How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

by Barbara F. Walter

Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book shows us why they happen, and how to avoid them.

Most of us don't know it, but we are living in the world's greatest era of civil wars. While violence has declined worldwide, civil wars have increased. This is a new phenomenon. With the exception of a handful of cases - the American and English civil wars, the French Revolution - historically it has been rare for people to organise and fight their governments.

This has changed. Since 1946, over 250 armed conflicts have broken out around the world, a number that continues to rise. Major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya. Smaller civil wars are being fought in Ukraine, India, and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest.

In How Civil Wars Start, acclaimed expert Barbara F. Walter, who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations, explains the rise of civil war and the conditions that create it. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised, civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past. This urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, War, Political Science, Audiobook, Sociology

Audiobook

First published January 6, 2022

About the author

Barbara F. Walter is the Rohr Professor of International Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Walter helps to run the award-winning blog Political Violence at a Glance and has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, and Foreign Affairs.

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I hear someone say that civil war is coming in America, I roll my eyes. Not anymore! After reading Barbara Walter's book How Civil Wars Start, I now believe it can happen. Walter tackles this topic as a political scientist who studies civil wars in other countries. In this book she argues that America has shown signs that another civil war could happen as a result of events such as the Capitol Insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 and the attempted kidnapping of Gov. Whitmer of Michigan. She does this by explaining the factors that led to civil war in other countries such as: democracies/autocracies becoming anocracies, the increase of factions, the rise of ethnic entrepreneurs who stoke ethnic divisions in society, and the crucial role that social media has in fomenting division. She then outlines whether civil war can happen in America again. If you think it would happen like it did in the 1860s then think again. Walter argues that civil wars in the 21st Century do not occur on a traditional battlefield, instead guerilla warfare and terrorism are used. The most scary and depressing part of the book is Chapter 7, where she describes how a civil war would look like in America. The chapter is well thought out and seems very realistic, so much so that at one point I wondered whether it was wise to include all these details, she might give some bad people ideas. But then again, these ideas are blueprints that other groups have used outside of the U.S. or that are in the battle plans of the militias inside America. The book ultimately ends on a hopeful note, that America has a chance to rectify its current predicament. She gives many policy and civic solutions that can help pull the country from the brink. My only concern is whether our leaders and fellow citizens are up to the task of rescuing the country from the dangerous elements in our society.

Thanks to NetGalley, Viking, and Barbara Walter for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Civil Wars Start by Barbara F Walter is essential reading for anyone who has the uneasy feeling that we might be approaching a civil war but can't put their finger on how or why. Admittedly some readers, those who support the recent coup attempt, will feel their side has been "unjustly" singled out. And for some readers in the US their warped sense of exceptionalism will let them dismiss the entire field as not being applicable here. But for those of us who actually care about trying to make the democracy better rather than destroy it, the warning signs are made crystal clear and some prescriptive suggestions are offered for avoiding it.

I'm not sure I can accurately summarize the many aspects of what can make a society or a government ripe for civil war so I won't try. I can say that for every example she cites from other civil wars she boils the essence of what happened down so we can see where the similarities are in our own country. That is, if one is open to trying to stop the civil war and not on the side of overthrowing democracy in the country.

I found most of her prescriptive ideas valuable, especially the ones related to the form of government, namely the electoral college (get rid of it, it has outlasted its purpose) and the Senate. A couple of the social media-based ideas are a little more problematic for me. I don't disagree with all of it but would want to see a detailed concept before getting on board with too much banning of speech, though I have no problem banning things that are demonstrably false being promoted as true.

Highly recommended and a good starting point for both understanding and beginning to take steps to thwart the current attempts to overthrow democracy.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Read By Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's fine...everything is fine 🥲

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many Americans are concerned about what appears to be a growing threat of political violence and instability within our country, spurred by a climate of extreme political, cultural, racial, economic, and geographical polarization and exacerbated by the outrage-rewarding dynamics of social media and cable news. The forces threatening to pull the nation apart are pressing inexorably upon us; and one is hard-put to identify any institution that is effectively building up our social cohesion and articulating the basis of our unity. Fears of a real, violent political fragmentation are at their greatest pitch since the American Civil War: and according to Barbara Walter, those fears are justified. This book is of two parts: the first, a cogent enumeration of the conditions that make a country ripe for civil war; the second, an MSNBC-themed fever dream that proves the author to be every bit as hopelessly ensnared as anyone else in the factionalism and tribal insularity that she rightly decries.

The first portion can be summarized in brief: the best predictors of civil war are political anocracy: the condition when a state occupies a middle ground between democracy and authoritarianism, usually in the midst of a systemic transition that creates new winners and losers; and factionalism: when political parties become defined by the ethnicity of their members rather than by policy proposals, and seek only to advance the interests of their racial constituency. Oftentimes a previously-dominant identity group will feel itself to be losing out in a period of dramatic social change, prompting it to band together and assert itself along explicitly racial, religious, or regional lines to defend its perceived ancestral rights and privileges. In a factionalizing society, “ethnic entrepreneurs” emerge, stoking ethnic hatred and turning neighbor against neighbor for petty personal gain. In recent years, these dynamics have been hugely accelerated by social media, which rewards the most outrageous and polarizing content regardless of whether it is reasonable or even factual.

