Some really great answers here!
This is truly next-level stuff, and you all are right – there are a ton of variables. The Balkan War was basically a civil war because the countries involved all made up Yugoslavia. So it would be similar to different states in the US forming different countries. (Obviously Selco can explain this stuff way better than I.)
There was one thing that surprised me more than anything else when I went to Bosnia. I expected to see war damage in the cities. But when we were driving around rurally, every structure I saw that would have been standing in the early 1990s had the marks of war on them. Not most. ALL. Barns. Homes up on mountains. Homes tucked away on side roads in the country. Businesses. Factories.
Most of the buildings there are made of stone. A lot were able to take a hit from shelling and remain standing. Many had holes in the stone made from high caliber weapons. (And if I’m not using the right terms for the weapons, please forgive my poor description.)
To give it a face here in the United States, imagine if your state and two others all went to war with each other. Imagine you are further divided by your political beliefs and some people in your state have the beliefs of one of the other states. Now imagine you are divided even more by your religious beliefs and that each state has populations in each religion.
Then imagine that things are so bad that there are no utilities, no stores, no police, and no hospital.
Think about this in terms of the people actively fighting being the most far-right ultra-conservative white supremacists versus the most far-left ultra-liberal Antifa-types.
You belong to neither of these groups. You know that extremism of any type is wrong and dangerous. But these people don’t care. To them, anyone not like them is the enemy or is disposable.
So as these dissenting factions make their way through the countryside on whatever their missions are, maybe scavenging for food or supplies, are rural areas still safe?
Yes, it’s an extreme situation. It’s a thought exercise for one day out of 30. And I think it’s really important to consider the extreme situations. If you were really at the point where you were having to go out and find food like we talked about yesterday, there will really be people who are desperate. And desperate people are dangerous.