ryanmleigh
Based on a lot of the recent discussion is there a need to distinguish between the political and military aspects of conflict. Could it be as simple as saying that civil war is primarily a military conflict with political action secondary while an insurgency is primarily a political conflict with military action secondary?

Probably far to simplistic, but still trying to wrap my head around the differences.
Some definitions from Wikipedia that have the advantage to be the ones from ICRC and great scholar:
Civil war:
James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies".Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side. The Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. This rate is a small fraction of the millions killed in the Second Sudanese Civil War and Cambodian Civil War, for example, but excludes several highly publicized conflicts, such as The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the struggle of the African National Congress in Apartheid-era South Africa.
Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997, 104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007.
Further definitions
The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term "civil war". They do, however, describe the criteria for acts qualifying as "armed conflict not of an international character", which includes civil wars. Among the conditions listed are four requirements:
• The party in revolt must be in possession of a part of the national territory.
• The insurgent civil authority must exercise de facto authority over the population within the determinate portion of the national territory.
• The insurgents must have some amount of recognition as a belligerent.
• The legal Government is "obliged to have recourse to the regular military forces against insurgents organized as military."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war

Insurgency:
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) defines it as "An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict." The new United States counterinsurgency Field Manual, proposes a structure that includes both insurgency and counterinsurgency [COIN]. (italics in original)
Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself. Joint doctrine defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. These definitions are a good starting point, but they do not properly highlight a key paradox: though insurgency and COIN are two sides of a phenomenon that has been called revolutionary war or internal war, they are distinctly different types of operations. In addition, insurgency and COIN are included within a broad category of conflict known as irregular warfare.
The French expert on Indochina and Vietnam, Bernard Fall, entitled one of his major books Street without joy: insurgency in Indochina, 1946-63. Fall himself, however, wrote later on that "revolutionary warfare" might be a more accurate term. Insurgency has been used for years in professional military literature. Under the British, the situation in Malaya (now Malaysia) was often called the "Malayan insurgency"., or "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Insurgencies have existed in many countries and regions, including the Philippines, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Yemen, Djibouti, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, the American colonies of Great Britain, and the Confederate States of America.[16] Each had different specifics but share the property of an attempt to disrupt the central government by means considered illegal by that government. North points out, however, that insurgents today need not be part of a highly organized movement:
"Some are networked with only loose objectives and mission-type orders to enhance their survival. Most are divided and factionalized by area, composition, or goals. Strike one against the current definition of insurgency. It is not relevant to the enemies we face today. Many of these enemies do not currently seek the overthrow of a constituted government...weak government control is useful and perhaps essential for many of these “enemies of the state” to survive and operate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency

I would more or less in accordance with Wilf. Insurgency is qualifying a way to conduct war not a good term to describe a “war”.

International and non international wars can be done through irregular warfare or regular warfare.
The use of irregular warfare tactics is not sufficient to describe a movement as acivil war or an insurgency.

Insurgency as others did point it can be against a national government from nationals. Or against a foreign government by nationals. While a civilwar is only 2 or more nationals parties against each others.