Yet when Walter applies these concepts to the American situation, it quickly becomes clear that she is only seeing half the picture: the threat of civil war, by her understanding, comes exclusively from right-wing, white supremacist radicals and their impish orange chieftain. She sees how elements of the right play on fears of white decline to shore up a racialized constituency, but not how a left increasingly divided between affluent white and Asian-American progressives on the west coast, their poorer and predominantly-Hispanic underclass, and the Democratic party’s older and more ideologically-moderate bloc of African-American voters in the south and northeast tries to fuse this rickety coalition together by invoking the boogeyman of whitecisheteropatriarchy; or how even prominent politicians and media personalities often resort to the outright demonization of white people and men.

She writes at length about the capitol riot of January 6, 2021, the Three Percenters, QAnon, and the Proud Boys, but has nothing to say about the 600 riots that occurred the year before, which caused over a billion dollars in property damage and spawned a wave of violent crime that has claimed hundreds of lives. Incredibly, she wonders whether the far left will “decide they should also arm themselves.” Those of us who are not civil war experts already know the answer to that question.

She stands aghast at Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, but makes no mention of the fact that even now, according to a Rasmussen survey from earlier this year, more than 70 percent of Democrats believe that Russia changed the result of the 2016 election: a false claim that was broadcast to the country by the news media and proliferated by Democratic politicians (including the losing candidate, Hillary Clinton, who has to this day never accepted the results of the election) for over two years. She bemoans the spread of right-wing disinformation, but not the fact that true information about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed by Twitter and Facebook weeks before the 2020 election after dozens of former intelligence officials falsely claimed that the story was “Russian disinformation,” insinuating that anyone who reported or believed the story was doing the bidding of a hostile foreign power.

She suggests that any opposition to illegal immigration is a symptom of white ethnonationalism, but fails to report that in 2020 Trump received a higher percentage of support from nonwhite voters than any Republican candidate since 1960, in large part due to a rightward shift among Hispanics in Texas and Florida that was largely motivated by Trump’s immigration stances.

In short, she herself has been factionalized; and this taints her proposals for binding the country back together. A strict regulation of social media would certainly help lower the rhetorical volume, as she recommends; but her approval of a sitting President’s banning from every social media platform suggests that she only wants the disinformation police to regulate the people she doesn’t like. She wants to do away with the electoral college, as if this would make rural conservative voters less alienated rather than more so. She thinks making the country more ethnically heterogenized through mass immigration will somehow decrease factionalization and the politics of grievance, rather than introducing new and ever more extreme cleavages—and new cohorts of ethnic entrepreneurs. One has to wonder whether her expertise is in starting civil wars.

[Matt (Fully supports developing sentient AGI) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few chapters of analysis of historical civil wars were moderately interesting. Rapidly devolved into a not-objective analysis of the United States. If you are a big fan of r/politics, you will love this choir.

[Cav · Rating 1 out of 5]

How Civil Wars Start was easily one of the worst "historical" accounts I have ever read... Where to start with this steaming pile?? It started off innocuously enough, then quickly slid downhill as it progressed; picking up speed as it went on.
While there was some interesting material presented here (mainly in the first ~half of the book), the finished product actually had me shocked at the copious amount of partisan rhetoric included, especially towards the end...

Author Barbara F. Walter is an American political scientist. She is known for her work on bargaining theory and political violence, especially the outbreak and resolution of civil war, and the logic of terrorist violence. Since 2012, she has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (God help us)

Barbara F. Walter:


Walter gives the reader her credentials early on in the book:

"As a scholar and an expert on civil wars, I have interviewed members of Hamas in the West Bank, ex–Sinn Féin members in Northern Ireland, and former members of FARC in Colombia. I have stood on top of the Golan Heights and stared into Syria during the height of the Syria civil war. I have driven across Zimbabwe as the military was planning its coup against Robert Mugabe. I have been followed and interrogated by members of Myanmar’s junta. I’ve been at the wrong end of an Israeli soldier’s machine gun.
I first started studying civil wars in 1990, and at the time, there was very little data to work with. You could read a lot of books by scholars on civil wars in Spain, Greece, Nigeria, and even America in the nineteenth century, but there were almost no studies that looked at common elements that repeated themselves across countries and over time. Everyone thought their civil war was unique, and so no one saw the risk factors that emerged again and again no matter where war broke out."

Unfortuately, her writing style here fell a bit flat for me. The first part of the book is a bit too dry for the subject matter covered. I also felt that it lacked cohesion and flow.
Sadly, these issues proved to be the least of this book's problems...

Walter opens the book with the recent plot by a militia to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. She conveineintly leaves out FBI involvement to the point of entrapment in this plot, instead focusing on the "white nationalist" angle. For anyone interested, this is what the BuzzFeed news report said:
"An examination of the case by BuzzFeed News also reveals that some of those informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than has previously been reported. Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the suspects. Instead, they had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. The extent of their involvement raises questions as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them."
This proved to be a harbinger of what was to come...

She lays out a base case as well, that should surprise roughly no one: When societies fracture into groups based on identity, religion, or geography; social tension increases. When two or more of these factors combine, the risk of war increases:

"WAR IS EVEN more likely, the experts found, if at least one faction in a country becomes a superfaction: a group whose members share not only the same ethnic or racial identity but also the same religion, class, and geographic location. In fact, war was almost twelve times more likely than if a group was more heterogeneous. Superfactions tend to form because ethnic groups often move together and settle in concentrated geographic regions where people interact exclusively with their own kind."

