Quote Originally Posted by Major Strickland
We should take caution in mixing up terms such as insurgency and terrorism. Terrorism is a strategy and terror is a tactic. The fundamental fact of ANY insurgency is a grievance(s) that give rise to the vision of a counter-state.
However, not every people with a grievance against existing authorities attempt to change - or secede from - the state by violence. What the list of indicators that I cited provides is a method of analytic forecasting for the emergence of such politically-motivated violence against the state. Whatever form it may take.

However, for those observing nascent political (whether based on factional politics or ethnic/tribal/sectarian issues) groupings within a given state, those indicators do not stand alone. The nature of the state itself plays a significant part, and each potential indicator for the emergence of violence must be taken into consideration with whatever characteristic of the state in question either exacerbates or mitigates the particulars of that indicator.