The key point is not the presence or absence of violence
The key point is not if one is contested by a state entity or a non-state entity.
The key point in why I don't think it is helpful to consider COIN war (even though I believe that insurgency typically is war for the insurgent); is because COIN is waged against one's own populace. The techniques, tactics and procedures, the very mindset of war are completely counter productive to a government resolving a dispute with an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.
I am looking for just one freakin example? Anyone??
The difference is like the difference between a cop dealing with gang violence vs domestic violence.
The difference is like the difference between your neighbor trying to kick your butt and your son or spouse trying to kick your butt.
Now yes, the majority position is that COIN is war (it even says so in the very first sentence of our COIN manual, so it must be so) and governments have been setting out to crush all who dare oppose them for as long as there have been governments. Bleeding also used to be the cure to all ills and many believed with certainty that the world was flat.
I think Thomas J got it about right when he said: "...that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
Does anyone here believe that the government of Afghanistan today treats the populace not included in the circle of trust of the former Northern Alliance half as well as the American colonists were treated by England?
Does anyone here believe that the average Saudi citizen has under King Abdullah half the opportunity, justice, and respect that the average American colonist had under King George?
Does anyone here think the French had a legitimate right to govern Vietnam or Algeria in the eyes of those populaces?
Does anyone here think that England had a legitimate right to govern over Malaysia? India? Iran? etc? in the eyes of those populaces?
Insurgency is illegal. Insurgents are criminals. That is the law. But as Americans we stand for far more than the mere enforcement of the Rule of Law, we stand for ideals that say when certain conditions of governance exist a right and duty is formed in a populace that trumps the rule of law.
Now, we put that on hold to wage a Cold War and looked the other way in a lot of countries where we justified our actions in the name of Containment and other national interests. That happens in war. But when the war is over you stop compromising your values and get back to normal. The U.S. didn't do that following the end of the Cold War. A whole lot of governments around the world became emboldened by the support of the US and have come to act with impunity toward their own populaces. Many of those places are predominantly Muslim.
Let's get our foreign policy back on track before we set out to get the populaces of others back on track.
Let's put pressure on governments to listen to their people and to govern with a legitimacy that comes from those same people.
Feel free to disagree, I welcome your well-considered arguments to help me understand this better. But we've been drifting off azimuth for about 60 years, and that adds up little by little so that you don't really notice until you realize you aren't where you thought you were. I don't think we're where we think we are. Time to plot a new azimuth and get back on track.
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