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Lack of Popular Support
Since the end of the civil war, a number of military and academic researchers have argued about what made the Sri Lanka Government (SLG) so successful in defeating the insurgents. In 2010, Stephen Battle, who was a US army major in US Naval Post Graduate school assessed that the SLG defeated the insurgency because the insurgency lost legitimacy with the local Tamil population. In other words, the insurgents lost popular support. Battle suggested that the insurgents focus on foreign support, especially from western countries which largely depend on to fund the insurgent group evaporated after 9/11, created a substantial loss in financial and manpower support for operations is a valid point. Battle reinforces his argument by citing the high level of forced conscription of the Tamil population into the insurgent’s ranks during the last phase of the war.
Resisting Western Intervention
Very often conventional wisdom recommends that in insurgency situations, usually militaries in the world opt to create conditions suitable for the application of a political solution. During the cease-fire of 1995, then Present Prime Minister envisioned military solution being neither achievable nor worth the enormous collateral costs. However, the recent success of the SLG has demonstrated that given the right conditions, a decisive battlefield victory is a possibility. In another article, Ashok Metha an Indian academic believe the former President or his advisors must have studied “Give War a Chance”, a 1996 Foreign Affairs article, in which Edward Luttwak’s theory of allowing war to run to its logical conclusion rather than interrupted by foreign intervention, he resist Western intervention and UN attempts to force a ceasefire. Sinhalese nationalists called it “defiance” and “showing the West its place”.
Outstanding Civil-Military Cooperation
Furthermore, the skill full diplomacy of the SLG ensured that the LTTE was banned in 32 countries, seriously undermining its funding and arms resupply networks. But first, a favourable environment had to be created for the military offensive. The military campaign was executed with unprecedented military resolve:
a clear aim, unrestricted resources and outstanding leadership, which was given a free hand with no political interference when making a military decision and the CivilMilitary relations were at its best. The ‘fight to finish’ strategy evolved over time was motivated by rapid gains on the ground. Air supremacy, naval blockade, precision-guided attacks taking out top insurgent leaders and confronting SLG Army on different fronts, created an acute shortage of manpower reduced the fighting capability of insurgents.
Training, Intelligence, and NSC
In addition, another major factor in the SLG success was the remarkable increase in the size and training of the SLG military forces which absorbed enough reserve force which was not available before. In addition, this improvement in military posture was supplemented by a wider application of national power, which included an improvement in intelligence apparatus and highly focused National Security Council (NSC) chaired by the President and Defense secretary, renewed political will, and improved collaboration or support from the international community. The SLG’s continuous use of small infantry manoeuvres, as well as the expanded use of civil defense forces, and the protection of the non-combatant population along the border villages and main cities by the police department also change the tide of the conflict.
Control of the Media
Besides, the soldiers were recognized as national heroes by the local TV channels and the country’s outlook on defense and freedom of the motherland from terrorism changed the perception of the conflict dramatically. The military was guarded against media criticism by weaning away the propaganda initiative from the insurgents. The insurgent’s media campaign was very successful at the earlier stages of the conflict. A virtual media gag was imposed in the combat zone and the foreign media was kept out. The Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) was a single window concept designed for countering insurgent propaganda. A strengthened Defence Ministry media initiative ensured that the insurgents lost the media war which they had always won in the past. The domination of information space ensured operations were conducted in a blanket of secrecy, except for government handouts. All international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) except the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – which was also asked to leave before the last battle – were expelled from the north.
Defeating maritime capability of the insurgency
Elusive and Innovative Enemy at Sea
Typically, the main focus of the counterinsurgency case studies in the world is land oriented because the target population lives on land due to obvious reasons. Also, we agree the small to insignificant insurgent maritime forces like The Filipino Islamist Abu Sayyaf Group and the Jemaah Islamiyah has a correspondingly marginal effect on the final outcome of their struggle. Generally, the counterinsurgent side’s naval forces are tending to be very strong, because naval force structures are not generally geared to fight against small boats. Hence, the navies usually overmatch the insurgent’s maritime capability and therefore key elements of the maritime aspects of counterinsurgencies become neglected as minor issues of the relevant analysis. But, the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009) is somewhat of an exception of that trend. Both the Sri Lankan government and the insurgents fielded capable naval forces that directly affected the flow of operational outcome during the war.
Floating warehouses
Hence, if there was one single military achievement that tilted the balance in favour of government forces, it was identifying and destroying the insurgent’s supply chain together with its floating warehouses at a distance of 2000 Nautical Miles away from Sri Lanka by the naval forces. Because sustainability of the insurgents totally depends on the military hardware received from the sea. Over the years the rebels became very advance in the small boat warfare and used suicide boats as their main weapon of choice to replicate a missile.
In particular, an elaborate undercover operation with meticulous planning was launched for the purpose of locating insurgent’s gunrunners on the high seas. Painstaking intelligence analysis, picture building through captured/destroyed documents from gunrunning fishing trawlers, maritime reconnaissance and the capture of a rebel boat by Maldivian Coast Guards in May 2007 helped in targeting the rebel supply network. Between 2006 and 2008, 32 encounters took place at sea, in which 11 insurgent warehouse ships containing over 10,000 tonnes of war-related material – 80,000 artillery rounds, 100,000 mortar shells, several bulletproof jeeps, three dismantled aircraft, torpedoes, SAMs, radar, high-power outboard motors (OBMs) – were captured/destroyed.
To be Continued
