.” Muslims were quickly written out of the culture through extremist control of school curricula, cultural institutions and more. Modi even “created a path to Indian citizenship that excluded Muslims”! India’s position is not unusual. “…democracy is declining in some of the largest democracies in the world.” The views that previously drove votes - taxes, social safety net, healthcare, education - have given way to views on religion, race, and urban vs. rural. As anocracy and factionalism grow, so too do civil wars.

The way this phenomenon has played out in India is instructive. Even though unemployment is at a 45-year high, and Hindus are beating Muslims with sticks, Modi enjoys huge support from upper-caste Hindus; his 2019 majority was even bigger than his 2014 majority. And Bolsonaro came to power in Brazil by pushing an urban-rural divide exacerbated by race and class and appealing to the peoples’ fears. Racial vitriol has marked all of his proposals. While he encouraged the takeover of indigenous lands and referred to African refugees as “the scum of the earth,” he garnered the votes of the white and the wealthy.

Citizens often dismiss the rants in TV interviews or the tweetstorms as the ramblings of radicals, but the fault lines can suddenly appear, and the result is a takeover. We are often deaf and blind to the never-ending, intractable push toward those fault lines. Innocent citizens unwittingly play along with the factionalism, believing they are simply ensuring their own survival and defending their families and communities from threats. Average citizens often look in the wrong direction, unable to see that it is the ethnic entrepreneur who will start the war. When war does break out, we assume it will be short-lived; more often, it is protracted and ultimately catastrophic. 

 CHAPTER 3: THE DARK CONSEQUENCES OF LOSING STATUS

Datu Udtog Matalam was loved and revered by both Christians and Muslims in Mindinao, Philippines. “No one expected him to help start one of the world’s most persistent civil wars.” The son of a Muslim sultan, after he came to power he watched the persistent migration of Catholics to the area, taking advantage of excellent government benefits. By allowing this migration, he gained favor and financial rewards from Manila. He was powerful and happy.

But a new generation of “datus” (chiefs, like Matalam) emerged, educated and professional, and most likely married to Catholic women. They weren’t as strongly connected to the local Mindinao culture. When Ferdinand Marcos, a Catholic, became president of the Philippines in 1965, Matalam was reduced to “a man with no power at all.” By 1968, having suffered numerous insults, Matalam had published a manifesto urging all Muslims in the southern Philippines to secede. Unfortunately, the Muslim population had always felt threatened by the larger Catholic population; the manifesto stirred fears in both sides. Marcos sent troops.

Although Matalam, personally, bowed out of the movement, the flame had been lit. Guerillas began training, and sectarian violence broke out. Gang activity began, followed by retaliation. “It was the classic ‘security dilemma’ in which people, fearing violence, arm themselves in self-defense, but in the process convince their enemy that they want war.” Marcos declared martial law, demanding all Filipinos surrender their weapons - including the culturally significant swords and knives cherished by Muslims. Now formed into an extreme militant group, the Muslims launched several major attacks which evolved into the world’s longest ongoing civil war. More than 100,000 people have been killed.

Why did all of that have to happen? The Philippines was moving toward anocracy. Its polity score in 1965, when Marcos took office, was +5. Within four years, he had eroded it to +2, “close to the tipping point for civil war.” He did this by:

·      weakening individual and minority rights

·      diminishing the rule of law

·      curtailing the independence of the judiciary

·      removing numerous checks on presidential power

And the Philippines had become highly factionalized. Still, they had only two main factions, far fewer than other countries like Ethiopia and Indonesia. So why did they move to civil war? 

 Numerous experts used those datasets mentioned above to determine the answer:

·      Groups that turn violent are those who feel left out of the political process (e.g., loss of voting rights and access to government positions)

·      Groups who have once held power and see it slipping away (“downgrading”: loss of land ownership, job opportunities, political power) initiate violence.

“The ethnic groups that start wars are those claiming that the country ‘is or ought to be theirs.’”

Any type of faction (rich or poor, Christian or Muslim, white or Black) can be downgraded psychologically as well as politically or demographically. The key is they feel a loss of status to which they feel entitled. There is a sense of injustice, a sense that current leaders have no right to be in that position. “Human beings are loss averse. They are much more motivated to try to reclaim losses than they are to try to make gains… In the twenty-first century, the most dangerous factions are once-dominant groups facing decline.” 

These are groups called “sons of the soil,” indigenous or historically significant to a region, rightful heirs (in their minds). They have privileges not shared by “outsiders,” and they are twice as likely as other factions to rebel. Because they are dominant, they can organize well, and their grievances can be overwhelming. Their privilege just seems natural. Theirs is the official language (a powerful economic and educational benefit), and their elders are the rulers of the population as a whole. Their religious practices dominate.

Sons of the soil are most commonly downgraded by simple demographics due to migration and/or birth rates - and democratic elections provide the head count that determines whose country it really is. As the demographic landscape changes, the political landscape changes.

To the surprise of many, income inequality has finally (since 2010) been identified as NOT a good predictor of violence. Economic factors do matter; they do aggravate existing anger and resentment. Even economic discrimination that is not intended can cause resentment. Modernization and globalization tend to disproportionately affect sons of the soil, who tend to be rural and less educated. “The advantage they once had - of being first on the land - not only disappears; it becomes a handicap.” Then they feel forgotten and ignored.

 “… immigration is often the flashpoint for conflict… It is especially alarming, then, that the world is entering an unprecedented period of human migration, in large part due to climate change.” Scarcity of resources due to climate change could also fuel conflict. “…armed conflict [is] more likely in ethnically fractionalized countries after climate-related disasters.” The downgraded have even more reasons to rise up.

 CHAPTER 4: WHEN HOPE DIES

Although the Catholics of Northern Ireland have been suppressed and dominated consistently since the twelfth century, it was not until 1969 that they finally began to fight back. Three years later, “The Troubles,” as the Irish Catholic/British Protestant civil war has come to be called, was launched. “Catholics didn’t want war. They had peacefully protested for decades to gain fair political representation and equal treatment.” They had tried every kind of peaceful protest and demonstration. “But Protestants… had shown no interest in compromise. Nothing changed… Catholics trusted that at the end of the day, the British would protect them.”

