Sri Lanka needs a change in policymaking culture to incorporate strategic thinking, if the island nation is to better navigate the dynamic geopolitical environment of the Indian Ocean and beyond, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) Centre for Strategic Assessment Director and Department of Strategic Studies Head Dr. Harinda Vidanage told The Sunday Morning last week.
Vidanage, an academic and strategist, points to failures of past governments to assess the strategic environment Sri Lanka found itself in, post-war, which has left the island unable to articulate its national interest and security concerns effectively in the international arena.
Vidanage says Sri Lankan policymakers and bureaucrats need to better understand strategic thinking to aid the formulation of more effective and coherent policies, which Sri Lanka will need to effect a quick recovery and navigate the growing contentions of the Indian Ocean Region.
According to him, Sri Lanka should opt for a ‘Sri Lankanist pragmatists’ policy, putting Sri Lankan interests first and engaging other countries based on the principles of neutrality. However, he stresses that Sri Lanka should have a special relationship with India and be sensitive to its security concerns.
In an interview with The Sunday Morning, Dr. Vidanage pointed to the importance of institutions like the Centre for Strategic Assessment and the Department of Strategic Studies at the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, which provide a platform for both State officials and civilians to learn strategic thinking.
Following are excerpts of the interview:
Why is strategic studies important for Sri Lanka and what is strategic thinking?
It is necessary for Sri Lanka to navigate geopolitics and competition and seek sustainable development. Firstly, to get an understanding of how strategic studies/thinking evolved in Sri Lanka, our educational system has been experimenting with International Relations education for decades. Most of our academic thinking on strategic studies came from our historians, who have written about Sri Lanka’s strategic position and dilemmas.
In my view, our strategic thinking has unfortunately developed from an anxiety factor, which is based on how we perceive the ‘India factor’. Unfortunately, this anxiety has in some ways shaped our foreign policy stance as well. Either we were in line with India or somewhat hostile towards them; neither has helped us. I think we have to forge a ‘Sri Lankanist’ foreign policy, as the President recently mentioned. I believe that we as a nation should be ‘Sri Lankanist pragmatists’. Many of our politicians have been political pragmatists, but have shunned forging a view of the world.
Secondly, strategy comes with statesmanship. We need politicians who are statesmen and think in a strategic arch. This is something we have lacked in the political arena. Statesmanship is not about winning the next election. Statesmanship is about steering a country towards a better future. Unfortunately, these are not nuances we have had, nor given priority to in the past.
Strategic thinking is always reflecting on the past and aspiring for a better future, based on the resources you have at present. This is why grandiose thinking is also not wise in a strategic sense; you can’t be promising people miracles. Strategic thinking is about planning and preparing to reach certain objectives with limited resources.
So, what are the desired strategic objectives for Sri Lanka today? We should focus on gaining economic stability, we can use our strategic location advantage to gain international recognition, expand our markets, and restore hope of prosperity for our people, etc.
What do we need to do to adopt strategic thinking into our governance?
If you have policymakers who have limited policy vision, who think political objectives of a nation should be tied to election cycles, such governance will not have strategic thinking. We have seen this in the past. We need a change in political culture. We need to begin thinking about the bigger picture and the long-term outcomes. We need a strategic thinking culture, where national aspirations are put first.
That is why from Singapore, to China, to the US, they plan for 5-10 years ahead. Take China, for example; the party congress meeting sets out a five-year plan, but the vision is aimed at 2049. Saudi Arabia has a 2030 plan. The Russians have drafted their own. The US has a strategic vision for the Indo-Pacific.
Today, Sri Lanka needs strategic thinking because we are in an extremely competitive strategic environment. In the past, Sri Lanka had three decades of internal conflict as an excuse to be focused inwards. I don’t want to blame leaders. Their priority at the time was to manage the conflict.
What could Sri Lanka have done post-conflict, which we didn’t in terms of building strategic thinking and a strategic vision?
When Sri Lanka came out of three decades of conflict, what we didn’t do was a strategic assessment of the environment (regional and global). That was a mistake.
The war ended in 2009. If we had paid close attention, that was the time period where the strategic environment of the world started changing. Americans began the ‘Pivot to Asia’ under President Obama. They were of the view and campaigned that America was not just an Atlantic Ocean power but that it was a Pacific nation too, arguing that their interests were in the Pacific Ocean as well. Out of that, we saw the Indo-Pacific emerge.
It was the same period in which we saw changes in China in 2012, when Xi Jinping became the President of the People’s Republic of China and began clearly articulating a China-centric approach. This intensified the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Sri Lanka signed several key infrastructure projects.
At the same time, we saw a change in India, with Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister. Along with that came the ‘Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR),’ India’s vision and geopolitical framework of maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean region. Around the same time, Japan became more interested in the Indian Ocean. New collectives and groups formed, such as the Quad.
