“It will never happen.”
That’s often a response I get when I start talking about why I think we’re headed towards a domestic conflict. Never mind that we’re seeing the early warning hallmarks of a civil war/domestic conflict; most people can’t be bothered to consider the possibility. But, in fact, we’re probably already in a very low grade domestic conflict and we’re just waiting to see when/if it goes hot.
Here’s the key thing about our future conflict: it won’t be a conventional war. We’re not talking about tanks in the streets or bombing insurgents into submission. The combatants of tomorrow won’t take part in pitched battles of maneuver warfare, but they’ll engage in what we’re already seeing:
political warfare
economic warfare
information operations/propaganda
cultural/class war
sporadic political violence
In other words, our war includes all the activities below the threshold of conventional war, but above routine, peaceful competition. Calls to boycott Tesla because Elon Musk donated to Congressional Republicans is an example of economic warfare. Boycotts of all stripes and terminating employment based on political affiliation is economic warfare; it’s intended to damage the livelihoods of political opponents. The steady stream of labeling as “fascist” and “Nazi” those who aren’t actually fascists or Nazis is information warfare intended to de-humanize political opponents and make them easier to target. Fomenting racial animosity and class war is a great indicator of social unrest because one of the requisites of domestic conflict is a politicized social base with a grievance; the bigger the grievance, the more the unrest. Politicized social bases who arm themselves to solve their grievances, instead of solving them through political channels, start insurgencies and revolutions. Violence against civilians to achieve political goals is terrorism. (We’re seeing examples of all these things, as reported in the National Intelligence Bulletin.)
It’s increasingly likely that we’ll arrive at a point where one or more of these politicized social bases arrives at the conclusion that their problems can’t be solved through political channels, or that nonviolent solutions are less preferable than violent ones. Some will scoff, but there’s a very good chance that we have another recession within the next few years. High youth unemployment is a universal early warning indicator of civil unrest, and we’re likely to see high youth unemployment during the next recession (and especially so as automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence change our economic landscape). We should absolutely consider the possibility not just that a domestic conflict is possible, but that it’s probably already here — again, just a very low level.
