2nd Civil War Theorycrafting Thread, Peaches Free

[History Learner]

I do not know what historical revisionism you were listening to, but no, we did not set up anything like the Gulags or where the Chinese are putting the Uyghurs.

No, we just did Gitmo, Abu Ghraib (Tbf, Iraq War here but you get the point) and CIA-funded death squads that murdered women and children; also known as the KDF which just surrendered in full to the Taliban lol.

 

[History Learner]

The 2ACW would be nothing like the 1st. It would indeed be more like the revolutionary war but even that is a weak comparison. If you want a actual proper view imagine Northern Ireland during hottest moment of The Troubles, multiplied by the size of a continent and with way more guns.

Exactly this; there won't be formal lines like the first because both parties are beholden to the same interests and thus have every reason to oppose such a conflict. It will instead be organic and then filter into a formalized structure, probably being like the Troubles until the system weakens sufficiently that you start to see shit like the Taliban just pulled or the TDF did to the Ethiopians recently.

 

[AndrewJTalon]

Are Americans Preparing For a Second Civil War? - The Truth About Guns

&#9664Previous Post Next Post▶ A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes . . . Are Americans preparing for a civil war? I hear this question raised by people who have heard of the unprecedented number of private purchases of weapons and ammunition currently underway in the United States...

www.thetruthaboutguns.com

Despite the title, this is actually advocating against an open second American civil war. And I agree, it would be a disaster for our country. It has some good points and ideas about trying to prevent this.

I simply think that political violence may be inevitable given the situation. I don't know what form of violence that will be, but I hope it doesn't happen.

 

[Husky_Khan]

No, we just did Gitmo, Abu Ghraib (Tbf, Iraq War here but you get the point) and CIA-funded death squads that murdered women and children; also known as the KDF which just surrendered in full to the Taliban lol.

So what you meant by the US funding Death Camps in Afghanistan to kill insurgents and their families on a scale of that of the Soviet Union and China you actually meant not Death Camps but much smaller Prisons which weren't Death Camps nowhere near Afghanistan and Death Squads as alleged by The Intercept?

Sorry... I meant to add... "to an extent."

 

[PsihoKekec]

Looking at the other sided of the iron curtain, it seems that insurgencies have a hard time working when you put the insurgents and their families in death camps.

It's not automatic though, it depends on multiple factors. Perhaps the most crucial factor was that the population of Eastern Europe countries was exhausted after four years of devastating war. For example in Yugoslavia, German/Italian/Ustashe/Chetnik willingness to mass murder civilian population did little to dampen the rise of partisan forces, quite the opposite, but the war bled the country dry, so when communists took over those who stayed behind to fight (many fled and were often returned and executed) were crushed in short order, within year there all large groups were destroyed, only small groups and individuals remaining to be hunted down by 1947.

Another factor is how threatening is the insurgency. If you can force your enemy onto defense, then you are already halfway to victory. Insurgencies in EE were limited though, so fighting could be limited to certain rural areas, not endangering the regime.

Lack of organisation. Post war insurgencies were not as well organised as war-time insurgencies. Shadow government and support functions were nowhere as developed as during the war and while insurgents nominally pledged loyalty to a leadership in exile, there wasn't much in a way of central command and coordination, so each insurgent group in country could be overwhelmed on it's own.

 

[DarthOne]

Are Americans Preparing For a Second Civil War? - The Truth About Guns

&#9664Previous Post Next Post▶ A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes . . . Are Americans preparing for a civil war? I hear this question raised by people who have heard of the unprecedented number of private purchases of weapons and ammunition currently underway in the United States...

www.thetruthaboutguns.com

Despite the title, this is actually advocating against an open second American civil war. And I agree, it would be a disaster for our country. It has some good points and ideas about trying to prevent this.

I simply think that political violence may be inevitable given the situation. I don't know what form of violence that will be, but I hope it doesn't happen.

More disastrous than tyranny? More disastrous than the already-horrendous control of the deep state, its follies and mishandlings?

