Definition of Civil War

Something that I've seen crop up again and again with regards to the Arab Spring protests and uprisings is the constant fear of Civil War, even when the situation looks like a Civil War as it is.

A good example was Yemen and more recently Syria. In both cases you had armed conflict between government forces and forces protecting protesters. In both cases you had defected army officers who gave their forces some semblance of organization.

In the case of Syria it's been going on for weeks if not months.

Thousands have died and dozens die every day.

Yet no one that I can see is calling this a Civil War.

So...at what point does an armed uprising cross over into a Civil War?

This is something I've wondered about before Arab Spring, the definitions of revolution, rebellion, revolt, uprising, and civil war always seemed hazy to me.

On a side note I try to avoid calling the American War of Independence a revolution because to me a revolution implies that the system (in this case the British monarchy/parliament) would have been toppled were it successful.

I would say it becomes a civil war when the faction opposing the established government forms a government of its own.

Like, a bunch of angry southern rednecks attacking US Government forts and strongholds is a "rebellion". When those angry southern rednecks form their own government with an established leadership and hierarchy, and call themselves "The Confederate States of America", it became a civil war.

Similarly, I'd say that the warring in Libya didn't become an official civil war until the rebels named themselves the "National Transitional Council" and established an official command structure.

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
I would say it becomes a civil war when the faction opposing the established government forms a government of its own.

Like, a bunch of angry southern rednecks attacking US Government forts and strongholds is a "rebellion". When those angry southern rednecks form their own government with an established leadership and hierarchy, and call themselves "The Confederate States of America", it became a civil war.

Similarly, I'd say that the warring in Libya didn't become an official civil war until the rebels named themselves the "National Transitional Council" and established an official command structure.

And the Free Syrian Army is arguably more coordinated than the Libyan militias are now.

From what I gather, to the media and to governments a civil war is a matter of scale. People aren't worried that the opposition will come together and form a hierarchy and a power base, that's already happened.

I just don't know what scale the violence has to reach before its at "full blown Civil War" level.

What happens happens.

You suck.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
You suck.

Are you trying to start a Civil War?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Are you trying to start a Civil War?

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I just don't know what scale the violence has to reach before its at "full blown Civil War" level.

I think it's around the time when the people in the previous government [that has now toppled] no longer have any influence because their "group" has been demoted to "just another citizen."

Originally posted by siriuswriter
I think it's around the time when the people in the previous government [that has now toppled] no longer have any influence because their "group" has been demoted to "just another citizen."

...Of course War of Southern Secession sounds cooler.

What you described sounds more like the aftermath of a successful revolution.

The word "secession" just sounds awesome and rebellious.

The "rebels" haven't formed their own government yet or Sunni's fighting Shia's. Maybe that helps.

Originally posted by Darth Truculent
The "rebels" haven't formed their own government yet or Sunni's fighting Shia's. Maybe that helps.

It may not have a capital but it could be called a government in exile.

Of course at this point the movement seems more like a military insurgency with the FSA calling the shots.

I wouldn't consider the National Council to be an actual government pre-whooping Ghadaffi's ass. They were an organization, sure, but they weren't actually "governing" anything. In comparison, look at the Confederacy. They had their shit together in so far as being an actual government. An executive, judicial and legislative branch, a freshly drawn up constitution, even a post-office and their own money.

Like, if they had actually won the war, the Confederacy would have been able to start running the entire country without really skipping a beat.

At the most, the "National Council" wasn't really anything more than a military organization.

Its a civil war.

So like, this hits some of the still problematic questions in the study of war anyways. Like, there are a number of opposing views about how to define war in general, and especially when you apply this to like, the origins of war in human history, it really isn't an easily answerable question.

I use the comparison to early war in human history simply because it is somewhat related imho. Group violence existed probably in pre-human species, but depending on how you define what constitutes a war, that violence either is or is not warfare. Similarly here, depending on what level of organizational or territorial complexity you think is required for violence to be warfare.

Additionally, I think this might be a more politically motivated definition than simply just how we define what is a war or a state. Almost like the term "terrorism", it is a label that has the ability to slant how we perceive the issue. Saying something is an insurgency or rebellion has a specific image it brings up, about how justified the violence might be, especially when compared to a term like civil war. More than a scientific classification, I think terms like this say much more about the assumptions and biases in a particular narrative of an event.

North vs south. When there is a clear delineation of lines and not what appears to be a mob or internal homeland base attack mentality.

Generally you have a north vs south kind of thing. Vietnam, Korea, America...
You end up with brother on brother violence,

Originally posted by inimalist
Like, there are a number of opposing views about how to define war in general