Military government readily appears archaic and not merely because of the increasing preference for such terms as civil administration and international territorial administration to refer to what are in fact instances of military occupation. It appears archaic because of the increasing reality of the involvement of civilians and civilian agencies in military occupation. It appears archaic because the isolation of the occupier from the occupied inherent in the definition of military occupation gives it a caste-like character that is at odds with a world in which it is common to speak of global ‘governance’ or ‘multi-level governance’ where the term governance, especially in the English language, has an elasticity not always easily reproduced in other languages. Its ultimate reliance upon coercion further distances it from the emphasis upon persuasion, ‘interstate cooperation and transnational networks’ often associated with the language of governance, even if those who employ such language often readily acknowledge that the institutions of this governance can become dysfunctional or oppressive. Despite its conceptual separation from conquest it seems to resemble the form of government depicted by Franz Oppenheimer when he sought to locate the origins of the state in conquest: