The Canadian government is apparently so worried about the possibility that a civil war might break out in the United States that a think tank is already looking into the possibility.
Policy Horizons Canada, a quiet office of the Canadian government, issued a report recently called “Disruptions on the Horizon,” according to a Politico report. In it, the group posed the possibility of a civil war in America breaking out, which it believed Ottawa should prepare for.
The 37-page document included that hypothetical scenario, with 15 ominous words that read:
“U.S. ideological divisions, democratic erosion, and domestic unrest escalate, plunging the country into civil war.”
This is what some foreign countries are apparently worried about for the U.S. From the outside looking in, it’s hard to blame them, really.
American politics have been divisive, at best, over the last few years — ever since Donald Trump burst onto the scene in 2016. That all came to a head in January 2021, of course, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building and breached it.
That event has been characterized as an insurrection, which is what the actual Civil War in America in the 1800s was determined to be as well.
Many people have said that Trump’s politics and rhetoric — as well as that of his many supporters inside Washington and out — are threatening democracy in the United States.
All of this has apparently added up to real concern on the part of America’s northern neighbor, who in a hypothetical civil war situation in the U.S. could see spillover effects north of the border.
The report issued by Policy Horizons ranked civil war in America as improbable, but it did say that if it were to happen, it would be an “ultra-high-impact event.”
It also outlined other possibilities of events that could disrupt life in Canada, and how the country might prepare for them.
Some of those possibilities include biological weapons that people can make at home; the rise of pathogens that are resistant to antibiotics that could lead to food shortages and mass death; and the international outbreak of what would be World War III.
John McArthur, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who is on the steering committee for the Policy Horizons, told Politico’s head of news, Alexander Burns, that the isolationism and protectionism exhibited during the Trump administration has rattled the psyche in Canada and also upended economic relationships that had dated back years.
He said the personal behavior that Trump exhibited toward Canada, as well as his political policies, left a “painful mark” on the country. As he said:
“Any sense of disruption to your closest sovereign relationship in the world, any disruption within that country, is a deep worry, I think, to any Canadian outlook. … Canada’s place in the world has become more complex terrain to navigate.”
He added that the plausibility of a scenario in which America plunges into civil war depends on “how one defines civil war.”
