Oh boy, here we go again. We're back to the topic of insurgencies. John,
you've never answered my question as to what kind of foreign support
Kerensky and Sun Yat-sen got...
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Even the engineers are not *this* depraved. This must be the work of the Med.
students.
- A friend of mine
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> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, John Atkinson wrote:
> That's one counter-example. There aren't any others. One exception
> Chen-Song Qin wrote:
John,
> you've never answered my question as to what kind of foreign support
Sorry to jump in, but do those really count as insurgencies? There's a big
difference between leading a revolution in the middle of a power vacuum or
chaos, and leading a successful guerilla war against a stable government that
has at least a large portion of the populace's support.
Lots of revolutions, coups, and such succeed when a government has failed to
satisfy 'enough of the right people' (to massively paraphrase
Machiavelli). I think the point is that minority-inspired guerilla
movements have seldom managed to achieve more than banditry without outside
support.
[quoted original message omitted]
I think we're talking about insurgencies in general. These are basically
revolutions against despotic, weak, and/or unpopular governments. So
the examples I gave would count. Minority guerrila movements are usually
simply labelled "terrorism"; the ones that are popular and successful are
labelled "revolutions":)
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Even the engineers are not *this* depraved. This must be the work of the Med.
students.
- A friend of mine
> Jonathan Jarrard wrote:
> big difference between leading a revolution in the middle of a power
Actually I think the discussion that started this (I may be wrong) is dealing
with a third type. Where a foreign occupying power has invaded your
country/planet and his potentially little.
> You wrote:
John, >you've never answered my question as to what kind of foreign
support >Kerensky and Sun Yat-sen got...
*Ding, Ding* Cluebus arriving...
My dear boy, there is a great difference between a coup, revolution,
civil war, and guerilla war. The latter his protracted low-intensity
conflict. A coup takes a few days or a few weeks, and is marked by
minimal fighting A Civil War is not a guerilla war either, in which
elements of the Regular Army and militia troops take the field in conventional
conflict. There are also hybrid wars like the US Revolution wherein the US had
guerilla elements (for instance, Colonel Marion and Ethan Allen's Green
Mountain Boys) and a conventional army in the field. But a straight guerilla
war? Never been done without outside support, safe havens, and a lot of luck.
And NEVER won without transitioning into a conventional warfare phase. And
that's
by-the-book Mao right there--three phases. First is lowgrade
terrorism, second is more intense guerilla war, and third is conventional
conflict.
> On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, John Atkinson wrote:
> *Ding, Ding* Cluebus arriving. . .
What's a cluebus? Some kind of a street car with answers painted on its
side?:)
> My dear boy, there is a great difference between a coup, revolution,
I thought we were talking about insurgencies here, (i.e. the militant
opposition to an established government) and not just guerilla war. After all,
guerilla war by itself is just a tool for insurgencies, along with propaganda,
"conventional" war, etc. There are many examples of *insurgencies* winning,
but as to guerilla war... by your definition of it (i.e. a stage of a
revolution) certainly wouldn't "win" on its own. Of course, throughout all of
these, popular support is the key.
This is *way* offtopic. Enough please...
TTFN
Jon
I stand corrected. I was just objecting to the fact that the two
'insurgencies' being quoted were cases of revolutionary movements taking
control against a background of political and military chaos, rather than from
a stable government or an army of occupation.
> Glover, Owen wrote:
with
> earth history as we've never seen anything on the sort of scale we are