Let’s now focus on the big event of the last few days: the killing of a second ICE protester in Minneapolis. Two of the classic markers of moving from Stage 5 to Stage 6 that appear to be happening are ““People dying in the fighting is the marker that almost certainly signifies the progression to the next and more violent civil war stage, which will continue until the winners and losers are clearly determined” and “History has shown that during times of great conflict, federalist democracies (like the U.S.) typically have conflicts between the states and the central government over their relative powers.”
The United States is now a tinderbox. Nearly a third of Americans (30%) say people may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. Pew Research Center (Sept–Oct 2025) found that 85% of U.S. adults acknowledged that politically motivated violence is increasing in the U.S. A CSIS analysis found that from 2016 to 2024 there were 21 partisan political attacks or plots, compared with only two such incidents in the 25+ years before 2016. That’s roughly a tenfold increase in politically-motivated plots/attacks in a relatively short period. There are more guns in the United States than people, and many people have a violent streak in them. Certainly, the conflict between the central government and Minnesota (and other state governments) is bad and looks likely to get worse. The world saw the killings in Minneapolis of two opponents to Trump’s ICE initiative and is now watching to see which side will back down. Many people are waiting to see whether President Trump will continue to fight, which I believe would risk pushing us over the brink into a more clear civil war, or if he will make an attempt to pull us back from the brink by appealing for peace, promising and showing that the justice system will handle the shootings appropriately, and curtail ICE activities. (In an interview with the WSJ, he said that the administration would review the killing and that ICE would not stay in Minneapolis forever.) While his choice will have huge implications for what comes next, including possibly lighting the tinderbox, in any case, it is important to see everything that is happening in the context of all the forces and events that are driving the Big Cycle. Whatever happens in this Minneapolis case, these are the big forces that are evolving to determine how the Big Cycle will progress.
“Conclusion” (From Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. )
“My study of history has taught me that nothing is forever other than evolution, and within evolution there are cycles that are like tides that come in and go out and that are hard to change or fight against. To handle these changes well it is essential to know which stage of the cycle one is in and to know timeless and universal principles for dealing with it. As conditions change the best approaches change—i.e., what is best depends on the circumstances and the circumstances are always changing in the ways we just looked at. For that reason, it is a mistake to rigidly believe that any economic or political system is always best because there will certainly be times when that system is not best for the circumstances at hand, and if a society doesn’t adapt it will die. That is why constantly reforming systems to adapt well is best. The test of any system is simply how well it works in delivering what most of the people want, and this can be objectively measured, which we can do and will continue to do. Having said that, the lesson from history that comes through most loudly and most clearly is that skilled collaborations to produce productive win-win relationships to both grow and divide the pie well, so that most people are happy, are much more rewarding and much less painful than fighting civil wars over wealth and power that lead to one side subjugating the other side.”https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_mS34wX0AABJtk?format=png&name=900x900