Finally, the Irish Catholics realized they had no choice but to fight back. “Once Britain took the side of the Protestants and targeted Catholics, hope died.” Downgraded populations can endure a lot - until they lose hope. When they were unsure of their future, they could remain hopeful, but “Hope shrinks in the face of blatant government brutality.” The same pattern was followed by the Sunnis in Syria: Once it was clear that Assad would offer no concessions, no alternatives, they had no choice but to go to war. One speech by Assad “destroyed their faith in the future.”

“Protests per se don’t lead to civil war. In fact, protests are fundamentally about hope.” People protest because they believe their government will listen, the system will correct itself. It’s when protests fail that violence begins. “This is why civil wars are often preceded by years of peaceful protests.” This has been true all over the world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Autocracies and democracies are somewhat prepared to keep protests under control; anocracies are often too weak to do so. Violent extremist groups can take advantage of that.

Now consider government response to protests in factionalized countries: “… governments are more likely to negotiate - and less likely to crack down - when a protest group includes a wide assortment of a country’s population.” Ethnic or religious factions are not “assorted” and so do not incentivize the government to compromise. It is easier to hunt down and punish an ethnically exclusive faction.

“Protests are a warning sign… there have been more protests in the last ten years than at any time since data began to be collected in 1900.” They have increased the most in countries deemed to be “free.” And they’re “failing at a higher rate than ever before.” Over the past twenty years, the success rate of protests (getting the desired action) has been reduced by about half.

When a country is “ripe for civil war,” both protests and elections can be devastating. One trigger can be ethnic identity used as a political tool. Opponents might claim unfair electoral policies. When a downgraded group loses an election in a factionalized anocracy, the chance for violence rises significantly. Consider Burundi’s Tutsis in 1993, Ukraine in 2014, and the United States after the election of Lincoln without the support of Southern Democrats.

Elections per se are no more dangerous than protests; they are usually a source of hope. “But if the losing side believes that it will never gain or regain power, then hope disappears.” America’s 1860 election, without a single electoral vote from the once-powerful South, is a case in point. “Two consecutive losses indicate that a party does not have the votes to gain control and is thus likely to be excluded from power.” [As of this writing, I can’t help but consider the possible consequences of Donald Trump losing again in 2024.] Winner-take-all systems like ours, that make the winner head of state, head of government and commander in chief, have historically had a high degree of political violence.

Majoritarian systems (with no proportional representation) like the U.S. are even more fraught when ethnic factionalization is part of the picture. Then, when election fraud is evident, excluded groups see no legitimate means to regain power. Even worse, elections themselves can encourage factionalism if a politician “plays the race card” to garner votes. Campaigning itself can build the critical infrastructure to create a protest movement. “The line separating an organized political faction from an armed faction can be dangerously thin - particularly in countries where weapons are easily accessed and distributed.” [Need I remind you that we have, in the U.S., more guns than people?]

“Civil war is sometimes traced to a single incident: a trigger.” Actual examples: an isolated massacre of ethnic army recruits; the killing of one person of a different religion; a devastating earthquake. But “most of the time, civil wars start with small bands of extremists… who care more deeply about power and politics than the average citizen.” Often they have met together for decades before planning an attack. In the U.S., militias (almost all radical white secessionists) began to crop up 30 years before the Civil War broke out. “By the time average citizens are aware that a militant group has formed, it is often older and stronger than people think.” 

Governments can inadvertently recruit for militant groups by responding with brutal force, thus encouraging a backlash. It happened in Syria when the government overreacted to citizens begging for peace - and opened fire on them. Of course militants know this and plan for it, stockpiling weapons in schools, churches, etc. Harsh government response has been a useful recruiting tool in the past. When governments decide to play hardball, the extremists are already militarized; it’s the average citizen that is now recruited. 

Even peaceful protest movements, manipulated by violent extremists, can provide chaos sown by “violent conflict entrepreneurs.” Some governments believe their very survival is at stake, though, and leaders of multi-ethnic countries might come to believe that it is conflict itself that will hold the country together. “I found that leaders were less inclined to negotiate - and more likely to fight - in nations with multiple potential separatist groups.” They fear a secessionist chain reaction; fighting will deter future challenges.

“Key government constituencies - a ruling elite, a voting base, the military brass - can also nudge a country toward conflict. And government ignorance can also lead to conflict if government is out of touch in a certain region. Once emotions run high and fear sets in and people seek revenge, it can be too late. “That’s why the early acts of terror by members of a downgraded group are often more dangerous than people realize.” And guess what: Social media is the best tool for extremist groups and violence entrepreneurs.

 CHAPTER FIVE: THE ACCELERANT

Between 2011 and 2015 in Myanmar, access to the internet soared from 1% to 22%. “…it was a disaster in the making.” Buddhist monks immediately targeted Muslims on Facebook, describing them as invaders. (Buddhists are Myanmar’s “sons of the soil.”) Group pages demanded the Rohingya be deported. The military began to use Facebook “to post hate speech and false news stories,” fanning the flames of fear. The government, intimidated by the military, went along with it. Within a year, we began to hear of ethnic cleansing campaigns… “the violence was being stoked by falsehoods circulating on Facebook… Journalists who reported on ethnic cleansing and military crimes were imprisoned… Facebook turned a blind eye.”

“A year later, a Norwegian phone company named Telenor entered the market in Myanmar, letting its cellphone purchasers use Facebook without paying any data charges, massively increasing the platform’s reach.”  Alerts to Facebook from many sources continued; Facebook remained silent. “By January 2018, an estimated 24,000 Rohingya people had been killed, with an additional 18,000 Rohingya women and children raped or sexually assaulted. Another 116,000 were beaten, 36,000 were thrown into fires…” and 700,000 were forced to flee - “the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War.” A beloved Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote on Facebook that it was all fake.

According to V-Dem, the Swedish research institute, these countries have noticeably declined as democracies: Spain (largest European decline), Greece, Germany, France, UK, Ireland, Austria. “Denmark, the number one ranked democracy for most of the past hundred years, has been downgraded 10 points on V-Dem’s scale; Sweden has been downgraded 35.” Africa had remained an outlier, becoming more democratic, not less. And “its countries experienced the least amount of internet penetration anywhere in the world” (with the exception of North Korea). Internet access began to increase in Africa in 2014, and “the level of conflict began to rise.” New experiences in Africa: fake videos, “access to the internet, where Facebook dominated… hate speech promoted on social media…”

Our radically new information environment is the hugest cultural shift in this century. Today more than 70% of Americans get at least some of their “news” from social media. Charlatans and demagogues who’d been shut out of the media environment now have a platform. Within five years (2009 to 2014) misinformation and disinformation skyrocketed. “A clear pattern emerged: ethnic factions grew, social divisions widened, bullying populists got elected, and violence began to increase. Open, unregulated social media platforms turned out to be the perfect accelerant for the conditions that lead to civil war.”

