Very true, and this is also one of the problems I have with William Lind’s “4th Generation War” thesis. There’s no doubt that Lind is on to something, and that modern media and the West’s deranged immigration policies have added a new dimension to Low Intensity Conflict, but the simple fact of the matter is, most insurgencies still lose. The modern insurgent, while a formidable foe, is not unbeatable.

I think it depends; depending on historical trends, geographical accidents, and the like, the enemy may not be all that hungry for your territory, so that perhaps it suffices to convince him that holding on to you will be not just a significant military nuisance but a drain on the public treasury for at least the next generation. And internal politics and public choice theory tradeoffs change, too: in the 1700s a war whose aftermath involved handing out estates in Ireland as party favors might be a good way to strengthen a powerful coalition in England, but in the early 20th century probably everyone who mattered could see which way the wind was blowing and wanted sinecures and unaccountable aristocracy-of-pull power, putting a huge discount on open formal property rights that would just be taxed away.

The debates over the Treaty make fascinating reading; I find I have to keep reminding myself that these people were actually serious and not some student union debating society.

I previously wrote about another peculiarity of the Irish independence process, and what it tells us about the causes of the First World War.

Palestinians in fact only exist because Israel exists. Without Israel they would be just like Druzes, Bedouins, Kurds, Copts without any Social or Political Construction. They would be ruled by the Hashemite tribe, and no one would care if the king would killed 10x more of them.

All this is to say that the logistical base of the Palestinians is not in Palestine; it is in Western Leftism and now in Western Islamism. It doesn’t seem the author understand this.