How Insurgencies End

[MikeF]

SGovernmental responsibility, and good governance is not an end-state, but a continuous conceptual goal, always a work in progress.

Bingo. Even the United States is merely an idea, a great practical experiment in government and self-determination. My own definition of insurgency is equally as relaxed and broad whereas I don't believe the insurgency ever actually ends, they just fade away for a bit back to a phase zero. Using the example of the US Civil War, I believe those grievances began the day we first introduced slaves onto the continent, and those ideas persist today. A perpetual ebb and flow that sometimes rises in armed conflict.

From BW

Once one stops blaming their neighbors and their populace for their problems, and starts looking real hard at themselves, one can begin to attain a clarity that is truly helpful to developing courses that are apt to lead to truly ending (vice merely suppressing) an insurgency.

This holds true for the government AND the rebel. It is not a one-sided issue. MLK put it another way,

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.

Let's take the case of a disfunctional marraige. In this example, the husband (gov't) is a man of high moral conviction and good standing in the community. He loves his family and lives a good life. Conversely, his wife (rebel) is prone to infidelity, careless with the family savings, and perpetually drunk. In holding to his religious beliefs, the man seeks counsel at his mosque from Imam BW. The strict imam tells him to seek purification of his own sins. Allah must be punishing him for a reason. The Good Book is clear that once a man and woman join in union, they are one body. The man persists for ten years loving his broken wife and seeking purification in the eyes of Allah. Eventually, the imam concedes that there are times, when all else has failed, that Allah allows for divorce. The point is it is not always bad governance to blame.

A justified insurgency could be when the roles are reversed.