View: How counterinsurgency operations can succeed in Chhattisgarh SECTIONS Last Updated: Apr 06, 2021, 03:12 PM IST Share Synopsis The doyen of deterrence theory, Thomas Schelling had written in 1966 that “brute force of adversaries cancels each other but pain and grief do not.” Herein lies the crux of what hurts someone and has a positive follow-on effect, and what does not. A file image of anti-naxal ops beginning in Maharashtra Related The terrible loss of 22 Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) jawans in Chhattisgarh is a grim reminder of the grey zone warfare ongoing since decades. In the early 1980s my father was the additional collector of Kanker, now the ground zero of the insurgency. And we made two visits there and the surrounding areas; how peaceful it was, with visits to scenic places thrown in. Peaceful? Or so we thought. When the insurgency exploded in our face a decade or so later, I asked him how it had reached such a stage.