Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
The intial test is this a conflict between peoples under two separate systems of govenrance, or is that conficts between a segment of a popualce the governance over them. The first is war, the second is insurgency.
I suspect that the key question in Afghanistan is how the populace perceives the conflict: is the core conflict between the GIROA and the Taliban, with the foreigners intervening in support of the GIROA, or is the core conflict between the foreigners and the Taliban, with the foreigners setting up the GIROA as a local agent of their own devising? If the former, then yes, this is insurgency and we're doing FID. If the latter, then it is war, regardless of how badly we'd like to call it something else.