Politics is formally defined as the art or science of governing; political systems are defined by who is
responsible for/to the selection and operation of the governing process. Hobbes and Rousseau would have
defined oligarchies, monarchies, and fascism as their social contract—a sovereign deciding for the subjects,
but not subject to the contract restrictions. Locke laid the foundations for democracy—government by, for,
and of the people, with equal opportunity to be individually responsible for your own free actions for all
parties. Locke reserved the right for members of any social contract to renegotiate terms or opt out, and this
is the root of the conflict.
Disagreement or competition between alternative social contracts has often led to violence and warfare
across the scale, from small tribal conflicts to the global Cold War. Conventional warfare is conflict through
brute conquest, attrition or overwhelming and forcing the failure of the opposition's political economy (to
be replaced with the winner's). We view this as a 'primitive' form of war because it is often a struggle for
possession of territory or to gain some holding. Manoeuvre warfare is more refined, seeking control of key
elements and thus effecting control of what is dependent on those elements; if command and control
elements of the political economy are taken, it allows assumption of control and thus unimpaired utilization
of the opponent's political economy for the winner's benefit. Guerrilla warfare comprises opportunistic
attacks on the military (and sometime political) infrastructure and dependencies of the opposition. The aim
of guerrilla warfare is to impair the functioning of the opponent's forces and to make the costs of operating
them too great to maintain. This leads to either a withdrawal/cessation of hostilities, or collapse of a force
projection will/capability, with guerrillas assuming political control (the strong dictate terms).
Terrorism is attacks on leverages points of the social contract and dependency infrastructure with
propaganda efforts to focus media attention as directed by the terrorists. As most of these targeted elements
are 'civilian,' terrorism is considered particularly heinous, but is definable as a form of warfare. In particular,
there is what might appear to be an oxymoron and termed 'defensive terrorism.' In a situation where it is
perceived that a strong party is dictating terms to what they consider a weak or defenseless party, the
defenseless party will act, commonly with terror attacks, to establish an equal capacity for violence (while not
having parity in the force projection capability), and establish themselves as an equal party in negotiations. It
is in fact this very sort of defensive violence and terrorism behind conflicts in Northern Ireland and the
Middle East. Parties such as the British, Israel, and the United States are viewed as using their military
capacity to influence, manipulate, or control the political economies of other players—Irish Catholics,
Palestinians, Arabs and Persians (all of whom are not without credible arguments to support their position).
This is also why calls by the strong players for disarmament as a precondition for peace negotiations have
and will continue to fail.
Political warfare is waged by establishing an altered or totally alternative social contract and then using
proselytization, propaganda, and coercion to attract adherents. Polwar may or may not encompass the use of
force as a tactic; changes in social contracts through force establishes a certain tenor and preconditions to the
new contract that are going to perpetuate violence (recognition of this was part of Gandhi's brilliance).
Political warfare may seem less dramatic than it once did because it has been partially adopted into existing
political systems, notably democracy; this does not fully take into account the concept of political warfare,
which remains a potent mechanism of low-intensity conflict. That polwar is still a viable mechanism of
conflict was proven out in Viet Nam (where the United States not only lost to the Viet Cong, but were
probably the V.C.'s best recruiting agent), as well as in places where the electoral process is either a fiction, or
the first step to consolidation of a new social contract (which appears to be the strategy in much of the
Middle East and elsewhere).