That question isn’t being asked because of headlines or rhetoric. It’s being asked because something more structural is changing beneath the surface.

History shows that societies don’t move directly from polarization to violence. They move through a late-cycle phase where internal conflict escalates, trust erodes, and institutions lose their ability to absorb disagreement without breaking something important.

That phase doesn’t guarantee collapse.
But it does change the geometry of risk.

When internal conflict rises, outcomes stop being symmetrical. Stability becomes conditional. Small shocks produce outsized reactions. And assumptions built during long periods of calm begin to fail.

The real risk isn’t predicting the worst-case scenario.

It’s remaining structurally exposed as the distribution of outcomes widens.

Read it here: Are We Entering a Civil War? Or Entering the Phase That Precedes It?