Walter also briefly covers many historical case studies in the book. Among them:
• Rwanda; Hutu and Tutsis.
• Bosnia: Croats, Serbs.
• Modern-day India: Narendra Modi
• Francoist Spain
• The Irish "troubles"
• Syria
• Myanmar

Alarm bells went off for me early on, as Walter drops tiny tidbits of writing that betrayed her partisan hand; calling podcast host Joe Rogan "provocative," talking about Swedish people's "xenophobia" in their opposition to mass culturally-transformative Islamic migration, and painting most American Militia members as "dangerous extremists."

And, extraordinarily ironically for a book about civil war and from a so-called "expert" on the topic, she has a very clear and vociferous left-wing bias, and makes roughly zero effort to exclude this bias from her writing here. She mentions the "far right" many times, and clearly implicates them in any possible future civil wars. She takes many shots at right-wing populist leaders; like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, and Viktor Orbán. She conveniently does not cover problematic elements of the far left in the same way, except to seemingly praise these people as brave factions fighting off a growing and imminent right-wing threat.

She devotes roughly one paragraph in the entire book to violence, and the threat of violence from far-left organizations, like Antifa, and Black nationalist militia groups like the "Not Fucking Around Coalition" (NFAC). She doesn't even once mention the term "far left" in the book. Oh boy...

The "far left," like you know - communists?? For an "expert" on civil wars, she seemingly attributes no blame to this destructive ideology in the occurrence of civil wars. And while I haven't spent the last few decades feeding at the government trough as she has, I do know that many of the world's civil wars post WW2 have had socialist agitation among their chief causes.
A cursory Google search brought me to this Wikipedia page, which lists 40 (yes, four zero) Communism-based civil wars.
Somehow, this has escaped the purview of this "accredited" scholar. What a joke...

And her rhetoric kept ramping up as the book progressed. This all became a bit too much towards the last ~third of the book, where she lets her rabid Trump Derangement Syndrome off the leash, and goes off on a borderline incoherent rant full of partisan jargon. Continuing on, she talks about "men," and "white men" in a derogatory manner. She then pulls out all the stops, and goes full tilt screeching leftist lunatic in Chapter 7, called "What a War Would Look Like," where she fantasizes about the evil white man hunting down Muslims, Mexicans, and other immigrants.
Jesus, what a fucking complete shit show . Her ranting here makes her sound like a borderline mental case...


*****************

There was some interesting information presented here; mainly in the first ~half of the book. However, the end product here quickly turned into an absolute dumpster fire.
Walter drops a few bits of partisan jargon early-on, and then intensifies that to a literal fever pitch as the book proceeds. This woman is absolutely the last person to give an objective account of the mechanisms that lead to civil war.
She should be taken as far away from any kind of power as possible.
Her editors should have had the good sense to reign her in. I'm shocked that they didn't, tbh, although this seems to be the way the wind is blowing these days...

So, points deducted for the bland writing style, and further points deducted for the inclusion of the author's clear and borderline zealous political bias.
I definitely would not recommend this one. This book is nothing more than low-resolution rabid partisan garbage with some data thrown in as window dressing, in a vain attempt to cover up the author's clear ideological possession.
Very disappointing. Thankfully, the book was not any longer, or I would have put it down...
Remind me to never ever read anything from this woman; ever again.
1 star, and off to the return bin, where it belongs.

[Colleen Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Walter is a political scientist who has studied civil wars for 30 years. The CIA was given the task to study civil wars when it was noted that there was an exponential rise in their numbers during the 80's and 90's. They examined the conditions under which they occurred and graphed the similarities. Walter studied civil wars simultaneously. Many of the results are things we have heard before but to my knowledge, Walter is among the first to put them together in one place. She studied upheaval in places from the Ivory Coast to Rwanda, to Northern Ireland. A graph was created where healthy democracies are rated at +10 and authoritarian regimes are -10. It is generally the case that healthy democracies are almost guaranteed not to engage in civil war, nor are authoritarian regimes. The risk is in the middle where countries become what are called anocracies. Since January 6, the U.S. has entered this dangerous place. Two things have been the driving force in the movement toward civil war. Madison and Hamilton warned of one of them when they wrote the Federalist Papers. Factionalism is where a minority gains power through a variety of means and threatens the stability of the country. The other has been the rise of social media where extremists have been able to connect with one another, frighten people into believing that their government is no longer serving their interests and that they need to arm and protest; the hope is that they become radicalized and are willing to resort to violence.

We are set to become a minority majority by 2045. White supremacists are frightened of this as they believe their dominance is threatened. They cannot accept that people from different cultures and maybe skin colors different from their own will be a majority. Perhaps they are afraid that when in the majority, the current minority will treat them as they have been treated.

It doesn't have to end in civil war. The author uses the example of South Africa, a country that, in the 80's was the country most believed would end up fighting a civil war. It did not because a leader emerged who was willing to share power and democratize the country. Walter believes that we can
resolve our differences in this country, as they can in other countries. She discusses what needs to be done, beginning with reigning in social media. She gives a variety of ways to do this and ends on a note of hope. This is an important book, especially at this time.

[Sarthak Bhatt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Umm. First of let me say that I am a classical liberal and am disgusted by both right-wing fascists and left-wing loonies. But my god I think the author lied a lot about India in this book, now again I am no hardcore xenophobe I'll die for my country any day but I'll keep on criticizing it when I think wrong is being done. So I'll say again I hate bjp, I think Narendra Modi is a gutter rat, he condemned millions of people to death during the second wave, so nothing can eradicate from my heart the intense hate I feel for all right-wing populists, as far as I am concerned they are all lower than vermin.

