ABSTRACT
Insurrection, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is a ‘rising in open resistance to established authority’ or an ‘incipient rebellion’, which is defined in similar terms. Thus insurrection on any scale-which is what matters-can also be considered a civil war, except in the case of a purely national uprising against foreign domination. Insurgency, rebellion, civil war, local conflict, people’s war, are more or less interchangeable terms, irrespective of the type of ‘established government’ whose authority is being contested, regardless of the rights or wrongs of either side. (The Hungarian uprising of 1956 was as much a ‘people’s war’ as the Vietminh campaign in Indo-China.)
Insurgency indicates prolonged resistance and thus differs from a coup d'etat, either civil or military, which is a sudden seizure of power; though the result-if successful-may be the same, that is the overthrow of the established authority. (Coups often effect only a change of leaders, not a change of policies; the latter is more likely to be the case with a long and widespread and destructive war.) Insurgency also differs from ‘aggression’, which denotes an armed attack across frontiers. But insurgents may be assisted verbally, diplomatically, economically or militarily from outside to a varying extent, which tends to blur the distinction. However, such aid can only be supplementary and not decisive, for otherwise there would no longer be an insurgency.
