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Civil wars occur when different political factions within one nation cannot reach an agreement or reconcile major differences. In some cases, the purpose of a civil war is similar to revolutionary wars because they are the result of one faction's desire or intention to break free from a larger unified nation and to create a new sovereign nation. The American War between the States or Civil War is an example of such a war because the southern states sought to secede from the American nation and to create their own nation where slavery could continue legally as a way of life. The northern states opposed the institution of slavery and had gradually placed more and more pressure on the southern states to give up the practice. In other instances, civil wars occur when one faction seeks to take exclusive power over the nation instead of sharing power or regional control with competing political factions. The Spanish Civil War immediately preceding the Second World War is one such example.

Proxy Wars

Sometimes, nation states prosecute wars against one another through wars between smaller nations. Generally, this occurs when much larger nations want to avoid the devastating consequences of a direct war between them. They may have long-standing conflicts with one another or competing aims and interests about foreign territories and regions. They may seek to achieve their objectives through the use of force but instead of direct military conflict, they act against one another by supporting wars and revolutions in smaller nations in those regions. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the world's two principal superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted many overt and covert proxy wars in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and in both the Middle East and the Far East. Some of the more notable examples of those proxy efforts in modern times included the Soviet Union's attempt to militarize Cuba and install nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. supposedly to guarantee Cuba's independence in 1961; the decade-long Vietnam War in which the Soviet Union supported and finances the North Vietnamese while the U.S. supported and financed the South Vietnamese; and the Arab-Israeli wars in which the Soviet Union supported Syria and Egypt while the U.S. supported Israel.