How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

“The trial and execution of Whitmer, [Fox] explained in FBI recordings, were designed to inspire others to carry out similar attacks. The time had come for a revolution, and he and his men would provoke a societal collapse. ‘I just wanna make the world glow, dude,’ he told an informant. ‘That’s what it’s gonna take for us to take it back.’”

Like many other democratic countries around the world, the US is showing signs of political instability and precursors of civil wars. Walter uses Fox’s attempted kidnapping and assassination of Governor Whitmer as one example. Vigilantes who bring violence to everyday people start modern civil wars, with militias being the defining feature of modern civil wars. Fox and his fellow conspirators hoped to use terror (the kidnapping and murder of Governor Whitmer) to persuade others to join their cause or at least believe that the government no longer served the interest of the people. While the Whitmer kidnapping plot might seem like an isolated incident, it follows the same script that often leads to civil wars.

“But as I did this work, I realized something unnerving: The warning signs of instability that we have identified in other places are the same signs that, over the past decade, I’ve begun to see on our own soil.”

One of the main themes in this book is American Democracy and Its Vulnerabilities. Walter hopes to leverage her extensive expertise on civil wars, violent extremism, and domestic terrorism to help readers understand how civil wars start so that Americans can prevent another one from occurring in the US. Interviews with survivors of civil wars around the world illustrate how civil wars often sneak up on people. Walter does not want this to be the case in the US, which is also her home.