Is a 2nd Civil War a Good Idea?
“But there’s no place in politics for violence — to threaten or carry out violence — and that’s where everybody has to take a stand. Whether it’s your supporters or somebody else’s…Sometimes it’s easy to call out the other side, but you’ve got to call out your own side, too.” — Steve Scalise, Republican (Louisiana) and a recovered victim of a politically motivated shooting
“Nearly every government that goes to war underestimates its duration, neglects to tally all the costs, and overestimates the political objectives that can be accomplished by the use of brute force.” — The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (source)
Let’s start with the good news. We are not currently in a civil war in the United States. Over the past few years, pundits and editorialists have wondered whether this country might be heading toward a civil war, on the verge of one, or even already in one. Others have written that, yes, we’re currently in a civil war, but only in a non-violent, metaphorical sense (in other words, not a war at all).
In 2017, the Los Angeles Times referred to such stories as “bait-and-switch” because they compare political polarization to war and because they juxtapose clashes between white supremacists and left-wing demonstrators as indicative of where the country is overall. Two years ago, Vox referred to this genre as “clickbait” and “apocalypse punditry.” Steven Greenhut recently wrote that such talk of civil war is too blithe and over-the-top, and people aren’t giving the topic the seriousness it deserves.
It is true that talk of civil war is often overdone. According to the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research (UUDPCR), a war is defined as having “at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in one calendar year.” By that definition, the U.S. is clearly not in a war. Nor do we have formally recognized political units fighting in opposition, another important part of the definition.
However, we may be in a situation akin to a low-intensity conflict. The UUDPCR defines conflict as “at least 25 but less than 1000 battle-related deaths in one calendar year in one of the conflict’s dyads.” Last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “Heat Map” of political violence, there were 46 incidents involving extremist murders, terrorist plots or attacks, or extremist shootouts with police. Altogether 54 people were killed in these incidents, which crosses the 25-death threshold. Tragically, 23 of these victims were killed in one horrific incident, the shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas by a white supremacist who was intent on killing Hispanic people. This year, there have been several politically motivated incidents involving people with ties to extremist fringe movements.
As a biological anthropologist, much of my own research has focused on the health effects of war and conflict on civilians and refugees. For people who are undecided whether another civil war in the US might be a good idea, I came up with a list of reasons that this is probably something we should avoid. The bottom line is that too many people frame the concept of war in terms of “winning and losing” while the reality is that it is always a human-made disaster with enormous costs for combatants and civilians, which can last for generations.
1. Financial Costs
Wars are notoriously expensive. The first (hopefully the only) Civil War in the U.S. cost an estimated $23 billion and $68 billion for the Confederacy and Union, respectively, in 2019 dollars. Modern wars are even costlier. The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University calculated that the U.S. federal price-tag for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria was close to $6 trillion. Granted, a civil war in the US has the advantage of not having to travel very far, which would reduce transportation costs. Still, modern weaponry would be much costlier than days of yore.
In addition are the opportunity costs of war. President Eisenhower knew that money poured into war cannot be spent on other things like education, health, science, food, housing, roads, etc.
2. Destruction of Infrastructure
Apocalyptic scenery from sci-fi movies like “The Terminator” or “The Book of Eli” are mirrored by real life. Destroyed buildings, houses, roads, power plants, water facilities, hospitals are a staple of war. This is seen in recent wars in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, the DRC, etc. And it extends back into World War 2, even the Civil War and earlier. As Nikita Khrushchev once wrote to President Kennedy, this is “the logic of war”
“if indeed war should break out, then it would not be in our power to stop it, for such is the logic of war. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction.” (Nikita Khruschev to JFK, Oct1962)
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3. Environmental Destruction
Several studies have shown that wars leave a mark not just on buildings and towns, but on the local ecology as well. For example, naval and aerial bombardment of the island of Vieques left marine vegetation high in concentrations of things like lead, copper, nickel, and cobalt (Massol-Deyá et al. 2005). And that wasn’t even during an official war. That was just target practice. Such contamination could increase risk for various diseases, including cancers.
