What advantages would blue America have in a civil war?

Great Debates
61

If we’re talking ‘real’ Civil War, Syria is our guide. Predominantly wealthy, educated secular cities siding with the government against predominantly rural and poor. The military split very early in the war which is a possible outcome. In modern civil wars, land is not particularly valuable. Open spaces are hard to defend from air power. Cities are much easier to defend even against modern adversaries. Block to block fighting is deadly. Resources aren’t really as much of an issue. Mountainous areas are really the worst places to attack and in most civil wars we can see that battle lines tend to die there with very little movement. Little villages like Kinsibba took months to take of back and forth fighting.

It can be assumed that there are plenty of powers that will be friendly to both sides, so we would expect arms to make their way into the country from those places. There is likely to be a lot of asymmetric warfare and fighters fading in and out of the populace. What we would see happening is that largely most city infrastructure will cease to exist regardless of who wins. My guess would be that in a true civil war scenario, the large portions of the majority of US cities would be practically rubble. If we look at Syria again as a guide, no part of the country is untouched. With Latakia being the only part that is relatively OK and it came within a few months of being annihilated. In contrast to the American Civil War where battle lines were fairly static and troops relatively isolated, assume that everywhere would be a potential war zone.

So, the red state advantage is that the battles likely won’t be fought in red states and would be fleeting affairs. People in the countryside have more room to run, but also are more open to human rights abuses since they are more isolated. Blue state advantage is that cities are defensible. Overall though, modern civil wars are not good things. What we see as the new trend is that actual fighters die at far lower numbers than civilians. We have learned that taking cover in civilian populations is a way to win and no state has yet been able to figure out how to deal with the situation other than kill them all and let God sort it out.

62

For anyone interested, this YouTube video lays out pretty well the conditions for a red/blue civil war type conflict. He even goes into how looking at the state level isn’t all that helpful, as most states are really purple. California, for example, is considered ‘blue’, but large parts of it are actually red. Same goes for, say, New York. Even Texas, considered a ‘red’ state, has large blue areas in it.

Anyway, long and the short, the ‘blue’ faction would almost certainly lose, in the end. The real reason is…the military. If it split along faction lines cleanly based on the demographics of the soldiers and more importantly the officers, and if we look more specifically at the nation guard units in the states along the same lines, it’s fairly clear that the military would mainly side with the ‘red’ side by a significant margin. Then you have the fact that almost all of the contiguous middle of the country would be ‘red’, even though there are patches of blue throughout, as they would be overwhelmed, while the ‘blue’ faction would be isolated one from the other for the most part, not able to come to mutual aid or defense.

But the OP was asking about advantages for the ‘blue’ faction(s). I would go with a tech advantage, as many of the high tech areas and conclaves in the US are in ‘blue’ areas, or in areas where the ‘blues’ could dominate. While I think a lot of folks in my field (IT) are more libertarian than either conservative or liberal, I think many, if not most would be more comfortable in the ‘blue’ faction than in the ‘red’…I certainly would be more comfortable with the ‘blue’ one, though not perfectly so. But lesser of two weevils. I think a tech advantage is going to definitely help, but in the end I think the video has much of it right…the ‘red’ faction would win in the end. Like I said, the military would be the key, and I think the military would side with the ‘red’ faction at better than 60/40…probably more like 70/30 if we count the national guard type forces.

63

You appear to have failed to convince a majority of either the military or law enforcement of this.

64

Here is some interesting reading: Where Does Los Angeles Get Its Electricity? & Total System Electric Generation

65

I just can’t entertain the idea that the military would split. I’m of the opinion that the military would remain an arm of the US government, and while a small percentage of its members might try to betray their country, they wouldn’t get very far or last very long if they took any useful materiel with them.

Which means it comes down to which side the US sides with - but it wouldn’t be like that. The US wouldn’t ‘pick a side’; it would perceive the situation as one subgroup having rebelled, attempted secession, and attacked the country. Of course they would respond with police and military force - and the aggressors would be decimated.

