Machiavelli Knew: Those Who Ignore Disorder to Prevent War, First Have Disorder, Then War

There is a seductive belief that stability can be preserved by ignoring disorder at all costs. We that manifested often in the modern United States: organized criminals loot high-end department stores without fear of being confronted in the act. Violent political mobs destroy property and attack political adversaries at will. Cities burn while the police watch from a distance. The thought is, that if friction is avoided, if dissent is managed quietly, if problems are postponed rather than confronted, peace will naturally follow… or we can at least avoid a civil war. History, however, tells a far less comforting story.

The problem is, attempts to avoid disorder often create the very conditions that make war inevitable. In short, those who who ignore order to prevent war, first have disorder, then war; war that could (and should) have been prevented. This is especially true in the leadup to civil war.

Niccolò Machiavelli understood this long before modern policymakers discovered the hard way that neglect does not equal prudence. In The Prince, he warned:

“War cannot be avoided, it can only be delayed to the other’s advantage.”

Machiavelli was not glorifying chaos. He was acknowledging reality. Disorder is not an anomaly in human affairs—it is a constant. The question is not whether disorder will exist, but whether it will be addressed early, deliberately, and on favorable terms. And it is always far better to have war, if it comes, on your own terms. Better still is to avoid war altogether by maintaining order and the rule of law.

The Fear of Disorder

Governments, institutions, and even military leaders often treat disorder as a moral failure rather than a strategic condition. Internal unrest, ideological fracture, economic imbalance, and social decay are labeled inconveniences—things to be managed quietly so as not to disrupt the appearance of stability.

But appearances do not hold terrain.

Avoiding necessary disruption—reform, accountability, decisive action—creates rot beneath the surface. Pressure builds. Grievances harden. By the time action is unavoidable, it is no longer controllable.

Machiavelli again offers clarity:

“Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.”

Necessity does not emerge in a vacuum. It is created by prolonged avoidance. When leaders refuse to confront disorder early, they ensure that necessity will arrive later—armed, angry, and uncompromising.

Disorder as a Strategic Phase

In military terms, disorder is often the shaping operation before decisive engagement. You disrupt enemy cohesion, expose weaknesses, and force movement. Ignoring disorder inside your own system while trying to prevent conflict externally is a strategic contradiction.

History provides endless examples:

• Empires that refused reform until rebellion became revolution.
• States that delayed military modernization until war exposed their weakness.
• Political orders that silenced dissent until violence became the only remaining language.

The cost is always higher when disorder is allowed to metastasize.

Machiavelli captured this dynamic precisely:

“When trouble is sensed well in advance it can easily be remedied; if you wait for it to show itself any medicine will be too late because the disease will have become incurable. As the doctors say of a wasting disease, to start with it is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; after a time, unless it has been diagnosed and treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. So it is in politics.”

This is not cynicism. It is operational realism.

The Military Perspective

Those who serve understand that friction is unavoidable. Equipment fails. Plans break. People make mistakes. The professional response is not denial, but discipline.

Good units train under stress because they know disorder will appear when it matters most. They confront weaknesses early, not because it is comfortable, but because it is survivable.

Civil institutions often do the opposite. They punish early disruption and reward silence—until the cost of silence becomes catastrophic.

War, then, is not born from disorder alone. It is born from the refusal to accept disorder as part of reality.

Choosing the Lesser Chaos

Machiavelli never argued for recklessness. He argued for controlled disruption in service of long-term stability. There is a difference between disorder managed and disorder deferred.

One is uncomfortable.
The other is deadly.

Those who attempt to preserve peace by freezing systems in place inevitably discover that peace cannot be preserved by fear of disruption. By the time war arrives, it arrives on terms not of their choosing.

The lesson is as old as conflict itself:
Address disorder early, deliberately, and with resolve—or be forced to confront it later, violently, and without control.

Avoiding disorder does not prevent war, civil or otherwise.
It merely postpones it—until war is the only option left.

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Charles served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.