Sometimes these things can last quite a while. Long after the WW1 Battle of Verdun in France, the surrounding area (known as Place-à-Gaz) is still contaminated with lead, arsenic, copper, and mercury as a result of massive artillery shelling and later disposal of ordnance (Thouin et al. 2016). Some plant species still have a hard time growing there, a century later. Not too far away in Ypres, century-old mustard gas shells are still capable of severely burning skin. And in Laos, massive aerial bombardment has left parts of the country contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO), 47 years after they were dropped. Up to 20,000 people have been injured or killed after the war ended, and 1600 km2 of the country still cannot be farmed, damaging the food supply and limiting economic growth.
4. Hunger
“Scorched earth” campaigns in war have existed for millennia, leading to food insecurity, even famine.
In 2018, The World Food Program noted that of the 13 largest food crises in the world today, 10 — Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — were conflict-related. Food insecurity is already on the rise in the US due to the pandemic. Some people got pretty upset when toilet paper and meat were hard to find early in the pandemic. War would make such food and supply shortages a hundred times worse.
5. Moral Injuries
The WW1 veteran Harry Patch once said that “war is organised murder, and nothing else.” Many military personnel report experiencing emotional devastation at taking another human being’s life, a phenomenon known as “moral injury.” We can even find similar patterns among ancient Assyrian soldiers in Mesopotamia as far back as 1300BC. Some of these men described hearing and seeing the ghosts of people they’d killed in battle, haunting them. In the past, this would be called a form of post-traumatic stress, but perhaps this is better categorized as a moral injury. Whereas PTS is considered related to fear and trauma, moral injuries are manifestations of guilt. It is perhaps to our species credit that most of us have an aversion to killing and that people often feel intense guilt afterwards. There have been cases of people who at first convinced themselves that their killings were justified. Some of them, like Anwar Congo below, built up a pretty sturdy mental wall to keep out any thoughts that might contradict the view of their killings as heroic, only to have that entire edifice come crashing down years later when they accidentally dredged up their buried humanity.
In the 2012 documentary, “The Act of Killing,” Anwar Congo re-enacted a scene of people he had killed years earlier in Indonesia. Though he was considered a hero by many for killing enemies of the state (mostly people suspected of being communists), his illusions were later shattered when he became aware of the emotions that his victims likely felt before they were executed.
6. Civilian Deaths
Many people think of war primarily as a competition between two military forces. History buffs often discuss the tactics and strategies of past wars, and the decisions made by leaders. Sometimes they’ll talk about the fallen soldiers and officers who were killed and maimed. Deaths of combatants are to be expected in war. After all, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, or even tens of millions of eggs. However, statistics show that civilians are not just occasional “collateral damage” in war, due to an accidental misfire. Rather, civilians often comprise the majority of casualties, ranging between 40% in the case of Bosnia to 90% in the case of Cambodia and Rwanda (Roberts 2010).
7. Forced Displacement
War and forced displacement are intricately linked. In fact, 1% of the world’s population (about 80 million people) was displaced by the end of 2019, with some living within their country of origin (internally displaced) and others living in neighboring countries (refugees). Many end up in camps that range in size, including huge tent cities with restricted movement, almost no chance of employment, and hindered future prospects. Sometimes these camps are final destinations. In the Civil War, many Americans were displaced from their homes by fighting, and this would probably be the case again in another war. Although seeking asylum from war and prosecution is considered an international human right, other countries might not be very accepting to welcome Americans because we haven’t been very open to accepting refugees lately.
8. Lost Education
War-affected children often don’t have access to a lot of basic things that we take for granted, including school. In 2017, 61% of refugee children attended primary school, compared to 92% of children globally. Those numbers dropped to 23% and 84%, respectively, for secondary school.
9. Short and Long-Term Costs to Mental Health
In a review article Bogic et al 2015 found that rates of depression, PTSD, and anxiety were as high as 80 to 88% in some refugee groups, years after resettling in other countries. Another study from WW2 found that elderly Germans who had been displaced 60 years earlier(!) still had higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of resilience and life satisfaction (Kuwert et al 2009).
