Is United States on the cusp of a civil war? Member of CIA panel thinks so
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Walter, who serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force, has given an analytical opinion of the US politics in a book, "How Civil Wars Start," which will be published in January
Barbara F Walter, who is a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, said that the United States is closer to "civil war than any of us would like to believe".
Walter's remark appeared to be quite alarming for a democratic country that recently hosted the 'Summit of Democracy' with an aim to strengthen democracy and defend against authoritarianism globally.
Is American democracy in crisis?
Walter, who serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force, has given an analytical opinion of the US politics in a book, "How Civil Wars Start," which will be out in January.
However, a report has been published by The Washington Post, detailing what Walter has assessed about the country's political situation and how it might pan out in the near future.
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The Post mentioned that Walter has studied conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua during her career.
It is understood that the Political Instability Task Force monitors countries around the world and speculates over a possibility of political instability.
"We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe. No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war," Walter wrote in the to-be-published book, as quoted by The Washington Post.
Weighing in on the political situation of America, Walter said that "if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you'd look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely."
"And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory," she added.
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The CIA actually has a Task Force designed to try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out around the world. It's just not legally allowed to look at the U.S. That means we are blind to the risk factors that are rapidly emerging here. pic.twitter.com/86UMVwhi3C
— Barbara F Walter (@bfwalter) November 25, 2021
We know why democracies decline and ethnic factions emerge. We also know it can be driven by extremists with their own political agendas. Whether these extremists succeed depends on whether we, the American people, challenge them or not. https://t.co/L9TmIk6pGC pic.twitter.com/Y0qn1v5Jn8
— Barbara F Walter (@bfwalter) December 14, 2021
If we talk about US politics, the past two-three years have been topsy-turvy — a phase when the administration also changed as Joe Biden was sworn in as 46th US president.
The election was chaotic as former President Donald Trump multiple times claimed that there were some discrepancies in the counting of votes.
On January 6, the deadly attack on the US Capitol also turned out to be a black chapter in the political history of the US.
As mentioned by Walter, the US is now an "anocracy," somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.