Now the author says India has had multiple civil wars, a lie we had one bloody partition and several small insurgencies. She also mentioned the entire Assam citizenship fiasco but just left it there?!? She didn't mention the fact that the then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi sorted the situation very quickly and he was later assassinated by the Sri Lankan separatists who were committing genocide in their country. Also, I was upset that this so-called 'intellectual' didn't know about the first ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits in the valley, she just hopped over to Yugoslavia and Milošević, now I understand this book is for America audience but really lady? At least set the record straight(you can't just skip the first ethnic cleansing just cause this time the perpetrators were Muslims). I can go on and on about the superficial things she said in this book. It's just poor research work. Plus her views on freedom of speech felt very odd to me, banning people for saying what you don't like is absurd. And she feels Canada is the best democracy, yeah suppressing peaceful protesters and accommodating terrorists is good for democracy 👍👍👍👍

[Wick Welker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ethnic factionalization causes civil wars.

This is an academic look of a political scientist reviewing the civil wars of Syria, Yugoslavia, Myanmar, Philippines, Rwanda and other conflicts in Ireland, South Africa and other countries. The author reviews the factors that cause civil war and then applies them to what is going on in the United States. I found this to be a balanced, measured approach to a very sensitive and volatile topic.

Despite what you may think, it is not wealth concentration, poverty and political polarization that causes civil war. Many people have lived for centuries or decades under extreme poverty and oppression without a civil war breaking out. You can have stability and mass inequity, I mean look at large swathes of human history and you find these conditions. Here are the conditions for civil war: when a nation is moving between autocracy and a representative/parliamentary democracy—a political state called anocracy. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter which way you’re going—either toward autocracy or toward democracy—the power shifts create the conditions. An anocracy is a semi-democratic government that has been loosely defined as part of a democracy but has a non dynamic regime in place that mixes features from both democracies and autocracies. Many modern governments are anocracies including the United States. So, the anocratic state sets the stage and the spark that leads to civil war is ethnic factionalization. That’s it, those are the ingredients. And then when you take the ingredients of an autocracy and ethnic factionalization an bake it in an oven of social media, very bad things can happen.

When the dominant ethnic group that has enjoyed long term rights and privileges termed the “Sons of Soil” feel their power threatened, this leads to ethnic factionalization. Once racial resentment rises with demographic shifts either from changing fertility rates or immigration, an “ethnic entrepreneur” (basically a nativist populist) can come along with all their dog whistles and dehumanization of the underclass and this will unite the dominant racial group that fears their cultural and economic power loosening. It is when the dominant group becomes disillusioned with the government and feels the trajectory of their power slipping when they factionalize. When this happens, the moderate bulk of the populace then falls into the black hole of extremism and they start supporting populist and nativist leaders. Of course, when actually oppressed groups feel their own influence and power slipping with failed protests and no government concessions, extremism and violence can flow from that as well as in Syria.

Modern day civil wars are not fought like traditional civil wars. Central governments are way too powerful for militias and paramilitary groups to fight on a battlefield. As seen in Myanmar and many other countries, social media is used to normalize the rhetoric and radicalize prior moderates and then decentralized paramilitary groups execute guerrilla tactics and terrorism. Disinformation is promulgated to obscure who is responsible for the violence and the intent is to weaken trust in the current government and force the populace to pick a side, thus spreading the factionalization to everyone. Needless to say, the United States has many red flags.

But civil wars are not inevitable. As with SouthAfrica, when leaders try to reconcile rather than seek vengeance or power, the populace can follow. Re-growing trust in the current government is key and this can be accomplished with robust social democratic policies that uplift people across race and class lines. The grievances of the factions must be remedied (without concession to the actual people executing violence). Increasing state services and social programs help prevent moderate people from being radicalized. Streamlining immigration and stopping illegal immigration is another great way to stop the flames of ethnic factionalization. On top of that, social media needs better regulation. The bullhorn of hateful, racist, populist demagogues needs to be highly censored. Yes, censored. Obviously that brings up other problems but social media companies are private companies that can and should make decisions of who to censor and who to not. This has nothing to do with the first amendment which doesn’t provide private protection for free speech.

Anyway, a great and timely book. Read it.

[Audrey Approved · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because my Dad thinks America will have a civil war. I'm way more convinced after reading How Civil Wars Start, especially if I adjust my mental image of a civil war soldier from a man with a musket, to a man on a laptop.

Split into two general sections, the first half covers the general characteristics of countries leading up to civil war, and the second half on how these characteristics can be seen in American politics. I found the former more interesting, and liked learning about all the case studies (to name a few - Ireland's IRA, India's Modi, the breaking of Yugoslavia, Rwanda's Hutu vs. Tutsis, South Africa's apartheid, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, and Syria's al-Assad). In particular, I found the idea of an anocracy (the unstable type of government between autocratic and democratic states) really interesting. The sections on social media were valid, but felt very surface level after reading This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.

The second section didn't have anything that surprised me... sadly... American democracy has been in decline for decades now, and the best way we can prevent factional division is by making it stronger and more efficient for all American citizens (across all political lines) - to this extent I appreciated Walter's addition of potential solutions.

Definitely worth picking up, although not a light read.

