Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

This month marks the first anniversary of the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was vanquished by the Sri Lankan military in one of the most extraordinary counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns in modern history. Though detractors of Sri Lanka's COIN success erroneously argue there is nothing for the West to learn, the evidence suggests there are some valuable lessons from Sri Lanka's experience for the West's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sri Lanka's strategy evolved after nearly 26 years of confrontation with Tamil militants, in what was essentially an intercommunal secessionist civil war to establish an ethnic-Tamil state, termed Tamil Eelam. In the final phase of the conflict from 2006 to 2009, Sri Lanka fashioned a COIN strategy that defeated one of the most formidable and sophisticated insurgent-terrorist organizations in the world.

The LTTE was a transnational terrorist organization able to raise a well-equipped guerrilla army, create a large fleet of boats for its maritime wing, and develop a dedicated air wing using improvised light-aircraft in raids and suicide attacks.

The advent of pragmatic and decisive Sri Lankan political leadership in 2005, which led to major military command changes, created the environment Sri Lanka's COIN success. The military was given a larger budget and unprecedented freedom to expand, reorganize, transform and adopt new doctrinal concepts.

One critical step was obtaining international support, especially from neighbors. Sri Lanka succeeded in banning the LTTE in the European Union and Canada in 2006 and readily acquired the political, financial and logistical support of key countries, particularly India and China.

In addition, relations with other neighboring countries, namely Pakistan, Maldives, Malaysia and Indonesia, were strengthened. By securing widespread regional support, Sri Lanka streamlined intelligence-sharing, which was followed by a security crackdown on LTTE cells, smuggling and procurement operations, a much different situation than currently faced by the allies, especially in Afghanistan.

As a result, the LTTE was increasingly constrained by the infiltration of its overseas network and the interception of its sea lines of communication, which deprived it of much needed supplies and equipment. Sri Lanka mobilized all of the state's resources and maintained sustained pressure against the LTTE, defeating the organization in less than three years.

In Iraq, the United States is not only engaged in combating Sunni and Shia insurgents but is attempting to mediate serious ethnic, religious and social tensions among the Kurdish, Sunni and Shia populations. In Afghanistan, ethnic, religious and social tensions are also apparent, but the U.S. coalition is essentially focused on confronting a Taliban-led ethnic-Pashtun insurgency.

Similarly, the geopolitical complexity and vastness of Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which intersect with six countries, make the task of sealing borders, as Sri Lanka did, extremely challenging.

For example, in Iraq, the United States has strained relations with Syria and Iran, and the U.S. government has alleged that both countries have provided safe havens, training, financial and material assistance to insurgents. Whereas in Afghanistan, in addition to tense relations with Iran in this theater, the U.S. coalition has been unable to cut off and destroy the safe havens for insurgents along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The size of the countries also is a factor, as Iraq and Afghanistan have estimated land areas of 437,000 square kilometers and 647,000 square kilometers, respectively, while the Sri Lankan military operated in an estimated land area of 64,000 square kilometers.

Total military strength deployed also is an issue, as the Sri Lankan military had nearly 300,000 combatants (excluding auxiliaries) when the LTTE was defeated in 2009. The U.S. coalition has deployed approximately 83,000 troops in Iraq and 102,000 troops in Afghanistan, a combined figure still far below what the Sri Lankan military employed.

Furthermore, while the United States made the crucial strategic error of disbanding the Iraqi Army, the Sri Lankan government induced a prominent faction of the LTTE to defect and join the political mainstream, reducing the strength of the LTTE by around 40 percent.

This breakaway group provided valuable intelligence and engaged in irregular operations against the LTTE, playing a critical role in the outcome of the campaign.

What Sri Lanka's COIN experience has demonstrated, then, is the importance of obtaining the support of all neighboring countries to secure their borders, intercept insurgent cells and cooperate in regular intelligence-sharing mobilizing domestic public support to accept potentially heavy casualties in order to achieve long-term objectives ensuring that adequate troop strength is available by considerably expanding the size of the military understanding the importance of inducing foes into the political mainstream and maintaining the operational initiative on multiple fronts to deprive insurgents of opportunities to regroup.

Clearly, the fundamentals of Sri Lanka's strategy demonstrated the principles and commitment needed to successfully prosecute a COIN campaign, and offers an example that could be of interest to the West.