Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
War and warfare tend to resist being fitted into neat boxes. For 3,000 years there has been basically:

Regular Warfare, between states, nations and societies.
Irregular Warfare, rebellions, revolts and revolutions.

so two broad categories of Big Wars and Small Wars. Does that help?
Into which of those categories would you place the current conflict in Afghanistan? As you break it down above, it would seem to be regular warfare (more than one state involved) but the tactics seem those most would call "irregular". Regular warfare by irregular means?

State A invades State B; this is regular warfare by any standard. The Government of State B collapses, but organized resistance continues... is this still regular warfare, or does it become irregular?