Occasionally I hear people gloriously talking about a second Civil War, and I shiver inside. I don't know what they think will happen, but I don't think they understand exactly how such a war will be fought. Looking at the US Military, the gov't, the US transportation network, and various wars around the world, I'll explain exactly why I think that a civil war should be avoided at all costs. I won't attempt to predict a winner, God only knows who would "win".
(For the purposes of this article, I'll be ignoring Hawaii. I don't think they'd be involved in a war between states; while they'd probably mourn the loss of tourist dollars, but it's highly unlikely that they'd launch an invasion force or suffer an invasion.)
First, it must be understood that a second American Civil War (henceforth 2ACW) will not be fought between states like the first one. It will be ideological at heart, and while certain states will largely go one way or another, the first battles will be inside cities, not between them. Since the political rhetoric in the US has shifted from "I disagree and will vote against you, my friend" to "crazy *bleep* (political orientation buzzword) are destroying the country and (another buzzword)", I'm inclined to believe that we'll largely be split along political lines. It should be noted that "split along political lines" doesn't mean two groups, it means dozens. Left-authoritarian groups won't like left-liberarian groups, and won't cooperate with them any more than they will right-authoritarian groups.
Regardless of who starts shooting first, or why, the 2ACW will start with pro- and anti-gov't forces fighting each other. Likely, this will escalate from protests to armed protests, with the trigger being a police or military intervention in a large protest that turns violent. In most countries, this sort of thing is commonplace, but America is a unique situation in that not only would it be broadcast live on all channels, but groups around the country are waiting for this with baited breath.
But that's the trigger, and while it is my fervent hope that if such a thing happens, we'll all wake up, I'm here to talk about the war.
Any rebellion starts with pro- and anti-gov't forces fighting, and by default the gov't starts with the military equipment. It is inevitable that the military would split and fight between itself, but regardless of how that ends, the militias will be fighting the military at the start. For the simple reason that at first, the military will be tasked with suppressing the rebellion, and will only start splitting and defecting as the soldiers deal with the ethics of what they're doing.
And that is where things would go from bad to Biblically bad in a hurry. Prior to WW2, an army lived on its stomach and moved on its feet. 70 years later, the US military lives on its stomach, and moves on its fuel tanks. Soldiers in the modern world do not, as a rule, use their feet to get to the battle, they drive tanks, humvees, APCs, and helicopters to the battle, then dismount and fight.
The modern US Infantry soldier's combat loadout, just the gear that's worn to fight in, weighs around 60 (1) pounds. That's comparable to what a Roman Centurion worn, by the way. He is a logistical nightmare in every way. He must be daily supplied with food, water, and ammunition, ferried to and from the battle, and unlike his Roman predecessors, he cannot be reasonably expected to march to the battle or resupply himself along the way.
Putting those two facts together, any reasonably intelligent guerrilla commander will realize that if he does not want to lose men fighting the military, the best way to simultaneously defeat the military and avoid fighting it is to starve it of fuel. Any refinery, pipeline, or tanker truck becomes a highly valuable target, and while refineries are hard targets and will be guarded by soldiers, the weakest point of the chain is the transportation.
Oil comes into the US in several locations, a couple pipelines from Canada, ports along the Gulf coast, and any number of domestic production sites. There are refineries of magnitude in multiple states, and further distribution pipelines ending in every state. The ports and refineries would be heavily guarded, and are often in fairly urban terrain, while pipelines and truck routes are only defended in spots, and necessarily go through rural terrain.
It is the pipelines that would be struck first. Any exposed portion could be blown up with a satchel charge, and the delay from the destruction of the pipeline to continuation of use can take weeks under ideal circumstances. Next, the guerrillas would strike at supply convoys. These would be guarded, but lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned the roadside bomb from a nuisance to an art form. While the Iraqis and Afghanis did not have the domestic industrial base to make weapons, American insurgents would, and are capable.
With time, any country that sees civil unrest also sees an influx of foreign arms. Where there is conflict, and money, there is trade in weapons, and there is no reason to expect that 2ACW will be any different. As the insurgents gained access to mortars and rockets, even smaller Katyusha-style rockets, the refineries and ports would go up in flames. An infantry squad cannot stop rockets once they're in flight, and Katyusha rockets have a range of several miles.
If the focus on destruction of oil supplies seems odd, consider the US military in combat in Iraq/Afghanistan: The soldiers arrive in-country in airplanes. They, and their equipment, are then either flown or driven to whatever base they are deployed to, and from there are driven or flown to the location of combat operations. On a combat mission, a US Infantry Soldier will only carries 210 rounds of 5.56 NATO ammunition, plus a day's worth of water and food. Resupply is absolutely critical, and is done by vehicle. If the enemy force requires it, armor is brought to bear and air support is called in.
If the fuel supplies were cut off, a soldier would be limited to the distance he could walk in a few days, and the amount of ammunition he could carry on his back. While this distance could obviously be increased by carrying additional weight, additional weight means slower travel, increased risk of injuries, increased water consumption, and fatigued soldiers. The ability to arrive at a destination after a day of marching means little if the soldier cannot fight upon his arrival.
Now, in the course of a war, even a just war against oppression, oil production and transportation facilites would be targeted as legitimate military targets. However, what people who promote the 2ACW don't seem to realize is that as much as the US Military depends on fuel, so does the rest of the population. And that's the really scary part.
The cornerstone of civilization is the farm. In America, that means the ubiquitous John Deere tractor. Which runs on gas. Without gasoline, the tractor does not move, which means the field is not planted, which means no food is produced. And that, in a nutshell, is the single greatest byproduct of the 2ACW: Famine. There's a reason one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is named Famine. and follows War: When people are fighting in the area, no one works a field.
Even if there are people alive, in the area, with the expertise to productively grow crops, there is no way for them to actually grow the crops without fuel for the tractors, no way to get the crops, if cultivated with animal labor, to the processor without fuel for the trucks, and no way for the processor to get the end product to the starving without fuel.
On the surface, animal labor seems like the answer, but that's a two-fold question of scale and specialization:
First, scale: An ox-and-plow system can indeed cultivate a field, but only one furrow at a time, at a pace of two or perhaps three miles of furrow per hour. Compared to a tractor plowing twenty furrows at five or more miles an hour.
Second, specialization: Crops in American are grown with a nationwide transportation network in mind, and the vast fields of wheat and corn in the Midwest, even if productive are useless to Californians and New Yorkers without a method of getting the food to them. LIkewise, the fruit grown in New England and California is useless if they cannot be transported to the people who normally eat them.
And again, while animals seem the answer, goods transported by oxcart cannot be refrigerated. Surrounded by food, people will suffer from malnutrition, and the cities will empty as starving civilians flee warring groups and search for food.
But that's just my take on it. Zombies will seem like a pleasant fantasy compared to a civil war. I haven't even started on the isolation-fueled fantasy that is "reunification".
Sources:
1: http://thedonovan.com/archives/modernwarriorload/ModernWarriorsCombatLoadReport.pdf