The business model is the problem: The longer visitors are engaged on the platform, the higher the advertising revenue and the more behavioral data collected. In 2009, both Facebook and Google’s YouTube launched an algorithm to predict future preferences based on past “likes” and clicks. And what do people prefer? “…fear over calm, falsehood over truth, outrage over empathy… posts that are incendiary… outrageous, angry content… exactly the type of information that leads them toward anger, resentment, and violence.” NYU discovered that each moral or emotional word on Twitter led to a 20% increase in retweets. Pew Research found that “indignant disagreement” earns twice as many likes and shares as other content.

Even worse, “recommendation engines” based on that algorithm channeled users toward more narrow and extreme information. One university researcher analyzed 54 million comments over four years in different Facebook groups: “the longer a discussion continued, the more extreme the comments became.” [I experienced this firsthand in my recent bid for re-election to City Council. It was my first personal experience with hatred on social media, and the longer the conversation continued, the nastier the comments became.]

What makes social media accelerate civil wars is that the business model has no investment in truth; it simply must be “all-absorbing.” And there’s no incentive to restrict it in any way. In 2018 Mark Zuckerberg admitted Facebook had contributed to violence in Myanmar, and “he promised to do everything in the company’s power to stop the flow of hate speech and misinformation.” The results seemed to many “grossly inadequate… It was also too late to stem the tide… Twitter also declined to take down most of its posts.” So dominant was Facebook in Myanmar that, when the president resigned in 2018, he announced it first on Facebook.

Imagine a claim of election fraud following elections in November 2020! It happened in Myanmar, followed by a military coup that ousted the rightfully elected team. Protesters and police clashed in the streets. “The military quickly began to crack down on peaceful protesters, shooting civilians…beating and throwing protesters in jail.” The generals’ personal Facebook pages “channeled copious amounts of propaganda to rationalize the coup and rally low-ranking officials.” A year ago, one nonviolent protester admitted that he’d already begun secretly training to fight, should civil war come.

Social media has become “the vehicle that launches outsiders with autocratic impulses to power.” Consider winners Erdogan, Modi, Rajoy - dark horse candidates and social media savvy, all able to circumvent the traditional gatekeepers. And they “capitalize on the best drivers of engagement - fear and outrage - to disseminate lies…” Sudan’s government employed “cyber-jihadists”! Venezuela used manipulated footage! In Kenya, social media users co-opted the logos of trusted news outlets like CNN and BBC! “Before, autocracy came about when military generals launched coups. But now it’s being ushered in by the voters themselves.”

Social media outlets help sow doubt about democracy, representative government, free press and more - and to stoke fear. “Finally, they can cause citizens to question the results of an election, claiming fraud… that the election has been stolen…” [Imagine! Serving on City Council in Green Bay beginning in April 2020, I experienced it daily.] Ultimately, the people “place power in the hands of the charismatic individuals who promise protection and a certain future.” Social media allows a long-shot candidate to position “himself as an outsider… fighting for the people… against a crooked political elite… by the time they consolidate power, they have successfully…” convinced voters that “anti-democratic measures are needed to preserve the country’s peace and their own prosperity.” They even hire people in foreign countries to create fake social media accounts and harass critics and praise the candidate.

“The way social media is constructed is Darwinian… survival of the fittest… most aggressive and brazen…” And it facilitates the first step toward factionalism: heightening ethnic, social, religious and geographic divisions. The divisive content is incredibly engaging, and the algorithms encourage it, “tearing societies apart.” In 2014, when Sweden, widely considered the most progressive country with the most generous welfare system, added a third political party - of neo-Nazis!! - people wanted to know how and why! Here’s what they found:

·      The party began in 1988 and was reformed in 2005: no more boots and swastikas.

·      But the media ignored them, and the postal service wouldn’t even deliver their mailings.

·      The 2005 “reformer,” however, was a web designer! In 2009 he launched an online presence of numerous Facebook pages, a website, and two of their own news websites.

·      Much of the information was misleading, but it found an audience. 85% of election-related “junk news” in 2018 came from those two sites: 1 million+ views weekly!

·      Within a year they had seats in parliament; four years later, it was #3 nationally!

“This is an identity faction that sees its historical rights at stake.”

Social media allows ethnic entrepreneurs to shape a toxic view of “the other” - and they garner many millions of views on YouTube. Modi denigrates non-Hindus to 47 million+ followers. And the algorithms of social media reward it. Democracy’s guarantee of free speech, which used to work against demagoguery and promote healthy public discourse, now exploits and inflames racial tension. In France, Jean-Marie La Pen employs 15 social media staffers. The “myths and losses of sons of the soil prove irresistible to an audience made captive by social media.” And “populism” messages trigger strong, primitive reactions like anger and fear. 

“People don’t realize how vulnerable Western democracies are to violent conflict.” They seemed stable and resilient - until social media allowed their enemies to destabilize them from within. In 2016, a 33-year-old Berkeley grad - a legitimate journalist on a mission - sought to learn how quickly and easily a person could join a militia via Facebook. He liked three militia groups, then liked all the other ones to which the algorithm directed him. Then he opened his own account and mounted negative posts about Obama, the American flag and immigrants. Next, he sought to friend members of the militia groups he’d joined. He had 100+ new friends within days. Soon he was invited to an actual event - he was to arrive armed, with a body cam and medical supplies.

Social media draws like-minded people together. When it intersects with extremists thirsting for violence, “it creates a powder keg.” Facebook even “hosts ‘sprawling online arms bazaars.’” From 2012 to 2016, most white nationalist groups on Facebook grew their membership by 600%. Now the groups seem to be consolidating. The Islamic State, through websites, chat rooms and social media, has recruited at least 30,000 warriors to Syria from about 100 countries. It’s reported that the media people in the movement get paid more than the soldiers. And they try to elbow into nonviolent resistance movements and agitate them to violence also.

Social media algorithms are the key to accelerating violence, “promoting a sense of perpetual crisis.” Violence breaks out “when citizens become convinced that there is no hope of fixing their problems through conventional means… compromise is simply not possible.”

