Compressing Politics in Counterinsurgency (COIN): Implications for COIN Theory from India’s Northeast

Abstract

Counterinsurgency (COIN) has long been recognised as a political phenomenon, but current theoretical understandings of politics in COIN reflect ideal types, overlooking the depth and complexity of the politics of insurgency and COIN. Drawing from India's experience in its northeastern region, this paper argues that COIN theory overlooks the political agency and multiplicity of actors, as well as overlooking the fundamentally political scope of interactions that take place between them. It calls upon COIN theorists to begin to map out this complex picture by urging greater integration between academics and practitioners studying COIN and theoretical inputs from wider academic disciplines.

Counterinsurgents’ use of force and “armed orders” in Naga Northeast India

“…We therefore need to resituate the use of force in its political context, taking into account the internal politics of counterinsurgents themselves and the politics of the environment within which they are operating. 18 A number of works on COIN and conflict management policy in India have recognized the role local or national politics plays in generating politically-informed threat perceptions that shape the intensity and vigor of macro-level state responses. 19 These insights have been built on by the recent emergence of studies of order in conflict.…”

“…Additionally, order is shaped by a range of non-state actors such as traditional authority structures, influential local leaders, ethnic groups, civil society bodies and socio-economic actors. 33 State actors also engage with this array of ordering forces and their varied distribution across different, localized configurations of order as they attempt to renegotiate, uproot or destroy insurgents' position within these orders. Depending on how these local orders are configured, counterinsurgents' use of force against insurgents can produce both short-term and long-term impacts upon how these actors perceive, interact and negotiate with state and insurgent actors, which can in turn impact upon configurations of order.…”