[Angie Boyter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+/4-
A truly scary discussion of the risk factors that lead to civil wars and how to avoid or correct them
As someone who has been paying attention to the news for the past few years, I welcomed this book by a respected political scientist whose specialty is civil wars, hopefully to allay my unease about my country today (I wish!) or at least to give advice on how to avoid further decline of civility and possible civil war.
The first part of the book explores worldwide what conditions exist in countries where civil wars arise, with an emphasis on the twentieth century. This is an excellent exposition, especially the discussion of communist or communist-leaning countries during the Cold War and the differences among them, nuances that were not brought out by the news during that period. Central to this section of the book is the concept of anocracies, which “are neither full autocracies nor democracies but something in between”. The author uses the Polity Score, a measure that employs thirty-eight variables to measure how democratic or autocratic a country is at any given time on a 21-point scale from -10 to +10. Anocracies score between -5 and +5. It was rather shocking to find that the US does not rank as high as I believe most Americans would expect. Not surprisingly, anocracies are the most fertile grounds for civil uprising.
A particular factor present when civil wars occur is factionalism, in which political parties break down along ethnic or religious identity rather than political ideology. As many as 75 percent of the civil wars since the end of the Cold War were brought about by such factions.
Walter also points out how civil unrest in the twentieth century differed from the past, especially the role of social media.
After this excellent, albeit disturbing, presentation of the factors present during civil unrest, the second half of the book opens with the chapter “How Close Are We?”. Pretty close, Walter argues, quite convincingly.
She goes on to make recommendations on how we can prevent it from happening here. This part of the book I found less satisfactory, partly because if the answers were easy there would likely not be so many civil wars but especially because her political views intrude excessively. For example, she calls for more gun control, more federal involvement instead of state control over many items, and limits on free speech in social media. There is little or no suggestion to look at what legitimate concerns might exist that extremists can tap into if the authorities pay no attention to them.
So the book ended on a down note for me, but the first half is definitely worth your attention. If we wake up to the danger and work together despite our political leanings, religion, or ethnicity, we CAN preserve democracy and, as Walter says “live up to our founding motto---E Pluribus Unum---…[and] become one.”
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good audiobook with its overview of civil wars and conflicts throughout the world, including the Croatian War and the Rwandan genocide which I'd like to read more about. The book continued with the rising signs of civil war in the U.S., with militias stockpiling arms, encouraging leaderless cells, and coordinating through social media.

The author gave reasons to hope at the end. But I'm not so sure. Should be an interesting ride. But, wait... the ride has already begun!

Highly recommended!

[Jeremy Anderberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's call this one a 3.5 bumped up to a 4. A sobering read. Walter, a scholar of civil wars around the globe, points out that US is much closer to civil war than is pleasant to think about. It's not the type of civil war you'd expect, though, with armies marching towards each other in battlefields—it would instead look like a more violent, widespread version of Jan 6, with small groups of militias perpetrating acts of terrorism.

What was most interesting to me was the concurrent rise of social media and global unrest. Whereas authoritarian wackos used to be fact-checked and have no platform, social media gives these people an a platform that's basically unchecked at all. It *seems* extremist when you say it out loud, but Walter's research (along with a few other books I've read lately) has me convinced that social media is an actual threat to democracy.

It's a 3.5 because I skimmed quite a few parts where she went into examples of civil conflicts worldwide to show how unrest escalates into civil war; it's important for a book like this to have those, I just didn't personally find those chunks compelling. But, the parts of this book that were good were *really* good.

[Ettie · Rating 1 out of 5]

VERY biased book. Written through one political lense and clearly meant to utilize an intellectual forum to further polarize the country by portraying all Republicans as human catalysts for an impending civil war in the US. The book leads up to this "revelation" by first examining other countries in what seems to be a balanced manner, examining multiple viewpoints within each country and explaining the various variables that contributed to a decline of a democracy or autocracy, and led into the more dangerous "anocracy" state. The author segues into the role that social media plays in this dynamic, a fact that no one can deny. The problems with her analysis start when she (strategically) fails to point out the symbiotic relationship between media and the leftist viewpoint, and the resulting phenomenon of increasing distrust of media and political leaders from the political right. Instead she jumps straight to the one and only Donald Trump and focuses on how his "hostile messages" and "disinformation" were spread via social media thus upending the fabric of our democracy and bringing down our Polity Score to the danger levels. (It makes you wonder who is in charge of changing the Polity scores for each country, and how are their own biases possibly playing a role in the scoring). So utterly disappointing. Another failure of a presumably intelligent, intellectual individual to analyze situations from full-scope viewpoints instead of huffily laying blame. Books like this should really broaden horizons and reveal the misunderstood viewpoints of all sides and parties, thus making matters MORE complicated, instead of simply trying to narrow the viewpoint to only what lies in the space between your own two pupils.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know. Mostly I just found it depressing. Could we really descend into anarchic chaos where the rich live in fortified enclaves and the poor are subject to everyday violence of politically motivated gangs and militias? Where it is no longer safe to drive across the country? I think probably not, but maybe. And though in most ways the threat of this comes from the right, there are also certainly people on the left who are pulling us closer to this nightmare scenario. I agree with Ms. Walter that there are lessons to be learned from similar countries that have had analogous problems of political polarization and a shift toward more authoritarian government. Unfortunately, Ms. Walter is better at stating the problem than at proposing solutions.

There are things that we can do. Get rid of the Electoral College, overturn Citizens United, get a better handle on redistricting, expand voting rights instead of contracting them, control the nastiness of social media and the Balkanization of political opinion that it causes, narrow the wealth gap, improve education, health care and opportunity for everyone. Unfortunately, though these are all things that would be good for everyone, there are too many people who oppose them out of fear that they will be done incorrectly or in ways that will go against short term agendas of the people who hold the deciding votes. Ugh. Why can't we all just get along?

