I share the frustration of the other participants. it is difficult to agree on a common vocabulary & definitions, to ensure we clearly communicate the precise ideas we want to discuss, without ambiguity. Adding new buzzwords to our vocabulary further complicates matters.

Since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, humans have banded together to secure the needs & wants of one community against the needs & wants of other communuties. Some of these bands evolve into sophisticated cultures & societies, with robust economic, political & military institutions. Some remain relatively unsophisticated, or allow their sophistication to evolve in different directions.

When an "advanced" society tries to intervene in a less advanced society, the "tarbaby effect" can generate an unpleasant surprise. blindly assuming our own superiority, we blunder in & snatch up the tarbaby, intending to bring order out of chaos. It's hard to look dignified, sophisiticated & in charges when you're covered in tar, mud, fur & feathers.

I agree with the earlier commenters that we have much to learn from history. I encourage my children - and other students - to learn from what worked, first, and then to learn from what did not work. After allowing them a few minutes to think about those overly simplified concepts, I remind them that the hard part is figuring out why something did or did not work.

I suspect that we may learn as much about how to succeed in attaining a worthy goal by studying the techniques and practices used to pursue a goal we would not approve, as we could by studying for example, archaic techniques used to pursue less controversial goals.

I think we should draw rational distinctions between different war environments, bearing in mind that all such classifications are at least partly artificial. Sometimes geographic factors are important in analyzing the nature of a conflict. Economic factors, and their impact on social factors, are almost always at the heart of the nature of the conflict. I think anyone who studies human conflict can identify scores of differentiating factors that could be used to classify conflicts. I also think the same serious students of conflict can identify several recurrent themes that cut across any classifications we might devise.

We can rationally differentiate according to the strenght of each belligerent, as well as their relative strength. The political status of the parties may be relevant. Religious, ideological and ethnic/nationalist factors may also shed light.

That's not to say the classification is worthless; to the contrary, I think it helps us break down the individual cases into their component parts, but also allows us to bring those parts back up in a different context, so we can better understand which factors affect each other, & how they do so.

Each conflict cited in this discussion thread should offer valuable lessons to us. The question is whether we can find them & apply them.

What were the participants trying to accomplish? Did they rationally weigh the costs & benefits of pursuing their goal? What course did they pursue to attain the goal? What barriers did they encounter? How did they adapt? Did they attain the stated goal? Did they regret the price they paid?

I can't speak for other scholars on this point, but I try to separate my personal feelings about colonialism & imperialism from my examination of the history. It is hard to avoid tainting analysis with emotional or moral judgments. I am trying to remind myself that the moral analysis can be done after the facts are studied and the utility of the actions are analyzed.

It strikes me as possible (and undesirable) to reject out of hand a morally and ethically defensible technique that was employed to achieve a policy goal I regard as immoral. Without diminishing my moral standing to criticize the abhorrent policy goal, I should try to remain open-minded enough to recognize a technique that appears to be effective, and which could be put to use pursuing a more worthy goal.

Of course, the more moral baggage associated with an event in history, the more difficult it is for us to achieve this elusive objectivity. At the same time, we don't want to slide down the other slope & pretend that morality & ethics have no light to shed on our studies.

The more I learn, the more I see that I need to learn. I have been learning much over the past few months as I read the thoughtful insights of the contributors to these discussions. I expect to keep learning, as long as I live. Thanks for contributing to my learning.