In general, these definitions are suggestive and mechanistic, meaning that all actors and their actions can be described with respect to a rational choice model and without any necessary appeal to outside or irrational forces.

Political Union

A group of people who recognize an authority or authorities, which can commit internal and external acts of violence on behalf of the group. Internal acts of violence include taxation and enforcement of laws. External acts of violence would be war. When a critical mass of the population no long believes in the legitimacy of those with control over mechanisms of violence, the political union ceases to exist — the strength of a political union can be assessed along the belief in the legitimacy of the mechanisms of violence. This definition recognizes the potentially declining influence of the nation-state,  and thus geography does not play any part in this definition.

Government

General term used to refer to the authority entrusted with the mechanisms of violence in a political union, recognizing that there may be multiple parties with differing interests.

Populace

People living in a political union,  however the political union chooses to define itself. It is possible that,  given the division or overlap in roles requiring violence,  that a single person could belong to multiple political unions. For instance,  in a “corporate state” one could pay directly for services like protection  to one entity,  while another demands payment to protect from potential foreign enemies. It is, however,  unlikely that such a situation will persist.

Armed Forces

The extension of the government that commits acts of violence against people not a part of the political union.

War

Any coercive means by which a political union attempts to attain desired objectives vis-à-vis another political union when accompanied by a formal statement of intent.  This typically but does not necessarily involve death,  given that there are many coercive mechanisms (psychological, economic, information infrastructure) currently available to a government which can cause ‘pain’ without causing death.

However,  given attempts to steal state secrets,  disable infrastructure,  and many other potential applications of “information warfare,” including those “waged” by independent actors,  it seems that another term is needed to capture these potentially escalating minor conflicts between political unions which do not involve statements of intent.

Additionally,  the definition of war provided indicates that “war,” as opposed to simply violent conflict,  is a product of political unions at a certain state of development, and even if certain rules can be revoked, necessarily has at its outset a clear sense of “us” and “them,” or pro- and antagonist.

Also, according to this definition war is not a game,  as a game must have rules and develop out of a pleasurable ‘play state.’ The means by which war approaches a game,  thusly include when pleasurable elements are introduced,  including mechanisms for winning prestige through the fighting of war,  role-playing,  uniforms, and,  importantly,  explicit or implicit rules for what constitutes proper conduct.

Violence

Coercive action taken to achieve a given objective as articulated by the political union, traditionally including the possibility of physical injury to the receiving party and potentially including death.

Objective

Treated because an objective may be singular or composite, in the latter case potentially including both rational and irrational elements – which is to say that political unions, insofar as they have uniform values, may approach single actors in their desire for what is here described as “karma,” potentially including prestige on the basis of values shared by both parties. Thus, it may be important that a hoplite battle is fought “honorably,” as the party which wins “honorably” will garner greater prestige among peer political unions. In some cases,  the ostensible objectives  will be superceded by the incidental objectives and accompanying values,  leading to a situation where it is preferable to fail in obtaining the primary objective so long as the secondary objectives related to prestige are maintained.

In the case of composite objectives,  it may be presumed that all objectives will ultimately be subject to the “existential” objective,  which would be the continued existence of the political union, insofar as it is capable of presenting a unified will to continue fighting, as described by Clausewitz. This “existential” objective may be represented differently in different contexts,  as political unions by their very nature are composite, and there is often although not always the possibility of dividing or re-forming a political union on a new basis.

Political unions which allow association on a supra-ethnic or basis which does not necessarily exclude a defeated foe, may be better at effecting the submission of their enemies for this reason, whereas other conflicts will be necessarily be mimetic and potentially involve escalation to extremes, in Clausewitz described as “Durch diese Wechselwirkung wieder das Streben nach dem aussersten.”