Insurgency vs. Civil War

[marct]

This seems to have been pretty well covered, but insurgency is a strategy that is sometimes used in civil wars. A civil war is simply an armed conflict where the antagonists are exclusively or primarily citizens of the same state.

But if this is the official answer, I think it is worthy of a deeper look.

If insurgency is merely a strategy employed by a civil war opponent to the state it really doesn't offer much to the counterinsurgent in terms of helping him understand and resolve the threat. Simply defeat the civil war opponent and the insurgency will go away.

Hmmm, well "insurgency", at least in the sense of a popular uprising, might be a tactic employed in a civil war but, on the whole, I have to agree with Bob that it certainly can't be limited to that.

I think we do better when we look at insurgency as a set of conditions that may well manifest in several forms: a miserable populace that does not dare act out; a populace that does act out - either choosing non-violent (subversion) or violent (insurgency) means. The key to effective COIN is to address the conditions and not merely set out to defeat those who dare to respond to the conditions.

Agreed about manifesting in several forms, but I'm not sure I agree with you on the implied crisp distinction between insurgency and subversion. For example, I would argue that Ghandi was an insurgent rather than a "subversive".