Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[William F. Owen]

To a lesser extent, but also, IMO, true is that the intrastate violence between a government and its populace that defines Insurgency and COIN is not "war" either.

War is merely violence for a political aim/the redistribution of political power. I cannot see how you can separate War from Armed Rebellion. Yes, I hold armed rebellions to have distinct characteristics, but I cannot see how it functionally differs from "war" or why a Government would not treat is as war. Armed rebellions have best been resolved by military force. What's wrong with that?

I can also never see how a rebellion or an insurgency can and of being so, be legitimate. Legitimacy is subjective to the opinion of the person claiming to have it. It is not objective or definable.

[Bob's World]

War is merely violence for a political aim/the redistribution of political power. I cannot see how you can separate War from Armed Rebellion. Yes, I hold armed rebellions to have distinct characteristics, but I cannot see how it functionally differs from "war" or why a Government would not treat is as war. Armed rebellions have best been resolved by military force. What's wrong with that?

I can also never see how a rebellion or an insurgency can and of being so, be legitimate. Legitimacy is subjective to the opinion of the person claiming to have it. It is not objective or definable.

I have no problem with stating that "war is merely violence for a political aim/the redistribution of political power." What I am saying is that not all violence for that purpose is war. Just as love making involves placing Tab A into Slot B; not all such couplings are love making.

(and no, I am not advising Wilf to "make love, not war"!!)

John M. Collins publishes the following definition of war:

"Declared or Undeclared combat of strategic significance that exposes one or more nations to defeat."

Now, if he had said "exposes one or more governments to defeat", insurgency would fit. But a nation is far more than the government. If a nation must address its own government illegally or even violently it is a bad thing. A dangerous thing. But it does not expose that nation to "defeat" but rather to a change of governance. Many a nation has profited in the long run from such forced changes that the previous government was not willing to adopt of their own volition.

I believe England was one such state, and also suspect that one would be hard pressed to find an Englishman who takes the position that the English nation was "defeated" by Mr. Cromwell.