Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
That's why I said form, consolidate, and continue. There are thousands of attempted insurgencies, even in the United States. Unless the state has fundamental flaws, the insurgency will not be able to attract support or find the space to consolidate.

It's like the human body--we have pathogens floating around all of the time. But when the body is weakened by something, those pathogens are more likely to grow into something serious.
Steve,

Your analogy with pathogens is exactly on the mark. It is, I submit, a counterexample to your definition for the following reasons. People live on just fine for years with low-level infections, often totally unaware that they are diseased. And then we have carriers--those who bear the pathogens but do not get sick from them.

I think you have some as yet unstated quantitative levels (as in percentage of the population that supports the insurrection to apply to consolidation and number of years of sustained operations by insurgents in order to consider the insurgency as continuing). Elsewhere I've mentioned the use of a "definitional stop" to send an argument in a particular direction. I think you are using such a definitional stop here. This may or may not be a bad thing, depending on the justification for applying the definition that causes the stop.