Slap,
Your point is interresting cause according to Bourdieu and his theory on social class relations, what characterises politic is actually the use of "symbolic violence" between social classes. According to him, you have a dialog breakdown, that can lead to war (including riots, insurgencies, civil war...), when at least one social group/class feels it cannot use symbolic violence to express his self and then swich to real/physical violence as a dialog tool.
But we stay in the boundaries set by Clausewitz: war is politic made by other means.
While some deconstruction theory guys would argue that politic is war made by other means...
I posted this on another thread but it has some merit here I think. It's the "Leaders Handbook To Unconventional Warfare" by a LTC in the Green Beret's. It is based on the old school thinking which is pretty much the way I learned it, but sometimes old turns out to be new.
http://www.soc.mil/swcs/swmag/Assets...de%20Final.pdf
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
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
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.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
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