The New Indo-US Military Axis: Could Sri Lanka Be Decapitated?
By Dayan Jayatilleka -October 17, 2013 |
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
The head of the island of Sri Lanka can be separated from the body of the island by overwhelming external force. Does such a force or combination of forces exist? Who, where and what are they? Does Sri Lanka have a credible capacity for deterrence or resistance?
Paranoia apart, there are no internal threats to the strategic and security interests of Sri Lanka, and even if there were, they could easily be prevailed over. There could however be external ones, which are almost impossible to prevail over by domestic military force. The role of the State is to prevent by political, diplomatic, intellectual and ideological means of persuasion, i.e. by the projection of soft power, just such a worst case scenario.
One of the many and painful paradoxes Sri Lanka is living through is a greater parochialism of mentalities at a time of greater external focus on – some may say intrusion in—Sri Lanka. Simply put, Sri Lanka seems to be less aware of global trends at a time the world is more aware of Lankan trends and tendencies. We seem to scrutinise the world less just as we come under the world’s scrutiny as never before. This contradiction is most ironic when it pertains to the immediate neighbourhood, which is more deeply involved with Sri Lanka than it has been for a quarter century.
Things weren’t always so. It is not a form of ancestor worship that makes me recall the well-informed editorials and analytical features on the Indo-Soviet treaty and Nixon’s visit to China, in the Daily News under my father Mervyn de Silva’s editorship. The close focus was through the prism of the enlightened national interest of Sri Lanka, and examined the implications for our national interest.
Today there seems to be zero awareness of the new level of development of the Indo-US relationship and the projections of the strategic arc of that relationship as contained in the detailed joint communiqué and an even more crucial second document, the US-India Joint Declaration of Defence Cooperation, issued after PresidentBarack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent meeting.
Key portions of the Indo-US joint communiqué of end September follow:
“The Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh and the President of the United States of America Barack Obama…reflected proudly on the transformation of United States-India relations during the last decade, affirming that the partnership between the two democratic nations is stronger today than at any point in their 67-year history. Read More
