Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
Actually, that issue was why I used the English Civil War as an example - both sides had state constructs although different, but neither side had a fully contiguous land area; somewhat similar to Afghanistan right now.....

So would you then view a true civil war only as one in which the goal of one side is the breakup of a larger state into successor states?
...but the English Civil was nothing to do with the autonomy or the creation separate states. It was an entirely to do with the absolute authority of the king. It was a war about the type of government.

There are as many causes of civil wars as there are any other type of war or even "insurgencies." What is more, attempting to differentiate these things gets us no further forward.