Expert issues disturbing civil war warning and predicts how the US would split
An expert has issued an ominous civil war warning and predicts there could be a tense breaking point in the US in the next decade.
A professor is warning parts of America could break away in the next 10 years, with California at the top of the bill predicted to secede from the US in 2035.
Political expert Benjamin Cohen from the University of California-Santa Barbara claims the Golden State could declare its independence amid growing polarization with the federal government and sparking a Civil War in doing so.
Cohen revealed how he envisioned the scenario would unfold, writing at the start of his 20th novel in a fictional news bulletin: "After years of festering discontent with the direction of politics in Washington, California today formally declared its independence as a sovereign nation.
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"President [JD] Vance has threatened a military takeover of state government in Sacramento, backed by National Guard troops from nearby red states. Armed conflict looks increasingly possible."
States seceding from the US would mean they would opt to leave the country to form an independent nation, abandoning the US Constitution, federal laws and federal government to govern their own on issues from taxes to defense and trade.
Although states formally withdrawing from membership seems unlikely, at least for the time being, Cohen backed up his theory by explaining there are current shifts across so-called 'dream states' where momentum is building for individual state causes that challenge remaining under the wider US umbrella.
"Identity can be a very powerful motivator," the professor explained. "That's why I worry about the risk of civil war. When it comes to something as strong as a sense of community identity, rationalism falls by the wayside."
And he isn't alone in his concerns as a recent YouGov poll revealed as many as 40 percent of Americans fear another civil war is either 'somewhat or very likely' in the next 10 years.
However, the same percentage believed war could break out over Democrats and Republicans, as opposed to individual states.
Still, the warning comes as tensions continue to rise between California's governor and President Donald Trump, exacerbated by the POTUS' decision to deploy armed troops into the state to tackle the rise of protests against the administration's immigration raids.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has ruled that it would be illegal for states to withdraw without the consent of all others in the union - which Cohen determines could lay the foundation for civil war if the federal government attempts to stop states from gaining independence.
“I wish I could be that sanguine about it,” the professor continued, who spent three decades as the Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy in the Political Science Department at the university before retiring from teaching in 2021. "I’m not. It seems to me we cannot ignore the risks of the current fissures and fragmentation — the breakdown of a sense of community.”
As for a civil uprising, Cohen admitted it's 'difficult' to 'imagine how things would divide up' if things did turn violent, 'but the probability of such a war is substantially greater than zero,' he added.
His new book, Dream States: A Lurking Nightmare for the World Order, discusses this probability at length - and offers his own thoughts on how to conquer emerging frictions.
“I consider secession a grievously underappreciated phenomenon,” he explained. “My motivation to write this book was to call people’s attention to this fact.
“We tend to simplify geography by looking exclusively at the existing lines on a map that separate one sovereign state from another,” Cohen continued.
“But the reality is there are many people within those states that are very unhappy with the arrangement. They’d prefer to draw the lines in a different way. In some cases, they’re prepared to fight to redraw those lines.”
Topics: JD Vance, Donald Trump, Politics, California, History
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