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Possible Techniques Insurgency: There are many possible techniques insurgency new techniques for insurgency, crime, or ordinary violence. Some extraordinarily destructive weapons might get into the hands of relatively small groups and be used for insurgent or criminal operations or even for "pointless" destruction. We may also expect new techniques for counterinsurgency and "countercriminality," and these in turn could cause serious problems of excessive or unjustly imposed order. Thus, new technology may shift the balance between "order" and "disorder" either way, or in both ways simultaneously. Since undemocratic, illegitimate, or unpopular regimes may have the greatest difficulties with sedition or insurgency, new technology that further strengthens the hand of those in power may be, on the whole, undesirable.
The first stage is the strategic defensive: It includes the initiation of the insurgency by small, armed bands and a gradual but "heroic" retreat, during which the insurgents lose space but gain time and build frustrations within the enemy camp by denying them significant military victories. The second is stalemate: Survival is the principal objective of the insurgents in this stage, while they maintain the tactical initiative and cause the enemy to suffer an extended series of defeats.
This invention is epochal. It was the first of those photomechanical techniques that were soon to revolutionize the graphic arts by eliminating the hand of man in the reproduction of pictures of all kinds. It is the most important of Niepce's contributions, for it involved a principle that became basic to future techniques: the differential hardening by light of a ground that would control the etching in exact counterpart of the image.
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