 

[sillygoose]

It's not automatic though, it depends on multiple factors. Perhaps the most crucial factor was that the population of Eastern Europe countries was exhausted after four years of devastating war. For example in Yugoslavia, German/Italian/Ustashe/Chetnik willingness to mass murder civilian population did little to dampen the rise of partisan forces, quite the opposite, but the war bled the country dry, so when communists took over those who stayed behind to fight (many fled and were often returned and executed) were crushed in short order, within year there all large groups were destroyed, only small groups and individuals remaining to be hunted down by 1947.

Yugoslavia isn't as good of an example as you think, because the Yugoslav partisans were nearly destroyed several times and if not for the wider war would have been wiped out. Plus they engaged in massacres of civilians themselves:

Yugoslav Partisans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Partisans massacred civilians during and after the war.[125] On 27 July 1941, Partisan-led units massacred around 100 Croat civilians in Bosansko Grahovo and 300 in Trubar during the Drvar uprising against the NDH.[126] Between 5–8 September 1941, some 1,000-3,000 Muslim civilians and soldiers, including 100 Croats were massacred by the Partisan Drvar Brigade.[127] A number of Partisan units, and the local population in some areas, engaged in mass murder in the immediate postwar period against POWs and other perceived Axis sympathizers, collaborators, and/or fascists along with their relatives, including children. These infamous massacres include the Foibe massacres, Tezno massacre, Macelj massacre, Kočevski Rog massacre, Barbara Pit massacre and the communist purges in Serbia in 1944–45.

Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–45 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In fact without the massive external support they never would have been in a position to organize before the Soviet army showed up, which by the way was the major reason the Axis ended up retreating out of the country; the Soviets nearing the country caused a lot of Chetniks to defect to the partisans, so their growth in 1944 was more a function of the way the winds of war were blowing rather than Axis atrocities growing the partisan movement. At the end of the war it was mass terror that ended up crushing any lingering anti-Tito resistance, since most of the resistance took Tito's offered amnesty if they switched sides:

World War II in Yugoslavia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Allied air forces sent 1,973 aircraft (mostly from the US 15th Air Force) over Yugoslavia, which discharged over 3,000 tons of bombs. On 17 August 1944 Marshal Josip Broz Tito offered an amnesty to all collaborators. On 12 September, King Peter broadcast a message from London, calling upon all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to "join the National Liberation Army under the leadership of Marshal Tito". The message had a devastating effect on the morale of the Chetniks. Many of them switched sides to the Partisans.
...
To raise the number of Partisan troops Tito again offered the amnesty on 21 November 1944. In November 1944, the units of the Ustaše militia and the Croatian Home Guard were reorganised and combined to form the Army of the Independent State of Croatia.[46]

By this point the Bulgarians and Russians had shown up, so anyone with half a brain accepted Tito's offer and switched sides.
For those that did not and thought they could flee:

On 15 May 1945 a large column of the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps and the remnants of the Serbian State Guard, and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, arrived at the southern Austrian border near the town of Bleiburg. The representatives of the Independent State of Croatia attempted to negotiate a surrender to the British under the terms of the Geneva Convention that they had joined in 1943, and were recognised by it as a "belligerent", but were ignored.[79] Most of the people in the column were turned over to the Yugoslav government as part of what is sometimes referred to as Operation Keelhaul. Following the Bleiburg repatriations, the Partisans proceeded to brutalize the POWs. The Partisans' actions were partly done for revenge as well as to suppress the potential continuation of armed struggle within Yugoslavia.[86]

Josip Broz Tito - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dominic McGoldrick writes that as the head of a "highly centralised and oppressive" regime, Tito wielded tremendous power in Yugoslavia, with his authoritarian rule administered through an elaborate bureaucracy that routinely suppressed human rights.[7]
Victor Sebestyen writes that Tito "was as brutal as" Stalin.[191]
According to David Matas, outside the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia had more political prisoners than all of the rest of Eastern Europe combined.[194]

Tito's secret police was modelled on the Soviet KGB. Its members were ever-present and often acted extrajudicially,[195] with victims including middle-class intellectuals, liberals and democrats.[196] Yugoslavia was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but scant regard was paid to some of its provisions.[197]

Hardly a surprise that Yugoslavia didn't last long after Tito died.

 

[The One Char]

Guys, we got a bot.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Good time to use that report button.

 

[History Learner]

So what you meant by the US funding Death Camps in Afghanistan to kill insurgents and their families on a scale of that of the Soviet Union and China you actually meant not Death Camps but much smaller Prisons which weren't Death Camps nowhere near Afghanistan and Death Squads as alleged by The Intercept?

