The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End

In any case, World War II did not suddenly explode out of nowhere. It gathered strength, like an avalanche starting to heave with ever-larger tremors, until whoosh—all the world gave way. The early signs during the 1930s weren’t just the outright invasions, but the swelling wave of bloodless annexations, midnight coups, bribed newspapers, assassina

Identifying the major participants in a coming great-power war, should it happen, is no Black Swan mystery. It’s more like a Gray Rhino, to use policy analyst Michele Wucker’s evocative phrase—something which, when we pause to think about it, is big, obvious, and galloping straight toward us. To list the roster on one side, we need only refer to Am

The social symptoms of this trend—again, not unlike the 1930s—are broadly similar across the world: the rise of ethnocentric populism, the success of charismatic strongmen, a drift toward we-first economic autarky, a disaffection with due process and globalism, and an enthusiasm for grievance-based nationalism.

An American civil war, accompanied by a sudden implosion of global U.S. power, might usher in such ghastly scenarios as a multi-sided world war in which America itself is not a major participant.

The same shadow is spreading today. According to one global institute (Freedom House), the share of the world’s population not living in “free” nations has expanded over the last decade from 55 percent to 80 percent.

The worst outcomes would be dismal indeed. Imagine, perhaps, a war which, after extensive violence, leaves the world in chaos—and leaves America riven into two or more fragments, one or more of which is directed by foreign powers.

Xi likes to compare “China’s order” with “chaos in the West.” As well he might, for it’s a playbook the world has seen before. Leaders of the Axis powers, after several successful invasions in the late 1930s, were themselves astonished by the disunity of their vanquished opponents.

During the 1930s, the path toward great-power war was marked by some easily recognizable signposts: strident nationalism, shrinking global trade, accelerated displacement of unwanted populations, the fragmentation of the world into regional economic and security blocks, and a heightening rivalry between the emboldened unfree blocks and the discoura

Most likely, it would begin with a proxy war that gradually draws major powers into it—or with a major power unexpectedly crossing a red line. While efforts will be made to minimize violence through cyberattacks and sweeping economic sanctions and blockades, nations will eventually resort to force on the ground. Whenever possible, they will employ