CIVIL WAR IS sometimes traced to a single incident: a trigger. Sometimes it’s an election, sometimes a failed protest, sometimes a natural disaster. In the Philippines, it was the isolated massacre of Muslim army recruits by other service members. In Lebanon, it was the killing of a Christian man on his way to his son’s wedding. Guatemala’s civil war escalated in part after a devastating earthquake revealed just how inept and corrupt the government was. But these flashpoints have long backstories. Most of the time, civil wars start with small bands of extremists—students, exiled dissidents,
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