[Jordan Lombard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit. We’re in trouble.

This is a must read.

I appreciated that this was written for the general public, and easy to understand. Politics often goes right over my head. She gives lots of examples of civil wars from around the world since WWII, before taking a close look at the US and where we stand. The comparisons were helpful, but also, I now have a better understanding of other civil wars.

This was fascinating and horrifying. I could not put this down. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic.

Again, this is a must read.

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read it after seeing it recommended on Quillette.

The initial 6 chapters are absolutely stellar.
Chapter 7 is also awesome - so realistic that it causes shivers. In some aspects it's eye-opening: the civil war can start in such a way that you don't even know who has caused it, who's fighting, and what are their purpose.

Unfortunately, chapter 8 is ... totally messed up. Like taken from a different book, like a different author, etc. While all the prior chapters are universal and could be applied to almost any country, chapter 8 is US-specific and ... extremely naive. I mean: Trumps supporters get their beating, so does QAnon and other right-wing idiots, but for some reason, the author underestimates the impact of left extremists, especially left-wing libertines AKA anarchists. That's one thing. The other is that the countermeasures proposed are simply outdated and naive. It was so funny when the author praised certain Californian policies just after reading "San Fransicko" ...

Aaaah, and final (negative) remark - the author should really read a bit more about what has happened with Janukovych and the election he "won". Her story is in fact quite far from the confirmed, documented, objective truth (btw. it's not the first book by US author that suffers from that issue).

Nevertheless, the book is definitely worth reading. Plenty of good, historical examples. In-depth analysis of how particular conflicts started. Decent mental model that depicts conditions that cause (or at least help trigger) civil wars. Good book (with a single chapter that should be carefully re-written).

[MM Suarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will just say that Dr. Walker has done an excellent job of explaining through studies of other countries the reason why a lot of us have this bad feeling that something terrible may be coming if we as a people can't find a way to turn the ship around. Dr. Walker details the different steps that lead countries to civil war and where the US currently stands on that scale, and while she ends the book on a positive note it did not make feel better about our prospects.
Voltaire said "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities", and with the absurdities now part of the daily narrative where does that leave us?

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

*These* are the kinds of books that keep me up at night. Thinking that America is headed down this path isn't overreaction or exaggeration or histrionic - it's fact. This book explained in plain language why. Truly terrifying, utterly essential reading.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Walter has given us a thoughtful, timely book that I wish more of us would read and ponder.
eaWhile her underlying theme -- as it may well be for us, the readers -- is "And how close is the United States to civil war?" -- she takes her time illustrating the conditions that she has found after years of study that make civil war more likely anywhere.

As a consequence, the book is a wonderfully informative survey of the several civil wars that have devastated the world in the last 50 years (especially useful for those among us too young to have experienced them). One of the many examples she discusses that might be of greater familiarity to most Americans is that of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. But she also presents fascinating portraits of similar civil dissension in the Balkans and Africa.

The comfort some people take from the United States being a "long-established democracy" could be true, she notes, only IF we were still functioning as a healthy democracy. But, as should be obvious by now to all, we have not been such a place for many years!

It is more than a little unsettling to read her conclusion that "It turns out that one of the best predictors of whether a country will experience a civil war is whether it is moving toward or away from democracy." If the latter, the clear danger zone is what she -- and others -- call "anocracies," the result of a democracy backsliding into a "pseudo-autocratic middle zone."

She also traces the rise of "factions" in various countries that have experienced civil conflict, and it is those same "factions" that the Founders of this country so feared and despised. (So much so that they -- quite unrealistically, I sadly believe -- made no provision for political parties in our Constitution!) The distinction between a healthy political party and one that has devolved into being but a faction is the focus of that group. If the "common good" roughly understood remains the primary goal, albeit filtered through that party's value lenses, and if they continue to regard their opponents as having a legitimate role to play, then the party is, as proclaimed, a "political party."

However, once a group begins to believe that it is in the preservation of their OWN power that the fate of the nation lies, and that those who disagree with or oppose them are both illegitimate and "the enemy" representing forces dire to the future of their country, THEN this party has become in fact a "faction" the existence of which is a grave threat to their country's survival.

I do not think I need to point out to most adult Americans -- especially those who are readers -- that this latter description has for years come to describe what has happened to the Republican Party in the United States as it has steadily -- and even, in recent years, more rapidly -- swung far to the ideological Right.

But she also mentions other factors to which all of us who care about a healthy society must give attention:
o The loss of status (real or perceived) that gives rise to grievance, resentment, and a desire for revenge
o The loss of hope -- when it seems as if "my way of life" is not only currently "lost" (or losing) but is irretrievably likely to be forever "gone"
o The "accelerants" provided by demagogues, the waving of "red flags," political tribalism, racism, and the poison of social media.

It is only in the latter portions of her book that she turns to the question of "what a civil war would look like here." Given the changes in this country since the first Civil War of the 1860s, it would NOT likely be one portion of the country arraigned in battle lines against another -- the so-called "red" and "blue" portions of our nation are really intermingled everywhere, even as are the rural and urban distinctions. She thinks the more likely scenario would be the intentional employment of violence by well-armed militia intended to strike confusion and terror into both members of the state and federal governments AND, importantly, the citizenry. IF such tactics endure long enough, and IF established governments at the local and federal level proved unable to put an end to such terror tactics, THEN a sufficient number of frightened citizens might be open to electing someone who will promise to "do everything necessary to realize law and order."

