The Civil War and Its EffectsEssay Preview: The Civil War and Its EffectsReport this essayCivil warFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchFor other uses, see civil war (disambiguation). See list of civil wars for individual examples.A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight for political power or control of an area. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles. Other historians state the criteria for a civil war is that there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not).
Ultimately the distinction between a “civil war” and a “revolution” or other name is arbitrary, and determined by usage. The successful revolution of the 1640s in England which led to the (temporary) overthrow of the monarchy became known as the English Civil War. The successful insurgency of the 1770s in British colonies in America, with organized armies fighting battles, came to be known as the American Revolution. In the United States, and in American-dominated sources, the term the civil war almost always means the American Civil War, with other civil wars noted or inferred from context.
Factors such as nationalism, religion, and ideology played little role in pre-modern civil wars. Modern nationalists have commonly read past revolts (such as Scotland against England or Catalonia against Spain) as early stirrings of nationalism, the truth is that these conflicts were in fact feudal or dynastic rather than national. There are some pre-modern civil wars that can be seen as fueled by religion (the Jewish Revolts against Rome), but these can also be seen as revolts by a servile people against their oppressors or uprisings by local notables in an attempt to gain independence.
Premodern Civil WarsReligious conflictsCivil wars fought over religion have tended to occur more frequently in monotheistic societies than in polytheistic societies; one explanation is that the latter tend to be more “flexible” in terms of dogma, allowing for some latitude in belief. In Europe through the Middle Ages, the Christianity of the great bulk of the population was influenced by pagan tradition. With the great majority of the population illiterate, access to the Bible was limited and led to a significant amount of syncretism between Christian and pagan elements. With religion so loosely applied, it was rare for people to feel particularly oppressed by it. There were periodic appearances of heresies, such as that of the Albigensians, which led to violence, but historians tend to view these to be the product of peasant revolts rather than themselves motivators of a civil war.
As religions tended to become more rigidly defined and understood by their followers, inter-religious tensions generally increased. The rise of Islam witnessed a rash of uprisings against non-Islamic rulers soon after its appearance. Subsequent Islamic history has been marked by repeated civil conflicts, mostly stemming out of the Shiite-Sunni divide. In Europe the Protestant Reformation had a similar effect, sparking years of both civil and international wars of religion. Civil wars between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism consumed France in the Wars of Religion, the Netherlands during the Eighty Years War, Germany during the Thirty Years War, and more recently, The Troubles of Northern Ireland. Religious disputes among Protestant sects also played a role in the English Civil Wars, while official persecution of Catholics during the French Revolution spurred the Revolt in the Vendйe.
RevolutionsA revolution is generally seen as a civil war fought over issues of ideology, over how power should be organized and distributed, not merely over which individuals hold it. The classic example of a revolution, and by some arguments the first is the French Revolution, which is seen to have pitted the middle class and urban poor of France against the aristocracy and monarchy. Some argue that revolutions are a modern continuation of the peasant revolts of the past. Unlike peasant revolts, however, revolutions are almost always led by members of the educated, but disaffected, middle class who then rally the large mass of the population to their cause. Others see ideology as merely replacing religion as a justification and motivation for violence that is fundamentally caused by socioeconomic factors. To be successful revolutions almost always require use of armed force and sometimes escalate to a civil war, such as in the Chinese Civil War. In some cases, such as the French and Russian Revolutions the revolutionaries succeed in gaining power through a quick coup or localized uprising, but a civil war results from counterrevolutionary forces organizing to crush the revolution.
Separatist revoltsOne of the most common causes of civil wars, especially in the post-Cold War world has been separatist violence. Nationalism can be seen as similar to both a religion and an ideology as a justification for war rather than a root cause of conflict. All modern states attempt to hold a monopoly on internal military force. For separatist civil wars to break out thus either the national army must fracture along ethnic, religious, or national lines as happened in Yugoslavia; or more commonly a modern separatist conflict takes the form of asymmetrical warfare with separatists lightly armed and disorganized, but with the support of the local population such groups can be hard to defeat. This is the route taken by most liberation groups in colonies, as well as forces in areas such as Eritrea and Sri Lanka. Regional differences may be enhanced by differing economies, as in the American Civil War.
- A list of nations on the list with military training centers in Algeria, Morocco, and Kuwait.
- As of 2016, over 65% of Algeria is composed of the national armed forces of each country, and 70% of this nation is still classified as a military organization. For more information on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) it is estimated that only 11% of military personnel are classified in Algeria by it alone.
- According to IS-affiliated think tanks in Algeria, the number of military personnel is estimated at 5-10 million, compared to 7-10 million by the UN. Despite this small number, it is a crucial point in the struggle to defend and expand the civil war.
- A list of countries located on the list where all military personnel are in a state of active military training center.
- Iraq has a military training center set up in Ramadi, and a former army training center in Mosul. Since 2004, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense has maintained a training center in a strategic location, at a time when the army has faced its own military training issues and insecurity.
- Saudi Arabia has two military training centers in Jeddah, one located in a military training center, the other within a defense base. The military training center in northern Riyadh is a military academy and facility, and the Saudi Ministry of Defense is conducting combat operations under the training of the Saudi National High Command, the Ministry of Defense and other government and security bodies in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.
- Israel hosts three military training centers in the northern city of Ramallah that hold two base-level training center and two military bases that hold training facilities on the southern end of the city. These bases would be the only two bases from which the Israeli military will operate in this conflict. The other two base-levels are held by the Hamas military training facility in Gilos, Israel but are maintained by Hamas personnel that belong only to the military.”
- France held a military training center in Mont-Royal in the eastern part of the country in 2008, and a base in Mont-Samos in 2012. This one was bombed in 2013 when Israel fired its first round into Gaza. In 2015, the military training center was closed, and a training facility for the Algerian Army was also established. According to IS-linked Think Tank, French military personnel are held behind a military training center but “few are still operating in Algeria.”
- Military training center in Marseille, where Israeli soldiers regularly sit aboard planes and patrol their ships. In 2015, a base near Marseille was shut down due to an unspecified security incident but an unspecified number of French citizens remain in this location and are working for the military. They were also interviewed under questioning by French journalists in 2015, who claim they had nothing to do with the attack.
“In March 2016, an incident in Algiers, a former French stronghold, saw soldiers from one of French service members take part in a joint operation known as Operation Includes. According to eyewitnesses and local eyewitnesses, the soldiers from the nearby F2 [Islamic State] group attacked and shot their way through a mosque. The F2 [Islamic State] group then shot at the family members in the mosque, police said, killing one person.”