Wilder: New Civil War 2.0 Weather Report

John Wilder has a new Civil War 2.0 Weather Report. This edition is a threat assessment: essentially, the advantages and disadvantages between the two sides were civil war to break out between red and blue regions of the country. The Red side is obviously at a disadvantage as to man power, industry, medicine, and other vital infrastructure, but it has the advantage of having lots of gun owners, veterans, and control over the food supply. I suspect that cohesion will be important to victory and it is less clear who has the advantage here. Wilder writes, on this point:

    Red Force coheres around land, faith networks, veterans’ organizations, and distrust of coastal institutions.  It fractures around personalities and between libertarian, populist, and traditional-conservative currents.
    
    Blue Force coheres through bureaucracies, universities, city governments, and remaining national media.  It fractures among socialists, corporate liberals, and identity factions the moment scarcity arrives.

But I believe that a Red Force would face additional fractures including, but not limited to, the large number of Hispanics living in rural areas as farm and agricultural laborers, farmers and businessmen dependent on federal subsidies and/or out-of-state trade, and the large number of liberals and progressives that also live in Red areas (even if they are not a majority). 

    Wilder also looks at some of the largest metro areas in the U.S. and the primary difficulties they would face if electricity was lost and food supplies interrupted. He splits these into areas that are most likely to quickly collapse and those that might be able to hold on. While Wilder does not discuss it, I would expect that the large metro areas would use force to obtain food and restore electricity and water that had been cut off. 

    Since this analysis is from the perspective of a fictional Chinese analysis of a potential civil war in the U.S., Wilder goes on to also discuss the "best" outcome from China's perspective; but he also looks at the impact on our neighbors and allies.  

    In addition to the foregoing, Wilder also has his standard monthly analysis of the factors that would predict wide spread civil unrest or civil war, so be sure to read the whole thing.