Quote Originally Posted by MikeF View Post
Here's what I was taught- the independent variable is the guerrila's capacity to conduct violence.

So,

An insurgency can be labeled a civil war once the guerrila builds the same capacity to conduct violence (military mass) that the host nation possesses.

Applied loosely, this does not have to mean the the guerrila possesses the same amount of tanks as the host nation. That's why one could justify Iraq moved into a civil war between late 2005 and early 2006.
I don't like it though, don't see the difference as being one of scale or capacity, but rather one of nature. How is the nature of insurgency unique from that of civil war?

I see civil war as being much more like any other state on state war, except that in this case one state decided to form into two states and then wage state on state war. So for me civil war is war. It only denotes that both sides were a single state before it started and are fighting over the split.

Insurgency need never split the state. As I (frequently, Ken reminds me ) state, I see insurgency as a unique set of causal conditions rooted in certain fundamental failures on the part of the government as perceived by their populace. As Marc indicates, this can then manifest itself in several forms, some non-violent, some violent, some legal, some illegal. The causal roots are the same for this family of insurgency-based conflict. Regardless of how it manifests, addressing the causal roots must be the focus/main effort of the COIN effort. If it goes violent you have "classic insurgency"; if it goes illegal, but non-violent, you have "classic subversion; if it stays legal but stays non-violent you have politics. You may get each sequentially, or at the same time, or in a crazy mix over years and years. So long as the causal roots remain unaddressed it is the gift that keeps giving.