Sorry... I meant to add... "to an extent."

No, because for one I never made those claims; if you're talking about scale, then yes, the Soviets were worse than us when they were in Afghanistan. That wasn't the point of contention however, which was that we tried brutal tactics in Afghanistan and definitely so in Vietnam where we matched the Soviets in brutality; it didn't work. As it were though, if we are getting into the finer points, neither did the Soviets operate death camps in Afghanistan. Likewise, if you don't like The Intercept for whatever reason about the KDF, how about the New York Times? Foreign Policy? Human Rights Watch?

 

[PsihoKekec]

Yugoslavia isn't as good of an example as you think, because the Yugoslav partisans were nearly destroyed several times

And yet they managed to regenerate and grow after every enemy offensive, while the post war anti-communist resistance withered and died after much less intensive operations.

In fact without the massive external support they never would have been in a position to organize before the Soviet army showed up,

The external support started after Italian capitulation yet before that they managed to raise large number of volunteers, create liberated areas, lose them and liberate them again, withstand multiple offensives and continuously enlarge their forces, having some some 130-150.000 men under arms, at the time of Italian capitulation. The allied support after the Italian capitulation enabled them to furtherly enlarge their forces and operate more aggressively.

 

[sillygoose]

And yet they managed to regenerate and grow after every enemy offensive, while the post war anti-communist resistance withered and died after much less intensive operations.

Regenerate yes, grow no. They only really grew once the Germans started to retreat when the Soviets showed up. Official Yugoslav numbers about the size of their movement are suspect. The post-war resistance never got off the ground thanks to the 1944-45 purge and then Stalin-esque secret police actions throughout the rest of Tito's life. That and the death camps for any regime foe who didn't flee out of the country or who were returned to their control by the Allies. That and the amnesty offered twice in 1944 really helped.

The external support started after Italian capitulation yet before that they managed to raise large number of volunteers, create liberated areas, lose them and liberate them again, withstand multiple offensives and continuously enlarge their forces, having some some 130-150.000 men under arms, at the time of Italian capitulation. The allied support after the Italian capitulation enabled them to furtherly enlarge their forces and operate more aggressively.

I highly doubt they had that many. They might have had that many supporters in the country, but not under arms. There is no way to independently confirm those numbers anyway.
As it was though the increase came from the defection of two Italian divisions who didn't want to be sent to forced labor in Germany or to fight the Allies and due to the Italian defection the Serbs were able to mass conscript anyone in uncontrolled areas:

Yugoslav Partisans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Italians were also in the army: 20,000 Italian fighters were in 9th Corps (Yugoslav Partisans), Partisan Battalion Pino Budicin, Partisan Division "Garibaldi" and Division Italia (Yugoslavia) later.[77] Following the Soviet-Bulgarian offensive in Serbia and North Macedonia in the autumn of 1944, mass Partisan conscription of Serbs, Macedonians and eventually Kosovo Albanians increased.

Given that suddenly control over a bunch of the country instantly ceased for the Axis and the Italians started helping the Partisans it is a no brainer that suddenly they increased in size when they could pressgang anyone into their army at will. In 1944 that was coupled with mass defections of Axis-allied Yugo forces thanks to the arrival of the Soviets and Bulgarians as well as Tito's amnesty. That isn't organic growth, that is situations outside the conflict in Yugoslavia radically altering the situation within the country.

Of course the only numbers given come from Yugoslav post-war figures, which should be treated with caution to say the least.
Given their casualties they weren't much of a success:

Yugoslav Partisans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Despite their success, the Partisans suffered heavy casualties throughout the war. The table depicts Partisan losses, 7 July 1941 – 16 May 1945:[102][103][104]

	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	Total
Killed in action​	18,896	24,700	48,378	80,650	72,925	245,549
Wounded in action​	29,300	31,200	61,730	147,650	130,000	399,880
Died from wounds​	3,127	4,194	7,923	8,066	7,800	31,200
Missing in action​	3,800	6,300	5,423	5,600	7,800	28,925

Much like the American revolution their success was surviving repeated heavy defeats and heavy losses and banking on the war outside the country going in the favor of their allies so that they could outlast the enemy. No one is going to claim they could have won without Germany being tied down on all fronts and defeated there, nor that they could have done what they did in 1944 without Italy defecting.

