Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
I do not think any significant modification is required of Clausewitz in order to understand insurgency. If we accept that the state itself represents and imposes the will of the class which holds power (or in competitive societies, the sum of the resolutions of their conflicts), then the state becomes a vehicle for violence and war, and not its driver. From there we can accept that insurgency comes about as a similar decision for a class to pursue war, but outside of the means of the state. Violence remains instrumental and deliberate.
Have to disagree--Clausewitz' trinity is the government/leadership, the military, and the people. In an insurgency, the Clausewitzian trinity collapses--the people become the military, or at least a subset of the people do. In conducting counter-insurgency, the leadership of the state tries to impose its will on the people (or, again, a subset of them) by means of the military. This sets the whole trinitarian construct on its head, I think. In the normal way of Clausewitzian war, I submit the leadership uses the military as a means of executing the will of the people. It may be the case that leadership may need to take extra measures to garner the support of the people for military action, but I do not think that suppression of the will of one's own people by military means is really part of the continuation of politics by other means.