The outcome would not be a country that either thinking conservatives or liberals would desire but, rather, one well along the spectrum toward autocratic, semi-dictorial control.

And so how do we prevent such a seemingly looming outcome?

Unfortunately, as all of us who have thought about this honestly must have come to realize, there is no magic, simple, one step-to-save-us-all action. Rather, she reiterates steps that a number of thoughtful people -- notably, most of whom are NOT in a position to advance their proposals -- have offered: abolish or reform the Electoral College; advance voting right protections and expand voting opportunities; abolish gerrymandering and end partisan primaries, and -- among the most desirable even if improbable -- end the self-grouping insanity allowed by and through "social media."

Unfortunately, all but the last are solely in the hands of those who currently hold power, and they are the very ones who continue to profit from the way things are. Regarding social media, all of us face the challenge of how to "regulate" or "control" what at first glance seems to fall under the protection of the First Amendment.

HOWEVER, I refuse to accept that democracies are essentially powerless to protect themselves against the most insidious enemies of democracy, which is clearly what many who are using electronic media are. We must as an adult people take on the challenge of deciding what WE wish to allow and what WE recognize as a clear and present danger. I have no illusion that this would be an easy process, but, God help us, our refusal to tackle the issue threatens our very survival as a relatively free people.

[Jenel]

Dana Milbank's Op Ed in December 2021, and quoted in total below, prompted me to add this book to my list.
"If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own.
Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.
Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”
Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.
Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.
U.S. democracy had received the Polity index’s top score of 10, or close to it, for much of its history. But in the five years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone; by the end of his presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5, making the country a partial democracy for the first time since 1800. “We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy,” Walter writes. “That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated a +10 on the Polity index.”
Dropping five points in five years greatly increases the risk of civil war (six points in three years would qualify as “high risk” of civil war). “A partial democracy is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy,” Walter writes. “A country standing on this threshold — as America is now, at +5 — can easily be pushed toward conflict through a combination of bad governance and increasingly undemocratic measures that further weaken its institutions.”
Others have reached similar findings. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance put the United States on a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report last month. “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself," the report said. And a new survey by the academic consortium Bright Line Watch found that 17 percent of those who identify strongly as Republicans support the use of violence to restore Trump to power, and 39 percent favor doing everything possible to prevent Democrats from governing effectively.
The question now is whether we can pull back from the abyss Trump’s Republicans have led us to. There is no more important issue; democracy is the foundation of everything else in America. Democrats, in a nod to this reality, are talking about abandoning President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda in favor of pro-democracy voting rights legislation. Republicans will fight it tooth and nail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...

[Clay Klaus-Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this book is insightful and illuminating. My major critique is that, in relying heavily on the polity score as a measure of democracy, Walter inadvertantly paints a picture of a more democratic America than I think she means to. She sites high polity scores, indicating when America was at its most democratic, during times when women had little rights and Black people were enslaved. It’s true, I suppose, that during those periods of time, democracy served white people well. But this glaring oversight in this book as it relates to measures of democracy stuck with me throughout my reading it.

[Zen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always interesting to me to see the patterns in history and how they repeat themselves. This was a very engaging read that analyzes the events and atmosphere that lead up to civil war and what it can take to get a country to that point.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too US centric. Half of the book is on a hypothetical second US civil war instead of about real civil wars.

[Leonard Janke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was on track to be 4 or 5 stars until the final three chapters at which point the author lets all of her political biases loose and the book falls off a cliff.

To start with, the good:

Walter does a good job presenting the latest research regarding how civil war starts. She mentions how, rather recently, a number of large datasets have been compiled to use for research on civil wars. The datasets include quantifiable metrics of how democratic or autocratic a country is. Walter points out what the important factors making civil war most likely are. She also points out that some things that people expect to be important factors, like wealth inequality, turned out not to be. The rather unfortunate conclusion from all this is that there are times when a country is particularly vulnerable: When trying to move too fast from autocratic to democratic; and when starting to slip from democratic into autocratic. The other big factors are factionalization, loss of status by a faction which previously had political power, and loss of hope that peaceful means can be used to resolve grievances.

Walter provides many examples of civil wars demonstrating what she is talking about. The history of Serbia + Bosnia + Croatia is particularly interesting. She also discusses the statistics regarding likelihood of civil
war. Her chapter on how social media is accelerating the frequency of civil wars is particularly strong.

The problems:

In most cases, the author is talking about civil wars I am not familiar with, so I cannot comment on the historical accuracy overall. In areas I am familiar with, however, I noticed some errors. In the case of North Ireland she portrays Catholics as peaceful for decades until attacked by police at the end of the Irish civil rights movement. Here she completely omits the violent history of the IRA before this. She also fails to document how northern protestants feared uniting with Ireland and thus becoming a minority even though this was always an explicit goal of the IRA from the end of the Irish Civil War until the Good Friday Agreement. She also mischaracterizes what finally led to peace. It was not so much that the IRA had won better treatment for Catholics but that both sides realized they were in a stalemate and the IRA realized continued violence without progress was causing them to loose support.

Another mistake Walter makes is a claim that the Republican platform going into the United States Civil War included abolition of slavery. The truth, however, is that it merely included not allowing slavery to expand into the west. There was nothing in the platform to end slavery in the South.