CHAPTER SIX: HOW CLOSE ARE WE?

[Here the author reviews the events of January 6, 2021, mentioning the role of social media in planning and promotion of the four-hour Capitol siege that left five dead.] Trump’s final tweet during the January 6 riot claimed “that it was the natural consequence of an election victory being stripped away from ‘great patriots’ who had long been mistreated. ‘Remember this day forever!’”

Trump’s defiance mirrored previous leaders’ refusals to accept election results: Venezuela’s Maduro; Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo. “Venezuela slid toward authoritarianism; the Ivory Coast descended into civil war… this is where political science, with its structured approach to analyzing history as it unfolds, can be so helpful… The United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.” Our polity index score, based on data collected since 1776, has moved as follows:

o   Anocracy between 1797 and 1800 (limited political competitiveness)

o   Increase to +6 in 1801, inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, a Democrat-      Republican

o   Increase to +10, inauguration of Andrew Jackson, Democrat

o   Decrease to +8, lead-up to Civil War due to Southern Democrats’ behavior

o   Decrease again to +8, 1960s, early ‘70s: mass demonstrations, assassinations,      predatory Nixon tactics, government directing violence toward its own people

o   Increase to +10: Civil rights legislation, Watergate investigation, Nixon       resignation

o   Decrease to +8: 2016 presidential election:

§  Election rules changed due to partisan interests

§  Voting rights not guaranteed for all citizens

§  Systematic online Russian campaign to interfere

§  Immediate erosion of constraints on the executive branch:

·      Purged government figures not Trump loyalists

·      Used bureaucratic operations to punish opponents

·      Constant effort to expand executive powers

·      Refusal of president to release tax returns

·      A rash of executive orders

·      Pardoned guilty friends of crimes

o   Decrease to +7 in 2019 due to Trump refusal to cooperate with Congress on impeachment inquiry; House and Senate Republicans willingly followed lead.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., called the Trump administration “an imperial presidency.” The U.S. “is now classified, in terms of executive restraints, in the same category as Ecuador, Burundi, and Russia.” When 2020 brought a pandemic, a teetering economy, race riots and police killings of Black citizens, Trump chose to undermine citizens’ trust rather than shore it up. He attacked mayors and governors and threatened protesters. Then he intentionally undermined the trustworthiness of vote-by-mail.

On January 6, 2021, the U.S. polity index score dropped from +7 to +5, the lowest score since 1800.“The United States is an anocracy for the first time in more than two hundred years… We are no longer the world’s oldest democracy.” (Canada, Costa Rica and Japan are all rated +10.) A few of the guardrails of democracy did hold: the judicial system; Republican state officials bullied by Trump; the military. Other reasons for hope include the immediate return to work by Congress after the riot was quelled; certification of the election and a peaceful transfer of power; FBI investigation of the January 6 rioters; Pentagon internal review of far-right extremists within its ranks.

“We have transitioned from a full democracy to an anocracy in just five years… precipitous… unprecedented… A partial democracy is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy.”

“James Madison and Alexander Hamilton believed that if American democracy were to die, it would happen at the hands of a faction… a homegrown group, ravenous for control.” The founders expected such a faction to be rooted in class - i.e. property ownership. It turns out that the most threatening faction is rooted in ethnic identity. In 1789, all voters were white men. “Today, the best predictor of how Americans will vote is their race”:

·      About 66% of Black, Latino and Asian Americans consistently vote for Democrats

·      About 60% of white Americans vote for Republicans

In the mid-1900s, the ethnic minority vote was split between the two parties. In 2007, whites were as likely to be Democrat (51%) as Republican. “Today 90% of the Republican party is white.” The turning point was proposal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, backed by a white Democratic president and opposed by a white Republican challenger. 

 As early as 1962 Richard Nixon himself had predicted that a Goldwater success would make the Republican party all white, and “that isn’t good.” He changed his mind by 1968, appealing to racial resentment. From Nixon’s veiled racism (“law and order… war on drugs”) to Reagan’s “welfare queens” and George H.W. Bush’s disparagement of Willie Horton, the racist appeals continued. Recall the accusation that George W. Bush’s campaign spread rumors that John McCain had fathered a black child.

 Religion was next, with the pro-life positions of the Republican Christian right and the pro-choice positions of Democrats. From partisan divides on abortion to gay rights and transgender rights, moral imperatives and cultural identity were the forces driving voting patterns:

·      White evangelicals represent 2/3 of the Republican party.

·      Non-Christians (agnostics, Jews, Muslims) represent ½ of the Democratic party.

And party lines are increasingly divided by urban vs. rural too.

 “All of this was exacerbated by social media” and media titans. That was the atmosphere into which Donald Trump (“the biggest ethnic entrepreneur of all”) stepped. “…he embraced identity politics with gusto… His policies were nativist policies.” He was “encouraging ethnic factionalism,” replicating the behavior of Tudjman in Croatia, Hutu extremists, Bedie in Ivory Coast, and Modi in India. “No Republican president in the past fifty years had ever pursued such an openly racist platform, or championed white, evangelical Americans at the expense of everyone else.” Republican leadership quickly saw a way to enact their own agendas through loyalty to Trump.

 Remember, factionalism is measured on a 5-point scale:

“In 2016, the United States dropped to a 3 - factionalized - and it remains there today, alongside Ukraine and Iraq.” [This book was published one month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began - just for reference.] “(The United Kingdom also fell to a 3 in 2016.)” This level of factionalism in our country has been seen only twice before: just before the Civil War, and during the civil rights demonstrations of the mid-1960’s.  Remember that 66% of Republican members of the House of Representatives voted against certifying Joe Biden as president. “It was James Madison and Alexander Hamilton’s worst fear: the dismantling of democracy by a faction’s cynical bid for power.”

In our country’s first 219 years, every U.S. president was a white man, as were almost all U.S. senators, representatives, Supreme Court justices, and cabinet members. And remember that “Manifest Destiny,” laying claim to all the riches of the continent, belonged to white Protestants. 

The election of Barack Obama shattered the myth. And, in 2012, for the first time in history, the majority of babies born in the US were non-white. The Hispanic and Asian populations had grown by 43% in the past decade, the white population by only 6%. By 2045, “white” will likely no longer be the majority. “Since 1989, the quality of life for the white working class with no college education [has] been declining”: income, homeownership, marriage rates, life expectancy. (Not so for Black and Latino working-class families or white college grads - their living standards have improved.) Jobs at local mills began to disappear; then entire mills disappeared. The government seemed to be abandoning the white working class, and young Indian and Chinese non-Christians were starting to live the American dream.

