ABSTRACT
There are all sorts of responses to an armed struggle, popular and political, analytical and academic. Despite the enormous diversity of armed struggles from classic terror to bandit forays, the response of the center tends to be similar—and the options of response even more so. The armed struggle is waged about the future. Those who have their own future guaranteed are in the capital, and some in the countryside want no future only tomorrow to be like yesterday. An armed struggle remains a Dragonwar where what matters matters. Those who would act in the name of all—usually without asking permission, need only to be left alone to wage a Dragonwar. What many revolutionaries seek in an armed struggle is to avoid overt defeat while they win, sooner or later, a psychological victory. Such a triumph may be won in the hearts and minds of the people but not exactly the ways the texts indicate.
