Wars of "national liberation" throughout the world have some common characteristics. They conduct attacks across international borders from sanctuaries in sympathetic states, infiltrate civilian populations, and use terrorist tactics. They have gained support from the Soviet Union and from western socialists and radicals. National liberation movements that have been successful typically do not establish free societies but rather totalitarian regimes. The current cycle of revolutionary wars had its genesis in the demands for national self-determination unleashed by the liquidation of the European colonial empires and in demands for the reform of corrupt political and economic institutions generated by the dissemination of socialist and egalitarian doctrines after World War II. A third important factor in the promotion of revolutionary wars has been the strategy of the Soviet Union to harness the influences of decolonization and egalitarian reform in its own ideological struggle against the West. The United Nations has done very little to address the violence and destruction caused by wars of national liberation. United Nations initiatives to ban aggression, the use of force in international affairs, and terrorism have carried such broad exceptions that they have become almost charters for the perpetration of international violence; most groups committed to violent revolution believe they fit the exceptions provided by United Nations proclamations. 16 notes