There is speculation among many as to whether the United States is heading for another civil war. Some people say it would be a war along racial lines, others say it would be the left against the right. The real question is, how likely is a civil war in the United States, and if there were one, what would it look like?
Who Would Be Fighting?
Go to Bluesky, X, or TikTok, and you will see posts advocating violence against anyone who voted for Trump. You will even see elected politicians inciting violence against “MAGA” collectively and federal immigration agents specifically. These include Congressional delegates, mayors, and even governors. This leads me to feel that, although there is some division along racial lines in the United States, it is mainly represented by a small and vocal minority. The far greater divide seems to be ideological and political, and it is a division that crosses lines of race and social status.
What Would a Civil War Look Like?
It is important to distinguish between local unrest and an actual civil war. When I was in Iraq, it was an insurgency war, which was bad enough, but it still fell short of what a genuine civil war would be like. Civil wars are the worst of all wars and the most prone to atrocities because of the emotions involved. They are clashes of ideologies that are held and defended by each side to the point of irrationality. Because civil wars are most often based on ideologies, rather than economics or territorial demands, the battle lines are drawn between people rather than governments. These people can live in the same town, on the same street, and even be in the same family. There is no rear area where life can go on normally, because every aspect of normal life is disrupted, from infrastructure and supply chains to services like schools and medical care.
Some people think a civil war would mainly involve groups of armed citizens fighting it out over resources or neighborhoods, sort of a fight between ANTIFA and the guys from the range. However, a real civil war would involve military forces, the National Guard at a minimum, and most likely active military as well. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the deployment of federal troops within the United States, can be suspended under certain circumstances through the Insurrection Act, Congressional authorization, and Presidential emergency powers. That means in a genuine civil war, the stakes for destruction and violence would be upped considerably with the deployment of infantry, armor, artillery, and even air assets. To make matters worse, some of those military forces could also divide along the same ideological lines, so that the conflict would spread within the military, giving both sides heavy weapons.
The hardest hit places would be cities. All one must do is look at Portland, Los Angeles, and Baltimore to see what happens when order breaks down. Although most large cities are mainly populated and run by liberals, that would not mean that those people would not turn on each other when times got tough. And times would get very tough, since supply lines would be disrupted and cities are not self-sustaining. Home invasions and looting by hungry or angry people would be the order of the day.
Civil wars are dirty affairs that are based on emotions, the most prevalent of which is hatred. Each side would do as much harm to the other as possible, often destroying entire communities. Utilities would be cut off, and aside from no electricity, which would be life-threatening in extreme weather, there would be a shortage of clean water and services like trash and sewage disposal. Disease and starvation would spread rapidly.
Rural areas would be better off in terms of social conditions, but would still suffer from supply chain and electrical power interruptions. Areas near major transportation arteries like interstates would quickly be overrun with refugees fleeing the cities.
Driving these problems would be the war itself. Factions would fight each other as well as the military. Local militias would be formed to protect their communities, which could also lead to “cleansing” of whichever ideological group was in the minority. Infrastructure would be destroyed, and strategic resources like water supplies, power plants, agricultural areas, and any place where scarce resources could be acquired would be fiercely contested. The Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War began, at least in part, because the Confederate Army was in need of shoes. It would take decades to recover from the devastation, and there would be landmines and unexploded ordnance lying around for years to come. To put it in perspective, the country of Lebanon is about the size of the state of Connecticut. During the Lebanese civil war, an estimated 150,000 people were killed, 100,000 maimed, and close to a million displaced from their homes, and that was a tiny country. Multiply that number across multiple states.
What Citizens Could Do to Prepare
Preparing for a civil war would start with the same thing you do to prepare for any crisis: build as much self-sufficiency as possible. Storing food, medical supplies, heaters, and a means of cooking, as well as consumables like batteries, candles, fuel, tarps, duct tape, etc., is a start. You should also have a means to purify water and deal with sanitation. Store arms and ammunition and have a means of communicating within your group. It is also a good idea to get to know your neighbors, both to decide how you can mutually support each other and to know where they stand on key issues. As I said, civil wars are a nasty, dirty business in every way.
What Are the Warning Signs?
Susan Katz Keating, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, summed it up very well in her article Is the US Headed to Civil War? Here’s How to Tell, published on July 4, 2025. Susan is a seasoned war correspondent who has been on the ground in places that include Central America, Croatia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Serbia, where actual civil wars were taking place. She breaks the warning signs down into critical categories.
Necessities
Do you have electricity, clean water, phone, and internet communications? Can you go to a gas station without having to face a mob or deal with rationing? Is there food on the grocery store shelves, or are there rationing and food riots? Is cash available at ATMs, banks, or through cash back at the store?
Services
Medical and emergency services are one of the first things to go. Are doctors’ offices and hospitals open? If you call 911, will anyone respond? I was in Cairo during the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and when locals had an emergency, they were on their own because the ambulances and police would not respond. Are businesses and schools open?
Mood
Is there a sense of suspicion in the air? When I was in Pakistan, the West Bank, Iraq, and Afghanistan, you could feel the tension and distrust in the air. Do people avoid eye contact or put their heads down and hurry off the street? Do the people in your usual circles still talk to you? Are you being excluded from gatherings? Do people seem to be having secret and exclusive meetings? Are government and political figures being assassinated or disappearing?
Safety
Has the crime level suddenly changed, either going sharply up or down? Do the police act differently when they interact with the public? Has the number of arrests increased or decreased? Is there surveillance or roadblocks? I don’t mean random DUI checks, but full-blown checkpoints where they check ID, ask where you are going, and what your business is. Are people being searched at random?
Constitutional Rights
The government will know if things are building to a civil war, and will do whatever it can to maintain control of the situation. They are concerned with the country as a whole, not individual rights. As I mentioned regarding Posse Comitatus, the Insurrection Act, and emergency powers can suspend Constitutional guarantees such as free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly, and protection from illegal search and seizure. The government is not the only one that will be threatening your rights. Are groups accosting or intimidating people regarding how they vote or who they associate with? Are people receiving midnight visitors who threaten or assault them? These are all critical indicators.
How Likely Is a Civil War?
How likely is a civil war in America? Based on the identifiers above, the answer is not very, at least right now. Yes, there are riots and demonstrations. Groups like ANTIFA are accosting ICE agents, and people are marching in favor of terrorists and illegals, but for the most part, the incidents are localized.
Susan put it well when she pointed out:
“The notion that the United States is on the brink of a civil war is a recurring theme in political discourse. Rhetoric aside, though, we’re not even close. A civil war is a catastrophic, whole of society event. People only take up arms against their fellow citizens when their backs are against the wall, and they believe that they have no other choice.”
As she points out, if we compare the unrest we are seeing in America with the events preceding the breakup of Yugoslavia or the fighting in Northern Ireland, we will see that the United States has a long way to go before we are on the brink.