 

[History Learner]

@BlackDragon98 question is, what can we do against drone attacks, assuming (worse case scenario) that most of the military remains loyal to the ‘government’?

Spoiler: Ask these Guys

 

[Husky_Khan]

No, because for one I never made those claims; if you're talking about scale, then yes, the Soviets were worse than us when they were in Afghanistan. As it were though, if we are getting into the finer points,

Yes you did make the claim. It's right here.

When Doomsought said behind the Iron Curtain and Death Camps... I assumed he was talking about Gulags of the Soviet Union and you replied we did that "to an extent" in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Then Doomsought accused you of Historical Revisionism and cited by term the Soviet Gulags and Chinese Prisons in Xinjiang imprisoning Uighers.

And you responded: "No, we just did Gitmo, Abu Ghraib (Tbf, Iraq War here but you get the point) and CIA-funded death squads that murdered women and children;"

So yes, you did make those claims. You might not of intended to make that equivocation and to you the difference between a million or thirty million in a Gulag or Relocation Camp to several hundred Detainees held in Gitmo for upwards of twenty years and downplaying that away as "getting into the finer points" but there's no other impression to gain from your post. If there's a failure in relaying your actual claim, that's on you. If you want to shift the goalposts now by stated someone is "getting into the finer points" that's fine, but you still made the equivocation that they were basically equivalent. It's "fine" if you think they're basically the same or that you were just engaging in hyperbole, being dishonest or made a mistake, just don't act like you never made the claim. Your lack of "finer" posting is on you, not me. Sorry.

That wasn't the point of contention however, which was that we tried brutal tactics in Afghanistan and definitely so in Vietnam where we matched the Soviets in brutality; it didn't work.

No this wasn't the point of contention. Doomsought quite clearly clarified he was referencing the Gulags and Uigher population of China as primary examples. You were the one who shifted the goalposts... sorry... "getting into the finer points" of Vietnam and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and claiming the former is basically the equivalent of the Soviet Gulag system.

 

[Sobek]

How big is all of the US Armed forces? Especially compared to the entire population? How quickly will these drone strikes start mounting collateral damage? How many people would actually be fighting?

Push comes to shove a single man with a plan and a bottle of homemade napalm can tie up thousands of federal troops and employees while causing billions in damage. If it gets to that point shit is fucked already.

 

[AndrewJTalon]

More disastrous than tyranny? More disastrous than the already-horrendous control of the deep state, its follies and mishandlings?

Many, many things can go wrong in an armed uprising. We could become the very authoritarians we removed, for instance. Foreign powers could take advantage of our weakness in a multitude of ways. I don't want armed conflict, I'm hoping we can right the republic without force. But we are dealing with morons who want to rule over us and a literally mentally ill significant percentage of the population serving them, so it's entirely possible it will happen anyway.

In that case, I prefer we win over them. But I want us to keep our options open and not have to resort to that. The consequences would be catastrophic for us and the world.

Here is an analysis of the Biden Administration's "Counterterrorism Strategy":

An Unprofessional Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism - Security Studies Group

Only a bureaucracy could have written something so incompetent. [...]Read More... from An Unprofessional Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism

securitystudies.org

 

[DarthOne]

Many, many things can go wrong in an armed uprising. We could become the very authoritarians we removed, for instance. Foreign powers could take advantage of our weakness in a multitude of ways. I don't want armed conflict, I'm hoping we can right the republic without force. But we are dealing with morons who want to rule over us and a literally mentally ill significant percentage of the population serving them, so it's entirely possible it will happen anyway.

In that case, I prefer we win over them. But I want us to keep our options open and not have to resort to that. The consequences would be catastrophic for us and the world.

Here is an analysis of the Biden Administration's "Counterterrorism Strategy":

An Unprofessional Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism - Security Studies Group

Only a bureaucracy could have written something so incompetent. [...]Read More... from An Unprofessional Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism

securitystudies.org

Oh trust me, I’d perfer that we win without having to resort to a Second Civil War too. War, even for a worthy and glorious cause, is a horrible, brutal thing.

