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“So where do you think America might divide itself into two factions that could fight a sustained civil war?” Reuben demanded.
Torrent smiled. “Red state, blue state.”
“That’s cheap media graphics. You might as well say rural versus urban.”
“I do say that. But the geographical division is still clear. The Northeast and the West Coast against the South and the middle, with some states torn apart because they’re so evenly balanced.”
“No one’s going to fight over those differences.”
Torrent smiled his maddening superior smile. “The rhetoric today is already as hot-blooded and insane and hate-filled as it was over slavery before the first Civil War—and even then, most people refused to believe war was possible until Fort Sumter fell.”
“One thing,” said Reuben. “One tiny thing.”
“Yes?” said Torrent.
“The U.S. Army is absolutely dominated by red-state ideals. There are some blue-staters, yes, of course. But you don’t join the military, as a general rule, unless you share much of the red-state ideology.”
“So because the red-staters control the Army, you think there can’t be a civil war.”
“I think it’s unlikely.”
“Don’t hedge on me.”
Reuben shrugged. He wasn’t hedging, he was specifying; but let Torrent think whatever he wanted.
“What if the White House were in the control of blue-staters?” asked Torrent. “What if the President ordered American troops to fire on American citizens who fought for red-state ideals?”
“We obey the President, sir.”
“Because you’re thinking you’d be called to fire on neo-fascist militia nut groups from Montana,” said Torrent. “What if you were told to fire on the Alabama National Gu
ard?”
“If Alabama was in rebellion, then I’d do it at once.”
“If,” said Torrent. “We just got our first ‘if’ from Soldier Boy. You would obey the President ‘if.’ ” Torrent grinned in triumph. “Civil wars are fought when leaders find out what those ‘ifs’ are and exploit them. I would only shoot at my neighbor ‘if.’ And then a politician tells you that the ‘if’ has happened.”
They all regarded Torrent in silence, waiting for the clincher that they knew was coming.
“The ideology doesn’t matter. You’re right, no one cares enough. So here’s when you’ll get ready to shoot your neighbor: When you’re convinced that your neighbor is arming himself to shoot you.”
Reuben well knew how that worked. Few Serbs, Croats, or Muslims in the old Yugoslavia even imagined they could go to war—the intermarriage rate was so high that it was obvious you could never sort out one group from another.
But all it took was a handful of nuts with guns shooting at you because your parents were Croats, even if you never cared. If they’re attacking you because you’re part of a group, then when you fire back, you do it as a member of that group. “You get forced onto one side or the other whether you want to or not,” said Reuben, “once the bullets start to fly.”
“The bullets don’t even have to fly,” said Torrent, nodding. “You just have to believe they’re trying to shoot you. Wars are fought because we believe the other team’s threats.”
“Which suggests,” said Reuben, “that wars are also lost because one side didn’t believe until it was too late.”
“There we have it,” said Torrent, looking around triumphantly at the rest of the class. “Right here in this class, I have persuaded a highly trained soldier who hates the idea of civil war to think about the possibility.”
The others laughed and looked at Reuben Malich with some mixture of mockery and sympathy. He had fallen into Torrent’s trap.
Only Reuben knew better. Torrent was a serious historian. So was Reuben. Torrent was right. A civil war could be fought anywhere, if somebody had the will, the wit, and the power to pull the right strings, push the right buttons, light the right fires.
The class ran ten minutes over—which was common with Torrent, because nobody wanted him to stop talking. And after class, many lingered to talk to him about the papers they were writing. Everyone was terrified of his acid pen, firing volleys of savage criticism across their pages. They wanted to get it right on the first draft.
Reuben didn’t care about grades, mostly because he earned A’s in everything. So when class ended, he always left at once. Today, though, Torrent waved him over before he could leave. By staying, Reuben was blowing off Contemporary African Conflicts. But when a man like Torrent calls, you come because it matters what Torrent thinks about everything. Even you.
