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Thread: How Sri Lanka defeated the LTTE

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
    Very wise oriental gentleman you talked to...
    His wife would sometimes stand behind him rolling her eyes and making, "don't listen to him, he's loco", motions. Without turning around, he'd say, "Pay no attention to her, she's always trying to help people." Funny.

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    Default But did they do any COIN operations?

    Thanks to those contributing to this thread. I have been doing some research on COIN in different conflicts, trying to evaluate what works the best. I started looking at Sri Lanka as I heard from several friends, "you should look at Sri Lanka, they defeated the LTTE!" And I like this case since it's not tied to the religious issues of AQ and the Middle East.

    However, it seems from the sources, Sri Lanka really used a conventional military onslaught to defeat the LTTE.

    Does anyone have any insight into what COIN techniques they tried to defeat LTTE? Did they do any of the COIN techniques that are documented in the COIN field manual?
    Did they create militias, paramilitaries?
    Have amnesty programs?
    Increase intelligence?
    I'm finding a lot of discussion about the LTTE, it's capabilities, etc, but very little about how the Sri Lankan's did COIN. Maybe they didn't?

    Thanks for any suggestions you all might have.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PJ Sage View Post
    Thanks to those contributing to this thread. I have been doing some research on COIN in different conflicts, trying to evaluate what works the best.
    Depends on the context. What wins wars?
    However, it seems from the sources, Sri Lanka really used a conventional military onslaught to defeat the LTTE.
    That would be largely correct
    Does anyone have any insight into what COIN techniques they tried to defeat LTTE?
    The Sri-Lankans used military force to destroy the LTTE as an armed group. That is what works.
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Depends on the context. What wins wars?

    That would be largely correct

    The Sri-Lankans used military force to destroy the LTTE as an armed group. That is what works.
    I have a forthcoming essay in Joint Force Quarterly on the topic. Hadn't seen this thread, but the essay pretty much tracks Bill Moore's reasons above - the isolation of the LTTE politically, financially, and militarily played the decisive role, the military operation and tactics used were icing on the cake.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PJ Sage View Post
    However, it seems from the sources, Sri Lanka really used a conventional military onslaught to defeat the LTTE.

    Does anyone have any insight into what COIN techniques they tried to defeat LTTE?
    You mentioned it yourself:
    They allowed LTTE to become a conventional force (see Mao's phase model), built up conventional military power (including a form of "special forces" = airborne) and crushed them in a step-by-step campaign.

    That's an equivalet to mobile defense in operational art. Give up ground, allow them to win a payrrhic victory that exposes them to a killing blow.
    Good luck finding someone in charge with the guts to even attempt it (voluntarily).

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    Default Have you seen any discussion of...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    I have a forthcoming essay in Joint Force Quarterly on the topic. Hadn't seen this thread, but the essay pretty much tracks Bill Moore's reasons above - the isolation of the LTTE politically, financially, and militarily played the decisive role, the military operation and tactics used were icing on the cake.
    I saw a couple unsupported claims in newspaper articles about the use of paramilitaries and intelligence cooperation and isolation of the Tamil Diaspora to cut off their funding from transnational systems. But no one sources it, so I'm not sure if it is just general talk or a definitive strategy by the Sri Lankan government.

    There is some good discussion about the Eastern Branch of LTTE breaking away from the north, but the COIN techniques used in Iraq don't really seem to emerge.

    Has anyone seen any proof of these techniques?

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    External funding is unimportant if you have control over a closed economy with no goods imports. In that case money import is really just paper import.

    India helped Sri Lanka to embargo LTTE and the LTTE blockade runners were defeated by a Sri Lankan small fast boat armada (built in the country iirc).
    They had sunk the last LTTE weapons & ammunition smuggling ships just months before the final battles.

    That didn't mean much more than a weaker conventional posture of LTTE, though. Sri Lanka could as well have won (with more bloodshed) by focusing its resources on the army.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PJ Sage View Post
    I saw a couple unsupported claims in newspaper articles about the use of paramilitaries and intelligence cooperation and isolation of the Tamil Diaspora to cut off their funding from transnational systems. But no one sources it, so I'm not sure if it is just general talk or a definitive strategy by the Sri Lankan government.

    There is some good discussion about the Eastern Branch of LTTE breaking away from the north, but the COIN techniques used in Iraq don't really seem to emerge.

    Has anyone seen any proof of these techniques?
    There was no pop centric COIN campaign, as others have observed. In 2005 "COL Karuna" and a sizeable group of fighters left the LTTE and reconciled with the government. Accounts differ on the scope of the impact, but it began to fracture the LTTE and exposed fractures within the LTTE's leadership.

