# If a US secessionist civil war breaks out, how would its Armed Forces fragment? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 5, 2013, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060 "2013-09-05T08:47:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/1 "2013-09-05T08:47:33Z")
Who would the soldiers and branches stay loyal to? Their units? Their service? Their home states? Whatever’s left of the federal government? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/2 "2013-09-05T09:04:05Z")
You’d really need to come up with more detail on why the war started. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/3 "2013-09-05T10:15:50Z")
Best guess is that the armed forces would stay loyal to the federal government. Unlike the late unpleasantness, units are raised from individual states anymore (discounting the national guard) so don’t feel a particular loyalty to a state. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/4 "2013-09-05T10:26:05Z")
I posted a poll a couple of years ago, asking the hypothetical “If your state seceded peacefully from the United States, would you remain in your state and become a citizen of that new country or relocate to the United States and remain an American citizen?” (I’m paraphrasing my original question.) Only around 30% of the people would stay with their state. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/5 "2013-09-05T11:25:14Z")
Thing is, the American Civil War was something of an aberration; civil wars aren’t often so neatly defined by geography. And most people these days are far less emotionally invested in their states than they were back then. In the event of a modern civil war you’d see the military fragment by factions, not states. It’s hard to even speculate about matters in more detail without more information on what the hypothetical factions are and so on. ---
**Author:** ![fanganga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fanganga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fanganga)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/6 "2013-09-05T11:48:08Z")
[Here](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/misc/rightvus.htm) are some guy’s thoughts on a hypothetical second US Civil war. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/7 "2013-09-05T12:17:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You’d really need to come up with more detail on why the war started. I agree. The Electoral College encourages [this vision](http://www.westernherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/map614.png) of the USA. When reality looks [more like this](http://nyopoliticker.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/purple-electoral-map.jpg). Whatever the cockamamie reason, I’m pretty sure the armed forces would not stoop to treasonous rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/8 "2013-09-05T12:55:26Z")
I see a civil war as being between Coastalia and Flyoveria. With the south joining the latter. And I think that an overwhelming majority of the armed forces are from Flyoveria. In this scenario, the federal government would kind of disappear, but what was left of it would presumably align with Flyoveria. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/9 "2013-09-05T13:07:13Z")
I imagine it would shake out much like the first one; the military as a unit would stay loyal, but individual officers and enlisted men would probably follow their own convictions and choose sides. That is, unless there were questions of legitimacy and/or constitutionality on the part of the Federal Government. If for example, the Federal Government had somehow suspended the Bill of Rights (or some other Constitutional provision), and the rebellion was a consequence of that, I think the military might fragment somewhat more, although I think it would still be an individual thing. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/10 "2013-09-05T14:41:48Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Best guess is that the armed forces would stay loyal to the federal government. Unlike the late unpleasantness, units are raised from individual states anymore (discounting the national guard) so don’t feel a particular loyalty to a state. [While the National Guard is a darned big chunk of the US military strength](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel_in_each_service), my sense is even National Guard members don’t feel overly attached to their states. It all depends on the nature of the conflict. If it’s really about states trying to separate, it’d never get enough popular support. There’s just a small minority of extremists in the South that don’t understand the Civil War is over. If it were about the legitimacy of the president or something, it might be interesting. But loyalties would not fall according to state boundaries at all. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2013, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/11 "2013-09-06T07:36:37Z")
I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer. The more interesting part of this, IMO, is the Armed Forces’ innate loyalties undiluted by outside influences. Sure, there are a thousand scenarios and a million variables that could change factions, but at that point it’d be more of a state vs state or region vs region debate rather than an insightful glimpse into the separate (if it is) loyalty structure of the military. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/12 "2013-09-06T14:26:47Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer. The more interesting part of this, IMO, is the Armed Forces’ innate loyalties undiluted by outside influences. Sure, there are a thousand scenarios and a million variables that could change factions, but at that point it’d be more of a state vs state or region vs region debate rather than an insightful glimpse into the separate (if it is) loyalty structure of the military. Military personnel swear oaths to support and defend the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to it. They don’t swear allegiance to the military, president, congress or anything else. Enlisted people swear to obey the orders of the officers placed over them, but that’s it. AFAIK, they take this fairly seriously, and that’s why I think any kind of civil war/secession based on Constitutional issues would be a messy thing. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-us-secessionist-civil-war-breaks-out-how-would-its-armed-forces-fragment/668060/13 "2013-09-06T17:22:15Z")
Probably depends on what the issue is.