And since I’m firmly convinced that the blue side wouldn’t stage an insurrection to attack the red side (why would they? The red side has nothing they want), I’m firmly convinced that the situation would be thus: The red side rises up somehow and militarily attacks urban civilian centers with civilian-owned arms. And then the US Military swoops in and routs them. The end.

Again, it doesn’t come down to the political inclinations of the soldiers - maybe I don’t have a low enough opinion of our military, but I think they’re soldiers of the united states first. It doesn’t matter who starts shooting up Chicago, they’ll shoot back.

66

I know. Liberals seem to fairly consistently believe the military would take their side in a civil war. It’s the only way they could win, so it’s the only possibility they entertain.

67

Lockheed Martin manufactures its fighter jets in northern Texas. Pantex in Texas is where nukes are/were made. F-15s are made in Missouri, a red state. Plenty of science and tech universities are located in red states (i.e., UA-Huntsville, Georgia Tech, TAMU, etc.) Ballistic-missile subs are based in Georgia, ICBMs are in the Dakotas, etc. Furthermore, many aerospace and defense engineers lean red. That’s just a start.

68

Again, as stated earlier in the thread, this isn’t a civilians vs. the military thought exercise (we’ve had many of those threads elsewhere.) This is a blue vs. red hypothetical. More about civilians vs. civilians.

69

The government is a threat? Pushing states’ rights? Trump has accomplished a miracle.

Your post is contradictory. How does a government of the people come into existence that is perceived as a threat to liberals if there isn’t a population that rivals the liberals in size that put that government into power?

70

Hill AFB in Utah is a major logistics center for aircraft maintenance and repair.

71

Come back, bring substantive response. I gave reasons I think the US military would elect not to start randomly shooting urbanites - if you’re going to open your gob respond to them! Do you seriously think the yuppies on 5th avenue will gear up and head for Alabama? Do you seriously think that the US miliary is manned by worthless honorless traitors who would betray their oaths the minute Infowars tells them to? What?

I’m okay with structuring this discussion in a universe where the military has simply ceased to exist, so we can discuss what happens when the sparse and widely distributed population of the countryside tries to drive into he city and wipe them all out with handheld weaponry. But I’m not going to play a game where the US government loses control of a significant part of its military and lets them walk off with their materiel. Might as well assume that both sides start off by launching nukes at each other. Or dragons! Maybe one side has dragons helping it!

72

Knowing history and even current events (as we see the generals that worked for him turning away in disgust from Trump) there are indeed limits that the majority of military and law enforcement will not pass.

Yes, they can favor authoritarians, but the stronger support that is there mostly goes away when the proposition is to betray the USA, It can also fail to convince them to go to more extremes as sending troops in an attempt to defeat the Federal government.
IIRC, fresh from defeating the Union forces, Lee decided to invade the Union to seek another victory to force the North to negotiate, but got stopped at Gettysburg. One wonders what could had take place if some Confederate states had decided to send their troops too, because some southern states just never were convinced that it was a good idea to invade the North and they… well, they were allowed that freedom by their Confederate constitution.

73

I can’t parse this.

Wait - are you proposing that Trump has over 50% support in this country?

74

What were your reasons? All I saw was “I’m of the opinion that …” without any reasons for that opinion. Do you have a more substantive reason than (paraphrasing) ‘because I don’t think it would happen’?

75

How could or would the military not be involved, one way or another? Did the military just magically disappear? It doesn’t make sense. But, assuming magic, and every military person remains neutral, then the ‘red’ states still have a huge advantage, though it’s more logistics and resource driven, at least wrt food and contiguous energy. Almost all of the food resources are in ‘red’ areas, even those in California, though locally I would expect that California, once it gets it’s shit together, could consolidate those areas and bring them under ‘blue’ control…eventually. But broadly, you would be talking about enclaves of ‘blue’ cut off from each other and surrounded by ‘red’ conclaves that would be sitting on the vital resources, logistics hubs, energy resources and the rest.

