Pending Costs of Social Democracy

I was asked by a wise-ish Steemian to ‘show my math’ in what would be a American second civil war of social Democracy against the Individualist Republic. My prediction is that there would be 55 million total perish.

In the first civil war, the war engagement is estimated to have killed approximately 2% of the population. It is admittedly known that the estimate doesn’t account for the many who died off the battlefields, of wounds that took lengthy durations to perish from. The 2% is said to include the soldiers that died from sickness and illness.

Currently I find no estimates of the population that perished from economic disruptions. So the 2% is likely on the low side of total deaths attributed to the war. This represents a battle for only a section of the means of production, slavery, tariffs, the right of a separate federal government for the south. The war was an attempt to split federal power.

The Russian Civil war 1917 to 1922, is said to have killed approx. 8 million which would have been approx. 8% of its 96.5 million at the time. There remains uncertainty about the other 5.5 million which may have journeyed out of nation or are somehow not included in the final population of approx. 83 million.

In WW2 National Socialism killed approximately 11% of its population while the USSR reached 15% and above.
To estimate what the population death in the US would be in a Socialist related war I would use somewhere between 8% to 15% of the population.

That puts the approx. figures at:
330 million X .08 = 26,400,000
330 million X .15 = 45,000,000

As can be seen the ideology of various forms of socialism exceed the will of federalism in terms of commitment.

Considering that gun ownership is currently associated more with the individualist Republic faction, the current 30 million plus gun owners represents only about half the potential combatants. To have an extended war would require the social Democracy faction to arm in equal numbers, so the resulting wars would eventually represent approx. 60 million armed combatants.

What is uncertain is the extent of will on each side. If a individualist Republic has a will beyond national socialism, the population death could be equal or greater than the 15% seen in socialist conflicts of WW2. The problem is that a individualist Republic is a rather unanalyzed entity. People knew of individual sovereignty and republics of the nature in the 1770s, there was just no clear way to separate it from the federalist growth that would deform into the federalist social state. The small piece of the reset button placed within the social construct was the mention of a free state.

So my beginning point is 15% at 45 million.

Beyond 45 million
During these past events, there was a high percentage of people that could still engage in agriculture, and a more even distribution of people within agriculture as compared with urban dwelling. Currently in the US there is a massive disparity between the population capable of surviving from an agricultural setting and those who know little to nothing about survival through agriculture.

The current model is highly dependent on oil. The oil regions (as well as farmlands) are very much in the individual Republic regions. If the battle turns to prolonged attrition, there is nothing preventing a denial of resources to the social Democracy faction. The duration and severity of attrition typically adds to the recovery times involved to restart the nation. Attrition becomes more certain when the will of each side is entrenched. In the case of social democracy the fight will be to dominate. In the individual Republic the will comes from the desire to not be dominated.

In past events, the economies weren’t as intertwined and volumes of reserve currencies where not as prevalent to one nation. That sets the stage for economic disruption on a global scale. At times in a civil war, in past see wars food supplies often arrive from other nations to support the war effort. Currently other countries would be in a state of economic uncertainty, and food supplies of each nation will become more important domestically to survival.
I think of this in terms of cascade failure. A cascade failure from a low potential has small results. A cascade failure from high potentials has large results.

Another uncertainty is foreign involvement. There is no way to predict with the past immigration policy, how many foreign actors are within the boundary of the nation and what the intentions of the actors are. It may be a neutral effect if there was no preconceived plan or organization to the inflow. The immigrants would separate naturally into about half their population per faction.

The problem is the history of how social Democracy factions operate, they do historically use immigration of ethnic factions to add to escalate war. That presents some fraction of approx. 25 million immigrants that become a uncertainty. That could galvanize a more severe war of attrition.
Typically what is preferred in war is to enter the battle field and have a really clear answer to:
Why are those people shooting at those people?

If the answer is clear and not complex, your typically looking at less than a decade of war. If the answer is not clear, your looking at possible hundred year war. This is the core of the treachery of the social democracy tactic.

Next, let’s talk invasion. The social Democracy faction has a large Communist nation that is very sympathetic to its cause. That particular nation had no problem sending 100,000 troops into a battlefield against US troops in the Korean conflict. There is good reason to assume it would insert troops whether covertly or openly into the side that mirrors it’s preferred form of government. Since we are briefly on the topic of that form of government, it is well known in the Marxist framework that the goal is, and has been, world socialism. Either through Social Democracy or Communism.

So with some uncertainty I ascribe approx. 10 million more to the tally bringing it to the 55 million I mentioned before. If a extended war of attrition starts grinding through the years, it will be much more.

Admittedly if a particular strategy presents itself to end the conflict rapidly, the numbers could be in the 60,000-100,000 range. Also admittedly is no calculation of possible deployment of any nuclear arsenal.

Russian population data:
http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/rrc/English/pdf/RRC_WP_No2.pdf