America on verge of decline

Civil war would technically be about states’ rights and have elements of religious war, race war and old-fashioned left-right ideological struggle.

- Gwynne Dyer

‘Predictions are hard, especially about the future’ (Danish proverb) but still we make them, especially when we care about the future. Here are some about the future of the United States in the next three and a bit years, expressed as probabilities although you should not trust the numbers.

If an event has zero probability, then we need not waste any time on it.

If some development seems at all possible, we can investigate the probability by creating scenarios and considering their plausibility.

For example, is there going to be a civil war in the United States?

“Budyet grazhdanskaya voyna?” was the question every foreign journalist got asked daily by ordinary Russians in the last years of the old Soviet Union. (“Will there be a civil war?”) I would always say “no” and that turned out to be right. I’m hearing the same question now with an American accent, so let’s try it again.

Like the civil war of 1861-65, an American civil war in the 2020s would technically be about states’ rights. It would also have elements of religious war, race war and old-fashioned left-right ideological struggle.