First of all, thanks David for creating that new threat.

Dayuhan,

My point was rather on the fact that in Lybia, according to the media, Western powers are asking to the population to get organised, basically to have a "State like" structre we can deal with.

For non state actors, as rebel groups, you always have a hierarchy that you deal with. But in the case of Lybia, what really seems to be the limit for me is the fact that there was no organised government or para-state organisation. Which opened the door to many suputation: are they AQ... Basically: what are you people?

This striked me as Kilcullen was making almost the same reflection about USSR, saying that we did not see its end coming as we were focussed on the State apparatus and not the people.
In Lybia, it seems to be the same, we did/do not know what to do with that population that is not organised in a structure we (States) can apprehend and formally deal with. So it leaves an open door to negociations with a structure we know, in that case Gaddafi.
It seems that we are embarrassed with dealing with organisations which are not similar with Webberian States and even more with populations. And it is incontradiction with most of the discours of R2P and hearts and minds.

My point is: how can we deal with such "pure non state actor" or, to go in Bob's world direction, with the roots/core group of a State: the people.
It seems that if some components of the Clausewitz trilogy are missing (either land or army) we do not know what to do.
While we legitimate our position by the fact that our governements are by the people for the people and the spread of "democracy" is made for the people in the name of the people.
Actually, the people, who are the main actors of the trilogy, seems to be the most problematic to deal with.

But I do not want to limit the reflection on that by, for, in the name of the people aspect. I think that we need to look in depth to our ability to apprehend such event, especially population uprising. What is our role, what can we or cannot, do or do not want to do...
To use Dayuhan question: is west capable to work with populace/population/people?