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.