🎙️ The Future Force Report
Episode Title: The Perils Within: Reassessing America's Security Priorities
Host: Brooke Fallon
🧵 Episode Summary
This week on The Future Force Report, we explore a deeply uncomfortable—but increasingly urgent—set of questions:
Are we focusing U.S. national security resources on the right threats?
And are we prepared for the threats that might arise within our own borders?
We begin by revisiting America’s defense posture in the Indo-Pacific and recent controversy surrounding Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby’s decision to halt arms shipments to Ukraine. But we quickly turn our gaze inward—toward a risk that remains taboo in polite national security circles: the rising probability of civil conflict within Western democracies, including the United States.
Drawing on the insights of:
David Betz, who warns of an 87% likelihood of civil war in the West by 2030,
Stathis Kalyvas, who shows how civil wars are fueled by local dynamics and strategic violence, and
Sebastian Junger, who argues that the root cause may be a collapse of tribal cohesion and shared meaning in modern life,
...we examine how a future force might not just deter China—but prevent America from coming apart at the seams.
We also ask:
Why don’t we have CONEMPs to secure nuclear weapons during internal collapse?
What happens if critical infrastructure is targeted by domestic factions?
Is it time to treat belonging, legitimacy, and civic cohesion as national defense priorities?
This episode challenges conventional definitions of threat, strategy, and security—and makes the case that the greatest danger to America’s future may not be across the ocean, but inside the house.
🧠 Key Themes & Concepts
Indo-Pacific strategy and the debate over prioritizing Taiwan
Elbridge Colby’s interpretation of strategic resource allocation
Civil war probability modeling and contagion theory (Betz)
Microdynamics of insurgency and legitimacy (Kalyvas)
National trauma, tribalism, and shared hardship (Junger)
U.S. military contingency planning: CONPLAN 3501, 8099
The case for a new CONOP: “Civil Conflict Mitigation & Response”
National service and civic rituals as tools of resilience
📚 Referenced Works
David Betz, “Civil War Comes to the West,” Military Strategy Magazine, Vol. 9 & 10
Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, 2006)
Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (Twelve, 2016)
U.S. DoD CONPLANs: 3501, 8099
🧭 Quotable Moments
“Civil wars don’t begin with tanks rolling through Washington. They begin block by block, in contested zones of legitimacy.”
— Brooke Fallon“No foreign power can defeat the United States. But we can defeat ourselves.”
— Brooke Fallon“We wouldn’t send troops into a foreign civil war without a plan. Why would we send them into our own without one?”
— Brooke Fallon
📬 Subscribe + Share
If you found this episode thought-provoking, make sure to:
Subscribe to The Future Force Report on your favorite podcast platform
Join the conversation at buildingourfuture.substack.com
Share this episode with a friend, policymaker, or veteran who’s been thinking about what we really need to defend
💬 Want to be part of the conversation?
Some prompts that we’d love for you to share your answers about:
What would national service look like if we designed it to restore civic belonging?
How do we rekindle a common American identity that trumps regional, factional, or other identities?
The Future Force Report is a production of Building Our Future.
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Intro / outro music: Experimental Cinematic Hip Hop by Rockot.
Cover art created with OpenAI's Dall-E 3 model.
Brooke Fallon is a fictional host created using OpenAI's GPT-4o and ElevenLabs' Eleven Turbo v2.
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