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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6415 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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I appreciate the nuance. It is unclear to me that a US military doctrine used to styling on poorly fed goat herders and third world militaries will remain unchanged if/when forced into a war of attrition against a peer-power. I don't think setting up Burger Kings will be a priority during the invasion of Taiwan. But it looks increasingly like the quality of manpower or the equipment of infantry will become less and less relevant with time. Drones do not care about PT.

The implications for modern politics are straightforward: Civilization falls to barbarians when the existing power structure cannot enforce the laws, finance the military, make political decisions and foster a functioning economy. The danger is not in the hinterland, geographical or social. It is in our own government, our social divisions and our political animosities. We've mostly solved the plagues and famines that used to destabilize organized societies. We're never going to solve the political problem.

To perhaps interpret your point too literally: where are the barbarians? That's a serious question. The closest you can get to "uncivilized" is the more godforsaken parts of Africa and the Middle East. Most of the world has air conditioning and wifi. Going with your definition of "barbarian" as a particular social class or ethnicity within existing society, is there any meaningful risk of them seizing power? Foreign barbarians are impotent. The "local" ones are part of the underclass because of certain... deficits. Neither are a meaningful threat.

In this day and age (and for several hundred years) the primary threat to a nation state is either civil war or occupation by a foreign power of comparable sophistication. Rome survived multiple civil wars. The US survived a serious one already. That's pretty lindy. In case of civilizational breakdown, who's doing the invading or occupying? Canada? Mexico? China? For the foreseeable future (studiously ignoring AI), the most likely outcome of another American civil war would be the eventual reconstitution of the republic, perhaps under new management. That's not the end of a civilization, for the same reason we consider China or Rome as continuous for hundreds or thousands of years. In those cases, the new ruling class were rarely barbarians, they were most commonly another flavor of local elite.

Of course, once we consider AI, it all becomes rather moot.

To perhaps interpret your point too literally: where are the barbarians? That's a serious question. The closest you can get to "uncivilized" is the more godforsaken parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The godforsaken parts of Africa and the Middle East, mostly. Some control our southern border regions, though we have an understanding that keeps a lid on things. With open borders and refugee flows and international air travel, those distant barbarians can be in your town in hours. They don't ride horses into your hinterland, they move into major cities. They're not all raiders, some are sub-legal workforce. Some are scam artists, petty criminals etc. Some smaller number are violent, form gangs to raid, rape and pillage. This is probably what low-level raiding usually looked like, just with more horsy-running-off inbetween.

The most likely end of a new American civil war is balkanization, not reconstitution. US terrain and human geography pushes towards this strongly(it's basically impossible to conquer a peer opponent over the rockies, the US defeated some primitives and religious fanatics with substantial local assistance after the territory was ceded to them by treaty ending a war fought mostly in a different theater). We have multiple imperial cores and a serious war is going to wind up with them not wanting to share power.

There is no American Civil War that can result in balkanization. America has been too unified for too long.

If that is the inevitable result, it will be after decades, if not centuries, of civil wars, plural, which eventually massacre enough people to create clean stable lines.

Isn't that what they say about China? "The country long united must divide. The country long divided must unite." America is still comparatively young.

In terms of scenarios, what do you think about the odds of having two self-proclaimed 'America's, both of which consider themselves to be the true one and the other to be a rump state that for one reason or another can't yet be brought back into the fold?

I just don't think you can make a map that really works. There's too many baptists in NYC, too many liberal arts colleges in Indiana. The cultural capital of the country is too mixed up. Texas is the only region that maybe has a strong enough identity to secede, but that would depend (oddly) on future Texan leaders moderating their red tribe culture warring significantly enough to get buy in from the 40% of the state the votes blue. The reverse in California or New England may also work, if they could moderate, but they are far behind Texas in regional identity.

I live in Pennsylvania. If I drive half an hour north or west I'm definitely in Appalachia, if I drive an hour south or two hours east I'm in the heart of the megalopolis. There's no clean line where people would feel happy drawing that line and letting "them" have the rest.

I guess what I'm getting around to is that I don't think there is a future where Red or Blue America can balkanize successfully, rather a future balkanized America would require stronger regional identities which moderate between Blue and Red. The populations are too mixed, and the ambitions that underly the culture war movement are too universal. Red Texas or Blue New England cannot secede, Purple Texas and Purple New England might be able to.

Fair enough, I recognize that as a valid possibility, even if I think that reunification is more likely than not. The last civil war didn't end up with two separate independent cores, for whatever that's worth.

The last civil war was fought on a north south axis(across mostly flat), with a single imperial core(NYC running into the Great Lakes region and lower New England). The planter class was defeated due to overwhelming material and manpower superiority on the part of the northern elite; although the planter class was politically influential and individually wealthy, it didn’t hold a candle to the northeast and Great Lakes.

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