After the death of Reene Nicole Good at the hands of ICE agents on Jan. 7, 2026, it came to my attention that there was something much, much bigger at play in the United States with external influences egging on disarray and tumult. The chaos of her death and the escalating situation in Minneapolis at the time of writing, play into the hands of foreign governments who would love to see the collapse or weakening of the United States, namely China and Russia. Both are brutal dictatorships: in Russia, one can easily be imprisoned for life on false charges; in China, one can be taken away in the night for speaking against the government, never to see the light of day.
The internet explodes almost daily with news of new political controversies, ranging from a plethora of antagonisms which Americans bicker over. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China respectively, love to see American division. The United States is the most powerful country in the world and the only thing that stands in the way of their expansion and domination. Yes, it is true that the U.S. has expansionist ideas of its own; however, these disagreements over our foreign policies can be solved amongst ourselves— without devolving into armed conflict. If the U.S. is distorted beyond recognition, as we are on the road to right now, this will allow the vile and corrupt hegemons of the world to have a free hand in the aftermath and seek their own ambitions. Countries like China and Russia would love to benefit from our internal strife— if the U.S. were fighting itself, preoccupied in the smaller details, a swift and decisive blow could be struck against us. If this happens, the free people of the world will have a quite gruesome and lamentable struggle, maybe even our last. Although Winston Churchill is no longer alive today, I feel as though his words during the Battle of Britain 86 years ago fit well in our current age: “If we can stand up. . . the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
In April 2024, Alex Garland’s Civil War film was released to the public. It follows a young journalist in the future where a second civil war has plagued the U.S., and the audience is presented with gruesome scenes: suicide bombers wielding the American flag jumping into a crowd of protestors, rouge organizations looting the countryside, old high school grudges resurfacing in the form of murder, cities forming their own defense force and creating their own governments and starvation. Here we see what a new, real American civil war could look like, where everyday Americans are pushed to kill their neighbors and friends in desperation for supplies or their own lives. So many lives would be lost, families torn apart and unimaginable consequences would stem from a new American civil war.
The U.S. is abundantly rich in essentially everything that comes with being the leading world power. As Californians, we could be one of the forefront regions of warfare, from both internal and external armies due to our coastline geography and natural resources. Naval landings from China might occur on our coastline while we fight ourselves, especially in industry and agriculture rich areas like Silicon Valley or the Central Valley. It would be incredibly difficult to counter entire nations landing on our coast, seeing how we would already be weakened fighting ourselves.
The question of the United Nations (UN) and how this organization would respond to a potential second civil war is nebulous. The UN is famous for faltering in some of the most crucial moments in history, including its lackluster environmental policy enforcement and its inability to control large powers like Russia in Ukraine and the U.S. in Venezuela. We cannot rely on the UN’s support and would be left with no true organization laying down the woodwork for interventionism in a civil war, and large powers such as China and Russia would be left to their own devices to pick us off like vultures.
Nuclear arsenals have played a key role in world conflict since its first use in 1945 during World War II. Currently, the U.S., Russia, and China are the largest owners of nuclear arsenals in the world. Not only is there an overwhelming danger of Americans self-inflicting nuclear weapons in the case of a second civil war, but Russia and China, being undamaged, could use their arsenals as leverage for annexation of desirable lands and to force us into genuine dictatorships.
Across human history thousands of nation states have collapsed in flames, some of them being the most prominent of their region or time. Rome fell, and so did the Aztecs. Will the U.S. also collapse? The U.S. hasn’t even reached its 250th birthday yet, and yet there are many people who think a new American civil war is on the horizon. This is a crucial period in our history, one where change is bound to happen. However, no matter what, under any circumstance, we cannot aggravate ourselves to such a point. It doesn’t matter where on the political spectrum you are, it doesn’t matter what or who you align with. Thinking a civil war is the solution, even if in your heart you believe it to be a righteous cause to rid our home of pressing problems, is not the answer. It will be unimaginably horrific for everyone on all sides, and no one side will come out on top and our home will never be the same.
