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.
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