How To Defeat Insurgencies: Sri Lanka's Bad Example

A body identified as that of the Tamil rebels’ leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was carried Tuesday through Sri Lankan troops. Reuters

From Time Magazine:

The conflict in Sri Lanka has long provided lessons for militant groups around the world. The Tamil Tigers taught terrorists everywhere the finer (or more savage) points of suicide bombing, the recruitment of child soldiers, arms trafficking, propaganda and the use of a global diaspora to collect resources. The Tigers "were the pioneers in many of the terrorist tactics we see worldwide today," says Jason Campbell, an Iraq and Afghanistan analyst at the Brookings Institution.

But now that the Tigers have been defeated, governments and security forces around the world may try to learn from the success of the Sri Lanka government. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his army have turned the conventional wisdom on fighting insurgencies on its head, adopting strategies and tactics long discredited, both in the battlefield and in the military classroom. Since they appear to have worked against the Tigers, other countries wracked by insurgencies — from Pakistan to Sudan to Algeria — may be tempted to follow suit.

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My Comment: In the end .... the eventual winner of this Sri Lankan civil war was never in doubt. The Sinhalese make up 80% of the population, they have the resources, the military, the international recognition, and the infrastructure to pursue a long drawn out conflict. What they lacked was the will .... a lack of will that quickly changed when President Mahinda Rajapaksa and "his army" took over the government and the military.

The error resides in the leadership of the Tigers. They thought that they were going to win, and it is with this mindset that they prosecuted the war. What they should have done (with hindsight) is that when they had attained military dominance in 2005 .... they should have sued for peace and form some type of accommodation with the Sri Lankan Government. They did not .... thereby setting in motion the sequence of events that led to the death and capture of the Tiger leadership.

Can the Tigers reconstitute themselves into a fighting force? I am sure that many will try .... but it will never attain the same status and power that it had 5 years ago. A lesson that many past insurgencies and civil wars have clearly taught us.

In conclusion .... while the Tigers may have taught many on how insurgencies should be fought .... their defeat should also be a warning to all insurgencies that if their political cards are not played right to attain their goals .... their defeat and destruction can then become their ever lasting legacy.