Is it really in the interests of the UVF and UDA leadership's to allow a spontaneous upsurge in violence from its grassroots that could in a worst-case scenario unravel everything they sought to achieve since the 1994 ceasefires?
James Warlick, the United States representative for the Minsk Group of the Organisation for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which works towards finding a peaceful solution to the conflict, tweeted: "We are seriously concerned about the recent upsurge in violence along the Line Of Contact.
"If the wagons do start rolling in, I think there will be a massive upsurge," he says.
The recent upsurge in violence has led to anger at the government's lacklustre response to the threat, prompting it to seek assistance from the US, UK and Israel, who are expected to help find the abducted schoolgirls and provide counter-terrorism training programmes.
This upsurge in domestic use is directly responsible for an increase in complaints around their use".
Revealing that one in 100 A-level and GCSE grades were changed after challenges by schools and pupils this summer, Ofqual said it was particularly concerned with the upsurge in challenges and warned of "significant implications" for schools of changes to the systems of marking and re-marking for the exams.
Ritchie pulled the plug on funding in response to an upsurge of UDA-inspired violence in 2007 in Bangor and Carrickfergus, the latter disturbances linked to an inter-loyalist feud.
The NHS campaign fuelled an upsurge in mass events by yes activists and supporters, who swelled a series of demonstrations in Glasgow's George Square, and Buchanan Street, where they gathered under the statue of Labour's first first minister, and the father of devolution, Donald Dewar.
"This upsurge in domestic use is directly responsible for an increase in complaints around their use," Porter said in his first annual report (pdf).
Russia has experienced an upsurge in homophobic vigilantism following the introduction of legislation outlawing "homosexual propaganda" in June, gay and lesbian groups say.
He could have put the institutions on hold indefinitely, although there was always the fear a prolonged political vacuum was more likely to be filled with an upsurge in violence.