Trump used that feeling of alienation to gain power. “… he put the grievances of white, male, Christian, rural Americans [sons of the soil] into a simplified framework that painted them as victims whose rightful legacy had been stolen.” He “recognized their lives,” or so they felt. The urban-rural divide across the US is now racial/ethnic: white Americans = rural/homogeneous; non-Whites = urban/multicultural, just as in Turkey and Thailand. Rural areas are better suited to “mobilize violent resistance” in the U.S. as they were in Syria, Philippines and West Papua. Rural areas also attract veterans and support the gun culture.

In focusing on the grievances of sons of the soil, legitimate or not, the Republican party now mirrors Ireland’s Provisional IRA, Palestine’s Hamas, Yugoslavia’s Serbian Radical Party, the Islamic Party of the Philippines, and the Tamil National Alliance in Sri Lanka. Similar far-right parties have emerged - and succeeded - in western Europe. Other ethnic entrepreneurs have capitalized on Trump’s grievance focus: Breitbart News on the perils of immigration and “American sharia”; Mike Chernovich on Pizzagate.

And it’s all reinforced by social media algorithms. Researchers at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford have found that conservatives and Republicans “are more likely to share false news… [and] spread information that is intentionally misleading or not true.” This has been true in the UK also. “Almost everyone who scored highest on a widely respected racial resentment measure voted for Trump in 2016, while almost everyone on the opposite end of the scale supported Hillary Clinton.” 

The “racially resentful” are gravitating toward the Republican party. Over the past 50 years, we’ve evolved from a population in which most saw racial minorities as inferior to one where many believe all races are equal, but minorities demand too much: expecting government support and protection violates the “Protestant work ethic.” Today nearly 50% of white Americans are “racially resentful.” Civil wars are started by those who “once had privilege and feel they are losing status.”

Nostalgia for a better, simpler time often absorbs those defeated. This was true of the Confederates after the Civil War, and Trump “spun a similar narrative in the wake of his 2020 presidential loss… A movement turns to violence when all hope is lost... Citizens on the right are not just resentful of their declining status, they now believe the system is stacked against them.” Days after the Capitol siege, ¾ of Republicans continued to doubt the election results.

 Violence is becoming an accepted way to achieve political goals, up from 8% of Americans in 2017 to about 33% now. So how do we recognize the moment when hope is lost? According to the CIA’s decades-long study, insurgencies have a predictable life cycle:

·      Pre-insurgency: a group finds common grievances, creates a narrative about it, and builds a collective identity around it. Using that narrative, they recruit members and stockpile weapons.

o   Probably began in the U.S. in early 1990s after Ruby Ridge (ID) and the Branch Davidian standoff (TX)

o   Mid-1990s, active militias in all 50 states; Timothy McVeigh conducted deadliest domestic terror attack in U.S. history.

o   More militia growth in 2008 after election of Barack Obama - 334 by 2011

o   Militias now about 75% right leaning, about 65% white supremacist, “motivated by a hatred of other races and religions”

o   29% of militias now part of sovereign citizen movement: rejects authority of federal government

o   While right-wing terrorism used to rise with a Democrat in the White House and fall with a Republican in the White House, “President Trump broke that pattern.” To his followers, his 2016 victory was only the start of their fight.

·      Incipient conflict stage:

o   Discrete acts of violence - the McVeigh attack in Oklahoma City

o   Broadcast message, build support, provoke government overreaction to radicalize moderate citizens

o   Government becomes aware, dismisses as “bandits, criminals, terrorists, lone wolf”

o   2012: 14 right-wing terrorist attacks/plots; 2020: 61 (historic high)

·      Open insurgency:

o   Sustained violence, attacks involving terrorism and guerrilla warfare (assassinations, ambushes, raids)

o   More sophisticated weapons: IEDs

o   Target vital infrastructure: hospitals, bridges, schools

o   More fighters involved, some with combat experience

o   Penetration and subversion of military, police, intelligence services

o   Possible foreign support revealed

o   Effort to force a choice: us or the government - goal is a broader civil war

 Where is the U.S. today? “We are a factionalized anocracy that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage.” The attack on the Capitol January 6, 2021, might be the first in a series - it checked many of the boxes above.

CHAPTER SEVEN: WHAT A WAR WOULD LOOK LIKE

Consider this scenario: Climate change (fires and hurricanes) have people on edge. Then bombs explode simultaneously in several state capitols. People turn on the news, then turn to social media. Bloody videos stream in from all over the country - everything seems to be exploding at once. Assassination attempts are uncovered and foiled. Injured leaders of both parties cling to life as unexploded bombs are discovered around the country. Looting has begun.

It is unclear who is behind the attacks, how they chose their targets. It seems that many groups might be involved, but no one comes forward. Social media fills the vacuum as stories emerge and spread. Eventually a few of the stories are uncovered as fake. Three days later, a manifesto surfaces, castigating “radical left policies” and repeating recent conspiracy theories related to race, gun seizure and martial law. It warns of a “mixed-race, secular, socialist state” to come unless stopped. The FBI connects the manifesto to an ultra-right militia. Now we have two competing narratives: Is the country under siege from the left or the right?

Everything closes. Congress is deadlocked. Sporadic attacks now hit a wider array of targets. Americans don’t know whom to trust. Militias surface visibly. They claim to be “neighborhood watchmen,” but they harass minorities and threaten those in power who will not join them. No one stops them.

Now left-leaning Americans form their own militias to protect themselves. “Local law enforcement and federal agents increasingly fade into the background.” Americans must choose which side to join. Those strongly on the left demand more gun control and deployment of federal troops. New militias appear, seemingly associated with AfD in Germany and the far-right Russian Imperial Movement. Peaceful demonstrations explode into violence while drones circle overhead. Police respond, and the internet is full of photos of bleeding militiamen. Right-wing supporters respond. Hashtags go viral, and “on YouTube, QAnon influencers warn followers that the Storm has finally arrived.”

U.S. Senators use Twitter to call for unity, but social media is a cacophony of competing messages. Gun sales spike. Grocery stores are bought out. City residents begin to flee. Faith leaders call for calm, hoping to hear from a silent federal government.

