Balkanization has to happen first. There would have been no Chinese revolution without the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty had to be overthrown before ideological ground could be cleared for the May Fourth movement, which led to the formation of the CPC. Had the Qing still exist, Mao et al could have never succeeded in what they set out to do and virtually no peasants would’ve signed on to socialism. The US equivalent of the Qing dynasty is essentially the federal government or the US itself.

A balkanized US is a US ruled by various warlords, most likely coming from the ranks of the (ex) US military and the (ex) US security apparatus. Ideally, various Indigenous nations like the Navajo Nation would also become de facto independent with their own military to defend themselves from settler warlords. Within this context, asymmetric warfare is very much on the table. Socialist guerillas in what was once the state of Utah wage insurgency warfare against the Christofascist state of Deseret, which is fighting multiple fronts against the NCR and the Navajo Nation. One JDAM dropped on socialist guerillas by the Deseretian airforce is one less JDAM dropped on NCR aqueducts and Navajo infantry.