I
had a bit of a nightmare last night – caused undoubtedly by my
viewing “The
coming
UK Civil War”
in which war academic
David Betz discusses
the reasons he finds this a near certainty – at one stage he
suggests this coming summer as a possibility. Listening
to him gives me the sense that he would actually relish this –
although other academics in this field (such as Lawrence
Freedman or Paul
Rogers) don’t give me that sense. This
recent
article in the Military Strategy Magazine gives a sense of his
arguments
The
major threat to the security and prosperity of the West today
emanates from its own dire social instability, structural and
economic decline, cultural desiccation and, in my view, elite
pusillanimity. Some academics have begun to sound the alarm, notably
Barbara Walter’s “How
Civil Wars Start—and How to Stop Them”,
which is concerned primarily with the dwindling domestic stability of
the United States.[ii] To judge from President Biden’s September
2022 speech in which he declared ‘MAGA Republicans represent an
extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic’
governments are beginning to take heed, albeit cautiously and
awkwardly.[iii]
The
field of strategic studies, however, is largely silent on the issue,
which is strange because it ought to be something of concern. Why is
it correct to perceive the increasing danger of violent internal
conflict erupting in the West? What are the strategies and tactics
likely to be employed in the civil wars to come in the West and by
whom? These are the questions which I shall address in this essay……
and
concludes
Moreover,
it is not simply that the conditions are present in the West; it is,
rather, that the conditions are nearing the ideal. The relative
wealth, social stability and related lack of demographic
factionalism, plus the perception of the ability of normal politics
to solve problems that once made the West seem immune to civil war
are now no longer valid. In fact, in each of these categories the
direction of pull is towards civil
conflict. Increasingly, people perceive this to be the case and their
levels of confidence in government would seem to be declining even
more in the face of the apparent unwillingness or inability of
leaders to confront the situation honestly. The
result, society-wise, is a reinforcing spiral calling to mind the
opening lines of Yeats’ famous ‘The Second Coming’.
Turning
and turning in the widening gyre
The
falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things
fall apart; the centre cannot hold…
The
fact of the matter is that the tools of revolt in the form of various
appurtenances of modern life are just lying around, knowledge of how
to employ them is widespread, targets are obvious and undefended, and
more and more formerly regular citizens seem minded to take the shot.
So
we are warned! Given polarisation, social media, general distrust of
most institutions (not
least the police),
the indifference developed by the newspapers to migrants and
other “scum of the earth” (to use the title of a famous 1941
Arthur Koestler book), anger
and fear
seem to have become the main features of many British people.
But
the David Betzs of this world seem determined to inflame these
feelings.
Betz developed
his view further in this article published in late 2023 The
Future of War is civil war
I
personally am convinced of the inevitability of outright, active, and
wide-scale civil war in North America and Western Europe. The
best that can be hoped for, I think, is to diminish the period of
horror. Some readers may be more optimistic; none, though, can
objectively deny that there are strong and well-understood indicators
showing that our current societal arrangements are failing at an
accelerating rate.
The
second part will briefly address the strengths and weaknesses of the
extant future war literature, focusing mainly upon influential works
of fiction rather than the quasi-rigorous outpourings of the
‘futurology’ discipline. For the purposes of analysis, I divide
these into three groups: military futurism, social futurism, and ‘the
unmentionables’. My argument, in a nutshell, is that we focus too
much on the first, too little on the second, and especially not
enough on the third, which is where most of the important
contemporary ideas are to be found.
In
the third part, I will attempt to describe the shape or character
of the wars to come which, in short form, I expect to prominently
exhibit the following: a distinctive rural verses urban dimension;
jarring societal splits along the fracture lines of multiculturalism;
a ‘hi-lo’ mix of weapons featuring extensive innovative reuse of
civil tech for military purpose, particularly attacks on
infrastructure; and a ‘shock of the old’ reversion-mutation to
savage tactics, notably the use of famine and destruction of shelter
as tools of coercion.
This
last section of the paper is based in part on approximately
ten years of lurking on the darker corners of the internet listening
to what incipient revolutionaries, neo-anarchists, and want-to-be
militiamen think and talk about….
I
shall not conclude with thoughts on what might be done to prevent the
occurrence of the civil wars that are coming because there is nothing
that can be done about it. The unfortunate reality is that society
has already passed the tipping point after which prevention of the
eruption of violent civil conflict is impossible.
I’ve
taken all day to do this post – it involved a fair amount of
background reading eg the statistics on policing or the UK debate on
racialism – not least the dispute on whether “institutional
racism” exists.
You
can almost see this guy rubbing his hands and saying “I told you
so”!
You
can also see him in this discussion - Civil
War is Coming and a new interview on 13 June
Further
Reading/viewing
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west/
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west-part-ii-strategic-realities/
View
from the Danube
(includes Goodwin input)
The
coming civil war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG_5dFaTje8
The mad Dominic
Cummings supports the notion
Perceptions
of Policing - a review of research (Ukgov 2023)
Policing
Surveys (2023)
Guardian
article about trust in police (2024)
2023
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-09/police-activism-impartiality-research-tables-ipsos-2024.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence#The_Macpherson_Inquiry
Institutional
Racism – fact or fiction? 2000
Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics N Dennis et al Civitas 2000