The historical mistakes are rather minor problems compared to the bias and terrible fact checking she shows in the final three chapters. Walter seems to take many things leftist media has said as fact even though they have been proven false. She also provides statements which are technically true, but misleading. Examples:

- the Jan 6 rioters did not bring zip ties to the Capitol to handcuff members of Congress but rather they were taken from police on that day to prevent handcuffing of rioters
- although five people did die on Jan 6 only one, a rioter, was due to causes which were not natural
- she refers to "automatic weapons" present on Jan 6: the best I can find, even checking her references, is some semi-automatic weapons
- she cites 14% of those arrested on Jan 6 as "having ties" to the police or military but this is not much different from the general population, especially given that most of those arrested were men

With regard to Trump, even though this book was published very recently there are a number of thoroughly debunked claims regarding him:

- The mention of "very fine people" at Charlottesville was explicitly qualified, at the time it was said, as not applying to the racists who Trump said must be condemned in the harshest of terms
- Lafayette Square was not cleared of protesters so Trump could take a photo op at a church

Although not checking these claims reveals the author's bias it is even clearer in her characterization of Republicans. Her bar for being racist, apparently, is rather low: If you oppose black people receiving special treatment (presumably referring to things like reduced admission standards to college and other affirmative action) that makes you "anti-black". The author seems particularly contemptuous of those who live in rural areas and mentions them as likely to slip further behind as urbanization increases. She does not mention, however, that due to increased work from home opportunities, unaffordable prices in large cities, and, yes, a desire for more traditional value and less big government many people are now fleeing urban areas for more rural.

The biggest problem:

The author's biggest problem is that her bias prevents her from seeing how leftists often provide at least as good as, and often better, examples of what she says shows signs of pending civil war. Nearly all her examples (probably at least 95%) involve those on the right. For example, she mentions trying to exclude another group from political power through policy as contributing to civil war. The best example of this in the United States, however, is effectively opening the borders to allow more potential voters who are likely to vote Democratic in. Although Walter is correct to point out the "massive election fraud" non-sense as an example of an attempt to convince partisans that the system is stacked against them, the left also does much to portray the system as stacked against the those they want to appeal to. Derek Bell (father of CRT) and Michelle Alexander (author of the New Jim Crow) have explicitly said that things have not and never will get better for black people in the United States because of the adaptability of racism: Fix it in one manifestation and it will come back in another equally bad one. Similarly, Nikole Hannah Jones has written that it is impossible for black people to do anything to raise their lot collectively without reparations. Although Walter mentions refusing to associate with those of other factions as a sign of being on the road to civil war it is actually Democrats who are more likely to say they would refuse to marry, be friends with, or hire Republicans than vice-versa.

In the final chapter Walter mentions solutions many of which seem counter-productive. For example she mentions getting rid of the electoral college since it favors white rural voters. This despite the fact that a central part of her thesis is that a sense of losing political representation in an important step toward civil war. The truth is that, if this were to happen, many states would say they originally entered the union because there were provisions to make sure that urban areas would not have all the power: things like the electoral college and the Senate. If these were taken away there would be a good case for no longer wishing to be part of the union. Generally Walter's solutions involve more socialism. This points to her biggest misunderstanding: It is not women, people of color and other minorities that Republicans are worried about: it is socialism. If she thinks Republicans just say it is socialism when it is, in fact, racism, sexism, and various "phobias" at play she needs to present non-cherry picked data and make the case.

One thing that Walter thinks would particularly help get the United States off the course to a potential civil war is regulating social media to prevent the spread of misinformation. There is no discussion of how this would be done given the first amendment prevents the government from regulating speech. Legality aside, she does not discuss the fact that the majority of the country considers free speech to be an American value and clamping down on it might actually play into the hands of those wanting things to turn violent.

Overall, the book definitely has good information regarding how civil wars start. Some of the information in here could likely be part of a solution. Unfortunately the way Walter lets her biases loose, blaming nearly everything on the right, it will likely just lead to further factionalization and, thus, be part of the problem.

[Greta Musteikienė · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the first half. It seemed logical and interesting, and based on evidence. It had clear examples and explainations. It really answered the question written on the cover - how civil wars start.
And then came an example of civil war in Ukraine. Civil war. In Ukraine. In. 2014.
Author seems to be aware that Putin/Kremlin stood behind factions forming in USA but she believes that the war waged by Russia on Ukraine is just a civil war inside Ukraine.
This was a huge red flag for mw. How can you write a book about civil wars and be so misinformed which wars are civil wars and which are not? Can I trust anything else the author is saying?
Other thing. When you get to the last 30 percent of the book you really start to feel you are not the intended recipient (if you are not American). Author switches from the global scale and starts to dwell on USA alone, repeating phrases like "our country", "we - the people of the United States". It's really okay, I guess, just something that bothered me a bit, me not being American.

[Ed Fernandez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Totally biased and without an objective view as to what really has happened in the last 3 years in the country… blames the republicans for inciting “insurrection” and ignores the real insurrection that the left have caused… the author did point out the amazing bias the MSM has caused by all the misinformation produced against the right and conservatives…

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read. Reminds me of how democracies die in the way it uses case studies to make a drumbeat case for why we should be concerned. Very data driven, not partisan in the slightest. Only downside was the last chapter where author seemed more interested in scene setting than driving the case home. Does not leave me hopeful.

[Leslie (PaperAndKindness) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could have done without the chapter that detailed the beginning of a hypothetical US civil war in 2029, but the rest of the book was incredibly informative. I would recommend this to anyone struggling to understand what is happening in the world right now.

[Abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely partisan. Was wanting a non-partisan, neutral account of civil wars and conflict. Don’t waste your time on this book.