The Warlord Period

Many people have talked about and theorized concerning another American Civil War (including yours truly). Yet in the binary declaration of “there will be or will not be another civil war” one other possible scenario is left out. That being our own version of the various “warlord periods” that were experienced in history.

Rome both before and after the birth of Christ had these periods, the first period occurred from roughly 80-33 BC. The second began in the late 300s onward. What happened in both of these warlord period is the weakening of the central government and the strengthening of regional authorities (i.e. warlords). Yet this process of one party becoming stronger while the other weakened was not an instantaneous thing.

In the first Roman example the period was spurred by the Marian reforms of two decades prior, while these reforms improved the Roman military they also had an unanticipated side effect. With the shift away from a conscription military to a professionalized one the loyalty of the armies began to shift to the generals. Naturally this meant the senate came to have less control over the military.

This is what would ultimately allow Gaius Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon and take Rome virtually without contest. This process from the Marian reforms to the Emperorship took over seventy years. The second period followed a similar trajectory, the primary difference being that it was outsiders (the first barbarian “migrants”) who initiated the descent into warlordism and then collapse.

Now a few things about this need to be addressed. First is that at its core warlord periods are states of uneasy, fluctuating equilibrium. The irony is that these periods are not preordained in any shape, form, or fashion. Much like Nazi Germany in the early 1930s they could have been easily crushed in their infancy.

Yet, they almost never are. The reason for this being that the central government either has its eyes turned outward (in our case old world bullshit) or exclusively inward (basically ignoring everything outside of the central government). In our case we’ve managed to do both at the same time.

Next we must note what happens after the “infancy” period of the rising warlords gives way to the “teenage” years. At this point the warlords have too much power to be easily be crushed by the central authorities. They do not, however, have enough power to directly challenge them. It is rather akin to gangly, pimple ridden teenager challenging a parent starting to succumb to cancer.

Yes, the kid can’t quite overpower the adult at this point but the parent is in no position to give the brat a spanking. This leads to a period of unease between both parties, both knowing that this state of affairs is going to change sooner or later.

Thirdly these times are by definition transitional, most of the time in the favor of the warlords. They all end, one way or the other. So what does this mean with regards to the USA?

Simply put I already believe we already have entered our own period of warlordism, starting within the Biden presidency. The Texas national guard was sent in during that time to try and reinforce the border, despite the protests of the central government in D.C. Notice something though, Biden couldn’t do anything to stop their deployment and continued operations.

Indeed, other states joined in on reinforcing the Texas national guard despite both Biden’s bitching and the media’s malfeasance. Not waiting on the central government to correct the problem is a clear indication that the states distrust the feds. This sets a precedent that will be remembered regardless of who’s in the white house from now on.

Looking at Trump’s second term I can also see that he himself is attempting to deal with blue state warlordism. Indeed, in California the L.A riots show many signs of being at least partially orchestrated and/or funded by the California state government. This is a pattern that I suspect is playing out across the blue states and cities in the form of such things as the “no kings” protests (and no working with ICE orders).

So what does this mean for all of us? First we must understand that this warlord period of ours is still fairly young, being at max four years old. The “warlords” (such as the governor of Texas) are still nascent in their formation. Armed violence has not broken out between the governors and D.C. This will of course change as it did in previous episodes of warlordism.

We must remember that very, very few warlords actively set out to overthrow the central government from the beginning. What happens most of the time is that the national leadership cannot or will not fulfill a vital obligation (such as border security), this causes someone like Abbot to step in to fill the void. It typically takes decades for the central government to weaken enough for the fully grown warlords to start thinking that they can overcome it.

This means we are looking at least at a decade long period of decay and unrest where the “light at the end of the tunnel” comes in a very uncertain form. This does not mean things won’t get get violent in the USA, rather the violence will be far more localized in scope. It will not be army vs army but rather akin to the ongoing L.A riots.

Fourthly we must consider one other important factor in all of this, the national guard units are starting to become “state” guard corps. This trend began during the covid pandemic chaos, the federal government moved to require every member of the armed forces to get the covid vaccines. Both the governors of Oklahoma and Texas, however, fought against this deeply unpopular measure (just look as the recruiting shortage for the military during the vaccine mandate).

They were willing to defend their forces when the federal government was actively trying to oppress them. Notice that the national guard detachments of these two states are extremely loyal to their governors. The Texas national guard in particular refused any orders from D.C to leave the border.

This tendency is only going to wax in the coming years, every time the feds fail to protect the members of the national guard is a time when the governors can step in. Eventually such things as the constitution and the president will become meaningless to these troops, personal loyalty to governor and state will trump all other loyalties.

What does this all mean for us? We are simply at the very start of what may prove to be a deeply chaotic, divided period. There is no guarantee as to what the final outcome could be, it could wind up like virtually all Chinese periods of division with a central government of some sort coming into power once more. It could also follow the later Roman and Holy Roman Empire examples, descending into permanent fragmentation.

No matter what the end result turns out to be this will be a time of deep confusion, conflicting (and evaporating) loyalties, regionalism, and rejection of old authority.