“Empire perceives civil war neither as an affront to its majesty nor as a challenge to its omnipotence, but simply as a risk. This explains the preventive counter-revolution that Empire continues to wage against anyone who might puncture holes in the biopolitical continuum. Unlike the modern State, Empire does not deny the existence of civil war. Instead, it manages it. By admitting the existence of civil war, Empire furnishes itself with certain convenient means to steer or contain it. Wherever its networks are insufficiently instrusive, it will ally itself for as long as it takes with some local mafia or even with a local guerilla group, on the condition that these parties guarantee they will maintain order in the territory they have been assigned. Nothing matters less to Empire that the question, ‘Who controls what?’—provided, of course, that control has been established.” – Tiqqun, Introduction to Civil War (emphases in original)