The new civil war will be nothing like the last one. Today it is crazy for militias to think they could take on the American military as the Confederates did in 1860. Today, would-be secessionists are dispersed around the country, not in 11 contiguous states. Many states have a mix of left-leaning and right-leaning citizens. Civil wars today employ strategies of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, and they are increasingly aimed at democraticgovernments. Terrorists either extort incumbents into policies that favor extremism, or they intimidate voters into electing more extreme leaders. And democratic freedoms make terrorism easier.

If we have a second civil war, it will be waged in the shadows, using encrypted networks. Combatants will gather in small groups in retail shops, deserts, and woods. They’ll do their strategic planning online. “They will create chaos and fear. And then they will force Americans to pick sides.”

“Extremists typically find inspiration for their beliefs in certain canonical texts” such as Osama bin Laden’s manifesto or Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  In the U.S. we have “The Turner Diaries, which the FBI has called the ‘bible of the racist right.’” It’s a “playbook for leveraging racial resentment into war.” You’ll recognize the themes: you can’t trust the media, the feds will take your guns, violence - real-life war - is inevitable. This manifesto has shown up in connection with numerous violent extremist operations, including the Capitol insurrection.

We also have Siege, a 1980s American neo-Nazi text that advocates violence to create destabilizing chaos. It’s aimed at “the System.” A new version of Siege was released in 2017. In June 2020, The Turner Diarieswas #46 on Amazon’s best-seller list. (As the largest self-publisher, Amazon has become a popular market for far-right material. After January 6, 2021, Amazon removed Siege and The Turner Diaries from its site.)

Ethnic cleansing of some sort is often part of civil wars, although citizens generally don’t believe it could happen in their country. Forcibly moving minorities out of a region is one of the acknowledged steps toward genocide. Often the early steps seem innocuous, called “evacuation.” The first two stages are “classification” and “symbolization” - like ID cards for “the other” and symbols of pride (e.g., swastikas) for self. The U.S. has “moved through both of these stages”:

·      Ubiquitous Confederate flags, orange Proud Boys hats

·      Proposals for national ID cards synced to a government database

Stage three is “discrimination” - suppression based on law or custom. “Dehumanization” easily follows, as when the Hutus called Tutsis “cockroaches” or the President of the United States called Mexican immigrants “rapists and murderers.” Racial discrimination is well documented in the United States. The fifth stage of ethnic cleansing is “organization.” This is where militias form and start long-range planning. “Polarization” is stage six, with escalated propaganda that demonizes and separates and discourages interaction. Hate-filled radio broadcasts can serve this purpose.

Where is the United States today? “Solidly in stage five, perhaps entering stage six.” Militias have exploded; the Oath Keepers have been planning civil war since 2009. Extremists in the Republican Party amplify polarizing propaganda and even endorse violence (e.g., Marjorie Taylor Greene). The GOP has censured those who don’t fall into line (e.g., Liz Cheney).

Accelerationism! That’s “the apocalyptic belief that modern society is irredeemable and that its end must be hastened so that a new order can be brought into being.” It’s the extremist language to push insurgency and ethnic cleansing, to push change precipitated through violence - “any excuse to incite violence.” The hope is to unite all unhappy, disenfranchised whites, on both the right and the left. 

Atomwaffen Division (“nuclear weapons” in German), called AWD, hopes to incite widespread violence, cause a race war, and “rebuild society into a white utopia.” It’s a group of 50-100 young white men who are required to read The Turner Diaries. It’s small, but it’s already linked to numerous multiple killings and attacks. Members train in “hate camps.” (In 2020 AWD rebranded to the National Socialist Order or NSO.) They were among marchers shouting “You will not replace us” in Charlottesville, and it was that experience that convinced many of them that “huge rallies don’t work,” and they’d have to “go underground” and move to violence.

“Leaderless resistance,” now espoused by AWD/NSO, is not new. The CIA conceptualized it in the 1950s. It’s based on small numbers, de-centralization, and loose coordination - “small phantom cells.” Social media tremendously enabled such a concept. “Two groups on the forefront of this internet revolution have been al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.”

The Boogaloo Bois is a prime U.S. example of leaderless resistance. It is a loose affiliation of far-right groups that might be, let’s say, pro-gun or anarchical. They coalesced on social media but have no manifesto and no organizational structure. Some just want to create chaos; others want to kill immigrants. They simply agree on one thing: They must “drive America to civil war in order to change the status quo: Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo.” Their “brand” is a Hawaiian shirt [It’s a long story…], and they’ve been visible since early 2020. Facebook now has 125 “boogaloo” groups. The mask mandates and shutdowns due to Covid spiked their growth to 10,000 members.

“On Facebook, Boogaloo members share military playbooks and instruction manuals for developing homemade explosives.” They have a 133-page bible, the Yeelatonian, which guides them toward war by winning public sympathy and leveraging propaganda. They have quite a record of violent “accomplishments” to date. When one social media platform makes it difficult for them to communicate, they go to another. “…if there’s another civil war, these will be its soldiers… Most want the federal government out of their lives… fewer laws and restrictions on their freedom. An increasing number of them want white Christian men in charge. And all of them believe that violence is the way to make their vision a reality.”

“A look at how terrorists have prepared for, and executed, battle in other democracies can help us imagine how a civil war might unfold here… [using] datasets examining the many dimensions of organized terror campaigns.” Hundreds of studies have examined the who, when and how. Strategies terrorists use against powerful democracies include:

·      A war of attrition against people and infrastructure, until citizens “plead for relief and demand that the government give in to the terrorists’ demands” (Hamas and al-Qaeda excelled in this.) In the U.S., it might look like this:

o   Attacking high-value sites (churches, subway systems, Federal Reserve, monuments, liberal-leaning voters) until people “cry ‘Uncle’”

·      Intimidation to goad the population into submission:

o   Pressure federal agents, Congressmen, civil servants, judges not to enforce laws

o   Kill liberal politicians, judges and police who have favored gun control, abortion rights or immigrants’ civil liberties

o   Target moderate Republicans who don’t toe the line

o   Examples include: the Ku Klux Klan; anti-abortion terrorists who targeted Planned Parenthood; the El Paso shooter “incentivizing” Hispanics to leave the U.S.; Kenosha former city councilor who invited in the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse

·      Outbidding - terrorist groups competing for dominance by escalating level of violence in their actions (not yet seen in U.S.)