 

[ATP]

And yet they managed to regenerate and grow after every enemy offensive, while the post war anti-communist resistance withered and died after much less intensive operations.


The external support started after Italian capitulation yet before that they managed to raise large number of volunteers, create liberated areas, lose them and liberate them again, withstand multiple offensives and continuously enlarge their forces, having some some 130-150.000 men under arms, at the time of Italian capitulation. The allied support after the Italian capitulation enabled them to furtherly enlarge their forces and operate more aggressively.

Becouse they were supported and knew that more support would come.In 1945 everybody in soviet controlled Europe knew that USA gave then to soviets and that there would be no help.
Fought only those who could not hide,and only becouse they prefered death from bullet to be tortured to death.
People are no heroes,most would not fight without decent chance of winning.

And in 1945 soviet let those who obey lived.Later that changed,but then there was no more fighters.Becouse soviet ,unless german idiots,were smart - first they killed fighters,and start sending others to Gulag only when they were gone.
They slowly boiled frog.
When german idiots murdered all from beginning.They tossed frog into fire.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Regenerate yes, grow no.

They had some 80.000 men under arms at the end of 1941, 130.000 at the end of 1942 and some 180-200.000 before the capitulation of Italy. And these are not the wartime propaganda numbers, but numbers confirmed by historians in the last decades, with some 10% deviation due to many early unit archives being damaged or destroyed during the war. Now, I don't have a PhD in mathematics, but more than doubling the numbers is considered the growth.

I highly doubt they had that many. They might have had that many supporters in the country, but not under arms.

No, the numbers are for the NOVJ forces, both combat formations and support units, while local activists and supporter networks are not

As it was though the increase came from the defection of two Italian divisions

20.000 men accounted for 100.000 men increase?

 

[sillygoose]

They had some 80.000 men under arms at the end of 1941, 130.000 at the end of 1942 and some 180-200.000 before the capitulation of Italy. And these are not the wartime propaganda numbers, but numbers confirmed by historians in the last decades, with some 10% deviation due to many early unit archives being damaged or destroyed during the war. Now, I don't have a PhD in mathematics, but more than doubling the numbers is considered the growth.

So they claim. Any independent confirmation not based on Tito's forces claims/documents? It is hardly unprecedented that even internal numbers for insurgents aren't accurate and are inflated to make people look good. See the ANA's Ghost Soldiers as one example.

No, the numbers are for the NOVJ forces, both combat formations and support units, while local activists and supporter networks are not

Again same problem, that is all relying on taking wartime insurgency documents at face value. Funny how when Axis offensives actually engaged the insurgents in pitched battle they only ended up facing 12,000-20,000 at a time despite the insurgents theoretically having 200,000-300,000 or more people under arms in 1943-44. Given the threat of those offensives the Yugoslav partisans would have rallied more men to engage and destroy Axis forces, especially after the Italian defection.

20.000 men accounted for 100.000 men increase?

It accounted for a real increase, not a claimed paper increase.

Edit:
Even the British didn't buy Tito's numbers. From about the time of the Italian surrender:

“The figure of 220,000 partisans was reduced to figures varying between 100,000 and 180,000 in subsequent accounts. E.M. Rose of the Foreign Office Southern Department minuted that if the figures for resistance forces in Serbia were true, the partisans would already have ‘mopped up’ Mihailović’s men there.”

Excerpt From: Stevan Pavlowitch. “Hitler's New Disorder.” Apple Books.

“In February-March 1944, the German estimation of the number of partisans was just over 100,000, of whom 80,000 were in the NDH; they themselves claimed to be between 200,000 and 300,000.”

Excerpt From: Stevan Pavlowitch. “Hitler's New Disorder.” Apple Books.

Since the Germans were actually fighting the partisans by themselves at that point they would have been more likely to have an accurate take on what they were actually facing, one corroborated by Tito's requests for uniforms in summer 1944 after his evacuation due to the German assault on his HQ in May 1944:

“From the Soviets he notably asked for uniforms for 100,000 men, uniforms for colonels and generals, a marshal’s uniform for himself, and decorations.”

Excerpt From: Stevan Pavlowitch. “Hitler's New Disorder.” Apple Books.

This at a time when he claimed to have 300,000 armed troops.