Insurgency vs. Civil War

[marct]

Interesting discussion, folks and, since I know how much Wilf loves social sciences, I thought I'd toss in my$.0195.

If the concensus is that there is no difference, fine so be it. I accept that. However, I would still be interested in the discussion which revolves around the use of the words in both strategy and policy.

Well, words, in and of themselves, have no meaning, only that which is ascribed and agreed to by those who use them. That, BTW, isn't just playing with semantics; it's a root behind semantics.

On "civil war" vs. "insurgency", I tend to think of them as overlapping circles of meaning, with a fair amount of overlap. In some cases, civil wars have absolutely nothing to do with policy or governance structure (the dynastic wars of the 11th - 16th centuries are examples), while in other cases it is, IMHO, possible to have a "civil war" with little or no violence and, certainly, no open warfare (think along the coup d'etate line or, at the other extreme, the economic lawfare of the Byzantine bureaucrat faction against the aristocracy).

I hope this helps to clarify why I think there might some utility in identifying any difference. Whether it is political or military. I still find it instructive to debate the meaning of the words.

Personally, I've found that it it really useful to assume that the boundary condition of conceptual terms gets defined by identifying central characteristics and then assigning membership values for specific instances to each of those core characteristics and seeing what clusters develop. Sometimes when you do that, what you think is one or two competing terms actually shows up four or five clusters.

Cheers,

Marc

[najeebamergul]

Well to me there does exist difference between an insurgency and a civil war. An insurgency though an armed rebellion, is smaller in size and mostly restricted in limited geographic area (s) and does not have wider legitimacy in the masses. In contrast, a civil war is a state when a government completely loses control (both physically and ideologically) of a country. The complete state becomes lawless. And the government forces and armed groups control small pockets of influence. In civil war the rebellions have legitimacy (or they are powerful enough to gain one) in the masses.

Therefore, an insurgency easier to tackle by the state itself or with the help of allies, for example, LTTE of Sri Lanka. Whereas, when a country plunges into a civil war, it gets extremely difficult to control, for example Somalia.

Najeeb Amer Gul, Pakistan

[Shir Panjshir]

OK. I'd really like to see you put some flesh on the bones here.
From a practitioners point of view, calling it a Civil War or an insurgency is actually completely superfluous, unless it's blindingly obvious, which it is. Warfare is pretty much warfare. War is War.

I think it is actually very important to label an insurgency as such. I think the main reason why the 2007 Surge was successful is because we approached it on a COIN level.

I am constantly amazed that people call Syria a "Civil War" ? How can they be so ignorant to the fact that this is a foreign invasion on a sovereign state?

I also think by labeling an insurgency as such also helps to combat it. Much like how we call ISIL Daesh. We do need to take the high ground and demoralize and label them as illegitimate of the people who reside in those territories that the insurgents inhabit.
http://ianbach2007.blogspot.com/2015...rebels-in.html

[Bob's World]

I would concede that the simplistic statement "war is war" is accurate, but only if those who cling to that belief were willing to concede that not all political violence is war, and then have a rational discussion as to what that means.

I think the facts of history show that the nature of political violence within a single system of governance (CvC's social trinity is a simple workable model) is fundamentally distinct in nature from political violence between two or more systems.

These systems are like a single cell organism. Revolutionary insurgency is within a single system, and probably better thought of as civil emergency than as some form of war. War requires a warfare solution, but civil emergencies require a very different perspective and family of approaches.

Civil war occurs when one of these single cell systems of governance effectively divides and becomes two systems. Now what was once revolution and civil emergency is now civil war and war. The nature of the conflict changes.

Typical factors, such as size of the conflict, tactics employed, or degree of violence are largely moot. The critical factor is if a division has occurred. Iraq and Syria both retain revolutions, but both are equally in a state of civil war with the emergent Sunni state that is under ISIL governance.

A key fact not in current conversations is that a defeat of that ISIL governance solves little - but it will convert civil war back into powerful, fragmented, revolutionary civil emergency.