·      Spoiling - When peace seems possible, and more moderate insurgents are “winning,” terrorists cannot risk a deal or reconciliation. In the U.S., it might look like this:

o   A few strong, well-established terrorist groups form an alliance.

o   They sign a deal with the U.S. government “guaranteeing no future gun control legislation and a significant reduction in immigration,” or such.

o   The most radical anti-government and white supremacist groups, now left out (because their only goal is a white ethno-state), start a civil war to scuttle the deal. They’d likely need foreign support from U.S. enemies or foreign white supremacist groups in other countries.

Back to The Ten Stages of Genocide - we’re now at step seven: “Preparation” - a dominant group forms an army and indoctrinates the populace with “kill or be killed” fear. Once indoctrinated, the country can explode into steps 8 and 9: “Persecution” and “Extermination.” The final stage is “Denial.” Stage seven is “when the logic of genocide develops as a means of self-defense.” The real fuel of genocide is fear rather than pure hate. Existential fear leads to an arms race that only multiplies. “Defensive measures” spiral into war.

U.S. gun sales hit an all-time high in 2020 - 17 million sold in ten months! “Buyers are primarily conservatives… in response to Democratic electoral gains.” Many were first-time gun owners, driven by fear of lawlessness. If those on the left begin to arm themselves in response, “an armed population increases the likelihood of this kind of security dilemma.” Antifa (a loose affiliation of left-wing activists) is strengthening. Terrorist incidents perpetrated by left-wing groups grew by 12% from 2019 to 2020. Left-wing terrorist groups are showing up at gun shows, flea markets, and state fairs “to counter recruitment into white supremacist groups.”

Left-wing groups, however, are unlikely to start the war. They are a far more diverse populace and more loosely associated, and they simply have less to lose in a changing world and less to gain from violence. Time is on their side. Still, that threat will be invoked by right-wing extremists “to stoke fear and justify their own violence.” Trump set the example, suggesting antifa is the greatest threat. A violent left is a useful narrative of fear and encourages self-defense.

Even a small number of armed, violent activists can move the needle to “Extermination.” How? Intimidate the rest of the population into passivity. “The United States is not on the verge of genocide. But… stage seven could be on the horizon.” A sustained terror campaign would typically move the populace toward the right and authoritarianism. Even the 9/11 attacks, though inflicted from abroad, “caused citizens to become more active in politics, more involved in the military, and more likely to change their affiliation from independent to Republican.”

The number of Americans with a negative view of democracy grew to 14% in 2021. A Yale study found that only 3.5% of Americans - of both parties - would refuse to vote for their preferred candidate for doing something undemocratic. “Faith in government has plummeted.” Is Washington likely to do the right thing? In 1964, 77% of Americans thought so; in 2019, only 17% had such faith. Americans are also losing faith in each other - in the electorate. Would “army rule” be a good thing? The percentage who think so has risen 11% in the past 25 years.

 “America was lucky that its first modern autocratic president was neither smart nor politically experienced.”

CHAPTER EIGHT: PREVENTING A CIVIL WAR

South Africa in 1989 was closer to civil war than the U.S. is today. Key facts:

·      Apartheid that suppressed Blacks (who constituted 75% of the population) was far more repressive than the “pseudo-apartheid state the U.S. had until 1965.”

·      “South Africa’s history as an anocracy was much deeper than that of contemporary America, having lasted for decades.”

·      Both Blacks and whites considered themselves sons of the soil

And yet, South Africa avoided war. Consider the power of leaders: De Klerk and Mandela chose to work together. Nelson Mandela, recently released from prison, could have insisted on violent resistance, demanding full power for the majority Black population. “In 1993 both de Klerk and Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize… Mandela certainly had the moral high ground… But de Klerk’s actions were no less critical… Systems can change… If South Africa could reform, so can the United States.”

We cannot predict the future, but we can shape it. We know the signals of rising factionalism and violent extremism, but we can choose to carve out our future. “We too have a playbook.” [1] “Civil Wars are rare… but where they do happen, they tend to repeat themselves.” Most civil wars are now “sequels” that occur when a previous leader, who has gone underground, re-emerges, or old fault lines resurface. This new generation has lived with loss, felt downgraded, and is determined to reclaim what is theirs. “Experts call it ‘the conflict trap’… In 2014 I was commissioned by the World Bank to study the conflict trap… [in] civil wars between 1945 and 2009.” Results of that study: to avoid civil war…

·      strengthen the quality of your governance

·      double down on democracy - move up the polity scale

·      create more transparent, participatory political environments

·      limit the power of the executive branch

[According to a different World Bank study] “Improving the quality of a country’s governance was significantly more important than improving its economy… a wealthy country like the U.S. is more likely to experience civil war when its government becomes less effective and more corrupt, even if its per-capita income doesn’t change.”

[1] This is why I promote training in Strategic Foresight by Envision Greater Green Bay. They teach you how to scan for signals, recognize trends, identify likely futures, and drive toward the preferred future. Let me know if you wish to be connected with Envision.

Three key features of a democracy are most important in this regard:

·      the rule of law - equal and impartial application

·      voice and accountability - freedom to participate, express, learn and associate

·      government effectiveness - quality of public services; independence of civil service

“The quality of American governance has been declining since 2016, according to the Polity Scale, and since 2015 according to the V-Dem’s scale.” Accountability (free elections) has suffered the most. “In… 2019… the Electoral Integrity Project examined countries’ electoral processes and found that the quality of U.S. elections from 2012 to 2018 was ‘lower than any other long-established democracies and affluent societies.’” We ranked with Mexico and Panama, lower than Chile! Lack of a central elections system (unique to the U.S.) makes it easier to spread claims and feel unsure. Two steps we could take:

·      Republicans cease trying to stack the deck against minorities via voter suppression.

·      Adopt automatic voter registration through Motor Vehicles for all states, not just a few.

Those steps would not stop the far right from marching toward “a white Christian nation” that “depends on disenfranchising minorities,” but overall shoring-up could deepen trust. We could learn a lot from the 2018 voting reforms of Canada, which “received one of the highest freedom and democracy scores in the [2020] Freedom House Report.”

