The Impact of 4GW on the US

Lind points out the potential impact of 4GW on the US:

That is just what Fourth Generation opponents strive
for, a systemic breakdown in their state adversary. The danger sign in
America is not a hot national debate over the war in Iraq and its
course, but precisely the absence of such a debate — which, as former
Senator Gary Hart has pointed out, is largely due to a lack of courage
on the part of the Democrats. Far from ensuring a united nation, what
such a lack of debate and absence of alternatives makes probable is a
bitter fracturing of the American body politic once the loss of the war
becomes evident to the public. The public will feel itself betrayed,
not merely by one political party, but by the whole political system.

The primum mobile of Fourth Generation war is a crisis of legitimacy
of the state. If the absence of a loyal opposition and alternative
courses of action further delegitimizes the American state in the eye
of the public, the forces of the Fourth Generation will have won a
victory of far greater proportions than anything that could happen on
the ground in Iraq. The Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan played a
central role in the collapse of the Soviet state. Could the American
defeat in Iraq have similar consequences here? The chance is far
greater than Washington elites can imagine.