Stephen J. Flanagan, Senior Political Scientist
Armed resistance is a concept that individual citizens are rising up to defend their own country from any kind of a military incursion or effort to subordinate their sovereignty by picking up arms and perhaps in support of or in tandem with the regular armed forces of the country. Generally, the goal is to make sure that this is a focused effort as to ensure that there's some training and preparation. So, there's been an effort and particularly we now see in Ukraine a concept of national resistance that was put into effect earlier this year and the Ukrainian Armed Forces — the regular armed forces — are spending a lot of their time training some of these volunteers that are ready to join up in the armed forces in these territorial defense units and other voluntary militias to defend their country.
It conveys the sense that it's an organized struggle; it's not a guerilla warfare per se, it's not a rebellion, it's an organized — it's an effort to organize under state leadership, not independently but under state leadership, to organize violence against any kind of aggressor that is trying to take over a country or to subordinate its people.