Gerrymandering tends to bring more extreme candidates to the forefront. If federal leaders would end this practice, we could “weaken the influence of extremist voters in both parties” and move toward bipartisanship. Another way to avert conflict through increased bipartisanship would be to re-examine the electoral college, “in its own way a form of political gerrymandering” that gives small states disproportionate power in the Senate. In other words, switch to a popular vote system that does not give preference to the white, rural vote. Of course that would remove the Republican party advantage, so its passage is unlikely.

Congress could “work to resolve another factor in Americans’ loss of faith in democracy,” however, by reducing the power of special interests: overturn Citizens United of 2010. Through that power of anonymous giving, “the handful of individuals who donate billions of dollars to float dubious campaigns also tend to be far more ideologically extreme than the average American citizen.” How? Follow Canada’s lead: close fundraising loopholes and reinstate campaign finance rules.

The flaws catalogued above move us further into the anocracy zone. Let’s reform it to be more transparent, accountable to voters, and equitable and inclusive of all citizens. We have been moving in the other direction. Very simply:

This vision ensures that government serves voters, not lobbyists, billionaires, and rural voters.

“If Americans remain ignorant about how power operates in American politics, then people with nefarious purposes will step in and take it away from them.”

•  One in four Americans cannot name the three branches of government!

• We spend 1,000 times more on STEM education than on history/civics![1]

We must teach our youth how our democracy works and the norms needed to maintain it., for “a stronger electorate to balance the power of elites” and “greater faith and trust in the system.”

“Most people don’t realize they are on the path to civil war until the violence is a feature of everyday life.” For Baghdad, Sarajevo and Ukraine, it was too late - they didn’t see it coming. Historically, extremist leaders hungry for war have reshaped normal life gradually, not upending it. One German from the Hitler era said: people could no more see it “developing day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.” We assume domestic terror acts are rare and isolated; we don’t want to believe that our biggest threat is from within. Politicians don’t want to talk about it - either they get support from extremists, or they fear political backlash if they turn on them.

A common buildup to civil war is infiltration of domestic security systems. We’ve been slow to identify it. A 2009 Homeland Security discovery that “veterans might be especially susceptible to” militia recruitment met with such a hue and a cry that it was withdrawn! However, three years earlier an FBI study had found white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement. A follow-up report in 2015 only strengthened the concern. Worldwide, recruitment of former fighters is a goal of extremist organizations. Obama was slow to respond to the threat; Trump simply ignored it. We continue to fail to grasp the true menace and reach of extremism in America. The Oklahoma City bombing initiated a flurry of activity in that direction, but it hasn’t been maintained.

Field-tested ways to undermine and disable extremist threats:

·      Reform a degraded government (See p. 26: ways to avoid civil war) - fix the problems that create the conditions extremists exploit

·      Renew our commitment to providing for our most vulnerable citizens of all races - undo 50 years of declining social services (If you live one small step from catastrophe, you’re a ready recruit for militants.)

·      Address grievances that affect a broad range of citizens, increasing social mobility, thereby undercutting the ability of extremists to compete with the state.

Sometimes the government has no option but to retaliate: “arrest, prosecute and seize the assets of insurgents.” Or pursue “leadership decapitation.” For example, most militant groups that participated in the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march are now legally banned from entering that city in a group of two or more. “…lawsuits have been particularly effective against the Ku Klux Klan.”

[1] From Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, formed by six former U.S. Secretaries of Education, both Republican and Democrat.

“Governments can also undermine extremists’ attempts to intimidate” by effectively protecting citizens from that intimidation. “Local citizens will gravitate to the group they believe is more likely to deliver security and success.” The government must provide “hard evidence that playing within the system is more fruitful than defecting.” We can outbid any insurgent group, but lawmakers “would need to feel safe enough to publicly support such measures.”

 “…it’s common to hear polarization described as the root of our problems… But political polarization does not increase the likelihood of civil war.” What does increase it? Factionalization - “when citizens form groups based on ethnic, religious, or geographic distinctions,” rather than being more strongly Democrat or Republican. When those parties become predatory, the likelihood is increased. “And nothing abets and accelerates factionalization as much as social media.” Take away that bullhorn, and you’d greatly reduce the risk of civil war.

 “A central driver to factionalism has always been conspiracy theories,” the targeting of an “other.” Portray that other as an existential threat to their way of life. In December 2020, 17% of Americans believed “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics,” a conspiracy theory launched by QAnon. Then QAnon joined the “Big Lie” conspiracy about the 2020 election. After January 6, 2021, some social media platforms cracked down on QAnon. “For the sake of democracy and societal cohesion, social media platforms should be added to the list [of industries the U.S. government regulates].”

 Our government’s regulation of social media could have a positive impact worldwide and also inhibit “foreign meddlers… any country, any group, any individual can use the internet to destabilize an adversary… Almost all the attacks were aimed at democracies.” The Kremlin has created 470+ accounts simply to infiltrate Black Lives Matter. “The larger goal, experts believe, was to inflame racial, regional, and religious tensions here in the United States.”

We need to reclaim and mediate our public discourse to “get off the path of self-segregating, predatory factionalism.” People are hungry for community. Civic groups meant to “rehumanize” citizens at the local level have sprung up all over the country: Civic Saturdays, EmbraceRace, BriteHeart, Living Room Conversations, Braver Angels. “We will need to show the world that a transition to a multi-ethnic democracy can be done peacefully and with no decline in prosperity.”

In 2045, it is likely that the U.S. will become the first Western democracy in which white citizens lose their majority status. Canada and New Zealand will follow, and then the United Kingdom, probably in 2066. It is a myth that the end of white dominance must come at great economic, social and moral costs; the myth is spun by “people who see power as a zero-sum proposition.” California and Texas are already minority-white - and the Texas economy has grown by 200%. Unemployment has dropped, and per capita GDP has increased by 52%.

Once California became a majority-minority state, following years of deterrence and punishment of immigrants, it began to “embrace its diversity.” The welfare and well-being of all residents began to improve, although the state is not without its problems.

Now, for the nation to embrace a truly multiethnic democracy, we must “navigate deep peril”:

·      shore up our democracy

·      move out of the anocracy zone

·      rein in social media

That will be our chance to avoid a second civil war. However, the migration forced by climate change will tear at our social fabric if we are not prepared. We must remember our founding motto: E pluribus, unum - out of many, one.

— Now, please read How Civil Wars Start by Barbara F. Walter. —

And please read How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt. Want to start with a short summary? It’s right here in the Speakeasy. Ready for a full abstract? That’s here in the Speakeasy too.