Our enemies would fund our civil war

A country torn by civil war can't be a power player on the international stage. Think about the countries in the last 50 years that have broken apart in that way. Their struggles might influence global policy and occupy the time of superpowers, but they themselves are not superpowers.

The term superpower was coined to describe the massive influence of the mightiest nuclear-armed nations in the second half of the 20th Century. America was the first, with its atomic bomb. As nuclear weapons technology spread, the Soviet Union became the opposing force. Alliances formed among the lesser nations to gain power by association with one superpower or the other.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was left as the last remaining superpower. For a brief few years, we could believe that we stood unopposed. Of course the nuclear arsenal still sat in readiness in the remnants of the USSR. They were no longer under a central command, but enough of them were still in Russia's hands to make a nice armageddon. Good thing no one was in  the mood at the time.

Russia reconstituted its power gradually. It was never going to lie there and give up its global ambitions. The ambitions live in the minds of human leaders, but the culture of imperialism -- no matter how re-labeled -- has centuries of heritage there.

China emerged as a power player more gradually. Its role in an actual armed conflict would probably be doggedly defensive rather than as an initial aggressor, but it can't be dismissed. Its leaders would enjoy global power as would any ambitious person. And unambitious people don't seek positions of leadership. Policy is made by dominant people.

If America gives way to its temptation to fight it out internally -- literally, with gunfire and explosions and factional killing -- China and Russia would fund and arm both sides and just sit back. America has conducted itself internationally with more pride than humility since it took its place as a real global power in the 1890s by beating up on Spain. The rest of the world might feel some sorrow at our dissolution, but also a bit of schadenfreude at the toppling of our self-constructed pedestal.

Would American business leaders really let the civil war happen? Civil wars in other countries are profitable. Let the smaller nations go up in flames and down in rubble. Good businessmen will talk about how it's in our national interest to be involved a little bit, but hold back from the wasteful extravagance of either global war or a real armed conflict on American streets. We can send a few thousand troops, and arm the combatants in these endless lesser conflicts as a way to affirm that the human species will never be peaceful and unified, while still keeping the golf courses, yacht clubs, and estates safely distant from the battle zones. But what if they can't maintain control? Lots of people are getting disgusted with the rule of the corporate elite. Who knows for sure how the official military forces might divide? Once an uprising is declared an insurrection, not just a criminal act, US armed forces can be used on home soil. Troops would have to decide where their loyalty lies.

Civil war would be a supremely bad idea. Since when has that ever stopped a determined bunch of people from marching off on a grand campaign? And on a higher level, maybe the destruction of the United States is just the next phase in evolution. It wouldn't be a failure of the principles on which the republic claimed to be founded. Those are universally available to any interested humans. If nations really are obsolete, the obliteration of this one would be merely another chapter in humanity's quarrelsome history. The principles of individual liberty and shared responsibility could still underlie any future regime more generally applied to human well-being across the planet.

I'm not saying that they would. But they could.

We are free to prevent our dissolution by growing up a little and facing the reality of the damage our species has done to the planet and each other. We can choose to start to get along with each other and look more carefully at the interdependence of all life, not just human life or of one sub-category of human life.  I'm not saying that we will. But we should. We can confound our enemies by refusing to destroy ourselves at the same time that we decline to engage in direct hostilities with them. Such a course would depend on an unprecedented level of wisdom. The only other option is to continue our uneasy paranoia for as long as we manage to keep from destroying ourselves outright. Aggressive leaders can always find recruits. Even if a majority of people don't want to be hostile to each other, a minority of motivated aggressors can always force the issue to bloodshed. That then has to be resolved before any progress can resume.