[QUOTE=begbert2]
I just can’t entertain the idea that the military would split. I’m of the opinion that the military would remain an arm of the US government, and while a small percentage of its members might try to betray their country, they wouldn’t get very far or last very long if they took any useful materiel with them.
[/QUOTE]

You are making several assumptions here. First off, that ‘the US government’ would be against some ‘red’ rebels…instead of, perhaps, the other way around. But that’s an assumption that isn’t really part of the OP, which seems to be positing a ‘red’/‘blue’ civil war split and the military (and government I guess) neutral or something like that. Personally, as I’ve said in many of these threads, I think the military WOULD split depending on what the issue that’s causing the civil war is. The military isn’t the faceless, in lock-step body that you and others seem to think. They are humans. And many of them (most of them) are conservatives (with a bunch of libertarian types and a minority of liberals and even smaller minority of progressives) in one way or another. Of course, a lot of those in the military are also minorities, and it’s unclear where they might fall wrt a ‘red’/‘blue’ split. Though most of the officers are not minorities and are conservatives, so that might be a key factor as well.

Regardless, if the OP wants to fantasize that the military would remain out of it, I’m willing to play along, though that doesn’t seem likely. I still think the biggest ‘blue’ advantage would be tech, though I’m unsure how much of a factor that would be. Kind of hard to hack the other sides infrastructure if you are having issues getting power, water and most importantly, food, plus being surrounded by the other side and broken into small enclaves that are isolated from each other and unable to come to the each others aid or defense.

76

They were in the fucking post that you selectively cut the first six words off of for reasons I don’t feel it would be productive to speculate about. Try reading the damn thing.

77

My main assumption is that if there were some major instigating reason that we were supposed to know about for this war, the OP would have mentioned it. It makes a LOT of difference. Absent such parameters, the only scenario that makes a lick of sense is that the US government be against the group that has rebelled and started seizing territory. Which I don’t believe will be the urbanites. And unless there’s some substantive reason that the Red suddenly decided to start slaughtering innocent women and children, I don’t think even the most conservative arms of the military will jump in and help them do it.

For me to believe that the military has fractured I’d have to first assume that the US government has collapsed. Not come under control of traitors and Russians - collapsed. Quickest way for that to happen would be a military coup - but that wouldn’t be a war between urban and rural, that would be everybody ducking and running as the military tears itself and the country apart. Possibly you could have a political coup, such that there’s no clear uncontested leader, but I’m really not seeing how the US government is susceptible to that. If Trump refuses to leave the white house somebody’ll just go in and drag him out - I don’t seriously believe that even the Republican congressmen would refuse to accept an elected replacement.
On the subject of “what if there’s no military”, I think the biggest advantage the blue side would have would be foreign support. Their positions on the coasts make receipt of supplies, materiel, and foreign troops easy. Sure a large number of landlocked cities would be essentially boned - even if they weren’t overrun, cutting them off from food and power would screw them over. But that would just cement worldwide support on the side of the liberals.

Oh, and it’s also worth noting that the rural side is really, really, really spread out. This is useful if they’re running a defensive war, or a guerrilla war, but it’s lousy if you’re trying to bring together an army. Any assault against any major city would be horribly outnumbered - probably even if you only count the persons in the city who are armed and willing to fight.

(Note that I’m making certain assumptions about how much territory we’re letting Blue start with. If we assume that they only get to start with just the downtown areas of cities then they’re automatically boned.)

78

I don’t think very much foreign support would be forthcoming. The US military probably does the bulk of that throughout the world, followed by places like Russia, Iran, and China. I doubt any of them are going to come riding to the rescue of NYC, and I don’t think NATO, devoid of America’s leadership, could organize a significant foreign adventure across the Atlantic Ocean, even if they were inclined to pick a side and intervene, which I’m skeptical of as well.

79

Trump having the ‘nuclear codes’ never worried me too much. It’s him having command of the army that’s terrifying.

80

If the rural areas were to try and starve out the urbans (which I’ll frankly say I think is their most basic and obvious tactic), I suspect that various European countries (and ones with European queens ;)) would offer to ship in food. Perhaps even for free!

Also you might see air drops a la East Berlin to notable besieged cities, if it came to that. (Presuming that Blue didn’t have wherewithal to manage that themselves.)