Comments Elsewhere

Civil wars are not “power vacuums.” They are power plenums. The problem isn’t that there’s too few people wielding power within the territory; it’s that there are even more people than usual wielding power, without leaving any room for any other kind of sociality. And they are all wielding power in a death-struggle to see who can hold onto it at the end of the day. When the Wehrmacht and the SS rolled across Poland, there was a violent contest as to who would control central Europe, and a lot of people didn’t know from day to day which government would be in control of the area where they lived; but if you think that the war was an example of anarchy, or of a “power vacuum,” then it seems to me you are using words without much meaning.