10. Reduced Child Growth and Developmental Delays
With food shortages, unclean water, increased infection, and psychological stress, kids who grow up under war conditions tend to be malnourished and shorter, sometimes by a huge amount. This is a very consistent pattern, and these effects are usually permanent since you can’t get those years of growth back. Furthermore, height is correlated with other health and sociological variables, including earning potential.
11. Sexual Violence
History shows that sexual violence is fairly common across wars once social controls have weakened or as a deliberate method of terrorizing a population. In a review, it was found that victims of sexual violence often experience pregnancy, traumatic genital injuries, fistulae, sexual dysfunction, STDs, anxiety, PTSD, depression, social rejection, and spousal abandonment (Ba and Bhopal, 2017). While we are apt to think that only other people would be victims, statistics show that this could also impact the people we know and love.
12. Lost Trust
Pierluigi Conzo and Francesco Salustri found that European who were exposed to World War 2 before age 6 had lower levels of trust in adulthood. In their article, the authors noted that trust is considered almost like a social “lubricant” in helping a society run more efficiently; it is an important factor in economic development, the quality of institutions, and subjective well-being. Once it is lost, it takes a long time to rebuild trust and survivors can view each other with suspicion for decades.
13. Chronic Diseases
Wars have a tendency to “get under the skin.” Researchers who study things like the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) idea have found that early adversity in life, including in war, can lead to long-term increased risks for chronic diseases like diabetes, schizophrenia, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity (Clarkin 2019). They can cut years off of your life, and even affect your genes and possibly be passed down to the next generation.
14. Weakened International Status: Anti-Patriotism
Infighting in civil wars tend to leave countries weakened. How could it not? Some historians have argued that one of the reasons for the United States’ rise in prominence after WW2 was that so many other countries were heavily damaged in terms of infrastructure and lives lost. A civil war here would ntries a turn at being global leaders. I’m sure whichever nations step forward, they will be willing to give up the stage after they’ve had their turn.
Thoughts
Adrienne Rich once wrote that “War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political.” It can be incredibly frustrating to see our values threatened, whatever they are (our religion, basic fairness, inequality, simple decency, honesty, physical harm). Many of these grievances are real. General Norman Schwarzkopf once said that “there are things worth fighting for,” which I would agree with. Just letting people harm our loved ones, uncontested, is not an option for most of us (unless perhaps if we are a Jain monk). But Schwarzkopf also said that “A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war… Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar.”
We don’t have to love or even like the people who hold values that we consider antithetical to ours. But in the big picture, war is a blunt instrument; not a scalpel that can remove only the unwanted ideas or people from a society. It comes with tremendous costs and leaves scars that last generations. And while conflicts and disagreements can seem intractable, history shows that human relations are continuously in flux. Alliances shift, agreements are made, rivals can reconcile. It would be better to really try to exhaust those options before anything else.
References
Ba I, Bhopal RS. Physical, mental and social consequences in civilians who have experienced war-related sexual violence: a systematic review (1981–2014). Public Health. 2017 Jan 1;142:121–35.
Bogic M, Njoku A, Priebe S. Long-term mental health of war-refugees: a systematic literature review. BMC international health and human rights. 2015 Dec 1;15(1):29.
Clarkin PF. The Embodiment of War: Growth, Development, and Armed Conflict. Annual Review of Anthropology. 2019 Oct 21;48:423–42.
Kuwert P, Brähler E, Glaesmer H, Freyberger HJ, Decker O. 2009. Impact of forced displacement during World War II on the present-day mental health of the elderly: a population-based study. Int Psychogeriatr. 21(4):748–53.
Massol-Deyá A, Pérez D, Pérez E, Berrios M, Diaz E. Trace elements analysis in forage samples from a US Navy bombing range (Vieques, Puerto Rico). Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2005 2(2):263–66
Roberts A. Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians? Surviv. Glob. Polit. Strateg. 2010 52(3):115–36
Thouin H, Le Forestier L, Gautret P, Hube D, Laperche V, et al. Characterization and mobility of arsenic and heavy metals in soils polluted by the destruction of arsenic-containing shells from the Great War. Sci. Total Environ. 2016. 550:658–69