Today, we see India as a country that is seeking strategic autonomy. Indians are taking stances which no one would have imagined two decades ago. India is neither pro-West nor pro-East; India is pro-India. They are not anti-Western or anti-Eastern either.
Sri Lanka should have done a robust strategic environment assessment, calibrated its vision, and decided how best to chart a path forward. But we didn’t.
The KDU has established a Faculty of Defence and Strategic Studies. Could you tell us about the new faculty and what it will do?
KDU is Sri Lanka’s only defence-focused university. It is also Sri Lanka’s model of civil/military higher education. Although the KDU used to mainly provide service for the armed forces, today we have nearly 5,000 civilian students as opposed to around 800 military officers learning at our premises.
Our new faculty is the only faculty in Sri Lanka which has a Department of Strategic Studies (DSS). Although strategic studies began as a military topic after World War II, increasingly it has been adopted into civilian sectors of studies. Today it is part of management studies as well.
As the world is heading towards a competitive architecture, it will strongly influence the future of Asia, including that of the Indian Ocean where we live. Therefore, we need an institution to teach Strategic Studies to build thinkers who can shape our future course, particularly as the Indian Ocean is seeing an increase in geopolitical contention.
We need strategic studies and strategic thinking and the bureaucratic and policymaking level to, in line with our foreign policy, clearly articulate to the world the national interest of Sri Lanka, vis-à-vis this new strategically-competitive environment.
Our DSS aims to become a national focal point and resource centre for making a well-informed strategic community in Sri Lanka. At present, the DSS offers a Bachelor of Science in Strategic Studies and International Relations.
How will Sri Lanka’s standing foreign policy principle of neutrality affect us in the new environment?
I do not think Sri Lanka’s foreign policy of neutrality should mean disengagement; it should be one of engagement. However, Sri Lanka’s key position is that we do not encourage any strategic competition within our borders and territories.
But there has to be a special relationship between Sri Lanka and India. When I say special relationship, it is not privileged to India. It is to understand India’s security sensitivities. If you don’t have strategic studies and strategic thinking, it will be difficult to navigate the evolving environment around us.
What are the top strategic challenges Sri Lanka is facing today?
Our strategic challenges are linked to a couple of factors. One is our own structural problem. We need economic and political stability. We can’t articulate strategy if we don’t have the foundations of economic stability and political institutional coherence. Basically, you can’t take a 70-year-old broken down vehicle and drive it fast on a highway. You can be the best driver, but you can only perform as much as the vehicle can give.
Then, we have to calibrate our relationships in the region, and, in parallel, articulate clearly what our interests are. In doing this, if we can’t articulate our national economic and political strategy, we can’t articulate our national security concerns and views. When calibrating our regional relationships, India’s sensitivity has to be prioritised.
The region we are in is dynamic. The Indian Ocean is probably the fastest-growing ocean system. It has the world’s largest merchant navy presence and a vast amount of trade flows through it. The Indian Ocean has the highest amount of strategic interest from across the world. Countries which we didn’t imagine were keen on the Indian Ocean and the Pacific have announced their Indo-Pacific strategies already.
Further, Sri Lanka, like many small island states, faces an enormous challenge of climate change, which we cannot address alone. Sri Lanka also needs to build climate resilience and economic resilience to weather, climate change effects/events, and global economic and supply chain disruptions.
Another challenge is that, broadly speaking, many Sri Lankans lack understanding of the changing geopolitical landscape of our region. If you ask many students of politics, only a few may know about the Indo-Pacific. We need to build awareness, educate, and prepare our population for the future.
Given the dynamic nature of geopolitics in the Indian Ocean, how important is it to build a regional architecture?
The region is in a period of transition and regional architectures are important. This week, Sri Lanka took up the Chairpersonship of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). Such architecture, like that of the IORA, is important because of the growing political compulsions. Such platforms offer Sri Lanka a forum to articulate our interest, listen to others, forge common approaches, and, at times, speak in one voice.
Maritime security is, for example, an issue all countries in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) face. Even extra-regional powers are concerned about maritime security in the IOR, so it offers a good forum to discuss, find common ground, and work collaboratively.
Sri Lanka is also uniquely positioned to be the best venue for such discussions. We are at the epicentre. I feel that we have been thinking about Sri Lanka’s positioning as a strategic position with a narrow view. Our strategic location can be leveraged as a location where other countries can converge to discuss and build consensus.
In the future it will not be about the divergence of competition but facilitation of its convergence – how best we can get competitors to come here, discuss, and find solutions. In my view, that should be the spirit of neutrality. There is no Switzerland in Asia. In the Indian Ocean, the nearest thing is Sri Lanka.