Spinoff: How would a US civil war even work today?

[dora_da_destroyer]

People keep writing this (hyperbolic) statement in the election and various other anti-GOP/Trump convos about how a civil war could/would pop off due to XYZ. But even in letting my imagination wander, I don't see how this works.

• War is too tech driven these days and the military is under the power of the president - they'll mobilize and fall in line with the pres' call (whoever the president is) - the opposition doesn't stand a chance
• even if the military went against whoever was president, I'd feel like more of it would mobilize behind conservative lines
• then we get into civilian gun ownership where, i could be wrong, i feel red states and/or conservatives would be more heavily armed
• where do the battles take place
• lastly, i feel the only way the opposition stands a chance against the US military is by being aided by ally nations - who the hell would jump in this and what countries would align with whom

 

[Mr.Plan B]

China or Russia would rape us if we start fighting each other.

 

[jj23]

Yeah. I don't think any civilians really understand what war entails.

Destroyed buildings...snipers shooting you on the way to the supermarket...
Utilities bombed. Water poisoned...

99% of the people are just spouting off.

 

[DEAD7]

How would a US civil war even work today?

It wouldnt...

 

[Conan]

It wouldn't

 

[Althalucian]

Our politics is our civil war.

And just so you know: the American people are losing. Literally voting against their interests.

 

[krexzen]

You also have to factor in that there would be red and blue factions within nearly every state. It would be far more complex than the “North” versus the “South”. It would entail hundreds of skirmishes between rural and urban, and even along neighborhood lines. I think it really would be a highly unlikely and implausible scenario.

 

[radio rahiem]

Our politics is our civil war.

And just so you know: the American people are losing. Literally voting against their interests.

Either that or it might be an economical civil war.

 

[ill]

• lastly, i feel the only way the opposition stands a chance against the US military is by being aided by ally nations - who the hell would jump in this and what countries would align with whom

All of the wars on our soil have been influenced and/or financed by foreign nations in some manner

 

[NZA]

no faction can even defend itself from the feds, let alone supply itself with resources under duress. there needs to be decades of decay before civil war happens

 

[King Kreole]

I feel like people envision civil war with an 19th-to-early-20th century mental framework, probably because the American Civil War is still the dominant national frame of reference. People think of battlefields and cleanly delineated warzones and sides. A civil war in this era would look like most other wars from this era. Stochastic terrorism and asymmetrical guerilla activities. Think of Afghanistan or Vietnam. Not much the big, centralized force of the US Federal military can do against a mass shooting at a public gathering, or a bombing of public utilities, to say nothing of cyber warfare.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

I feel like people envision civil war with an 19th-to-early-20th century mental framework, probably because the American Civil War is still the dominant national frame of reference. People think of battlefields and cleanly delineated warzones and sides. A civil war in this era would look like most other wars from this era. Stochastic terrorism and asymmetrical guerilla activities. Think of Afghanistan or Vietnam. Not much the big, centralized force of the US Federal military can do against a mass shooting at a public gathering, or a bombing of public utilities, to say nothing of cyber warfare.

yea, that's the other view i thought of it from, but given that people who mention this want to see two americas - one for the left and one for the right - those tactics would simply make us the middle east, decades of warring and zero resolution. our short attention spans, shyt would be over by the time the new masked singer season dropped

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

People keep writing this (hyperbolic) statement in the election and various other anti-GOP/Trump convos about how a civil war could/would pop off due to XYZ. But even in letting my imagination wander, I don't see how this works.

• War is too tech driven these days and the military is under the power of the president - they'll mobilize and fall in line with the pres' call (whoever the president is) - the opposition doesn't stand a chance
• even if the military went against whoever was president, I'd feel like more of it would mobilize behind conservative lines
• then we get into civilian gun ownership where, i could be wrong, i feel red states and/or conservatives would be more heavily armed
• where do the battles take place
• lastly, i feel the only way the opposition stands a chance against the US military is by being aided by ally nations - who the hell would jump in this and what countries would align with whom

To me it's a bit more rhetorical than the textbook definition of a civil war. What I do see happening is continuation of development of different paramilitary groups, some of which will engage in terrorism. Think closer to Ireland/IRA. There are many parts of the country where these ppl can congregate in numbers large enough to have legitimate political power, at least on the local level (i.e. the police sheriff who was on code when discussing the Gretchen assassination attempt). Some of these groups will claim/preach nonviolence but others will not. They will test/probe the response by the federal government by doing shyt like preventing access by federal/state officials to areas/territories to which they claim control or authority over. The US military would never allow an actual civil war to break out. And bc the perpetrators here will be white, federal authorities will not crack down as ruthlessly as if we were talking about muslim jihadis or Black Nationalists (look at what happ'd with Clive Bundy).

 

[[Something Cool]]

I was just thinking about this. The military would quash any mass conflict quickly. Unless there is some fundamental breakdown in government. Plus, both political parties are too corporatist to have some knucklehead civilians fukking up the the economy. Lmao imagine dying at the Battle of Walgreens or some goofy shyt.

 

[King Kreole]

yea, that's the other view i thought of it from, but given that people who mention this want to see two americas - one for the left and one for the right - those tactics would simply make us the middle east, decades of warring and zero resolution. our short attention spans, shyt would be over by the time the new masked singer season dropped

agreed