    People act as if the campaign from 1983-2005 wasn't harsh enough. Some of the brutality of the 90s exceeded what was used in the final offensive. It was "conventional" since the late 1980s. The difference was the isolation of the LTTE, cutting its logistical and financial ties, the 2005 Tsunami, internal fragmenting of the LTTE, a much improved Sri Lankan army and navy, and very significantly - the adoption of China as a benefactor, financer, and protector of Sri Lanka against western concerns about such pesky things as "human rights.

    Fuchs, for all your hyperventalating about civilian casualties in the Apache video, I find it somewhat amusing you seem to be such a fan of the LTTE's brilliant operational art which killed thousands of civilians unnecessairly in the process, and hold it up as a paragon of "mobile defense".
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    I did actually an analysis without emotions.

    Wars tend to create many civilian casualties, that's why I reject all wars of choice and dislike that my country is allied with aggressive nations that break our alliance treaty at will. My country had very serious experiences with great wars, wars of choice and overly aggressive allies.

    About the video; it was a policing situation to me, and I despise the idea that a helicopter would be allowed to fly over a megacity blasting people at will just because someone suspects weapons in a grainy image.

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    Thumbs up Ahhh the Tsunami..

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    People act as if the campaign from 1983-2005 wasn't harsh enough. Some of the brutality of the 90s exceeded what was used in the final offensive. It was "conventional" since the late 1980s. The difference was the isolation of the LTTE, cutting its logistical and financial ties, the 2005 Tsunami, internal fragmenting of the LTTE, a much improved Sri Lankan army and navy, and very significantly - the adoption of China as a benefactor, financer, and protector of Sri Lanka against western concerns about such pesky things as "human rights.
    Thanks, That was the impression I had as well, but it seems from a couple articles, from uninformed journalists I think, that there were 'lessons learned' for COIN in the Sri Lanka case.

    The Tsunami, I had seen a reference in one article that this helped the government, I assume the provision of aid which was diverted to the Sri Lankan military for further military efforts. Is that right? It makes sense. And I imagine that it probably turned popular support towards the government as well, as they needed aid and the LTTE probably wasn't receiving the windfall of aid from outside governments.

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    Some of the Iraq/Sri Lanka comments above imply that pop-centric COIN was the key to turning the situation in Iraq around. While it might have helped, I'm not at all convinced that it was the most important factor at work in Iraq--all of which raises the important question of what it is we should, and should not, be trying to learn from the Iraqi experience.

    (I'll add this to my ever-growing list of "threads I should start when I have the time.")

    Now, back to the war in Sri Lanka. With absolutely no sign that the Sri Lankan government will take major steps to address Tamil grievances, what are the chances of a substantial resurgence of violence in the next decade? Who wants to suggest odds?
    They mostly come at night. Mostly.


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    Quote Originally Posted by PJ Sage View Post
    Thanks, That was the impression I had as well, but it seems from a couple articles, from uninformed journalists I think, that there were 'lessons learned' for COIN in the Sri Lanka case.

    The Tsunami, I had seen a reference in one article that this helped the government, I assume the provision of aid which was diverted to the Sri Lankan military for further military efforts. Is that right? It makes sense. And I imagine that it probably turned popular support towards the government as well, as they needed aid and the LTTE probably wasn't receiving the windfall of aid from outside governments.
    The Tsunami was one of the game changers between 2004-2007. Basically, Aid was largely prevented from reaching Tamil areas by the Sri Lankan government because it would not let funds reach the LTTE. Those areas never recovered, with the attendant effects.

    I am still waiting for someone to show me how the Sri Lankan government changed the intensity (vice efficency) of its tactics and use of "brutal" force. The whole conflict was insanely brutal, especially during the 90's until the 2001 cease fire.
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    Thanks for the responses. This helps as I've been caught between hearsay and reporting, neither of which have given me much to go on. I think the reporting must be weak because of Sri Lanka's repression of journalists in the region and control of the media. Which would influence the degree to which the COIN concepts would be accurately described.

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    Default How Sri Lanka defeated the LTTE

    What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us About COIN

    Entry Excerpt:

    What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us About COIN
    by Lionel Beehner

    Download the Full Article:

    It has become a truism to say there are no military solutions to defeat an insurgency. That was the thrust of the U.S. military’s 2006 counterinsurgency (COIN) manual as well as the mantras repeated by CENTCOM Commander David Petraeus, the manual’s coauthor, and his “warrior intellectual” offspring. Conventional wisdom also holds that COIN takes years, if not decades, to complete and emphasizes a population-centric strategy to avoid civilian casualties and win locals’ hearts and minds.

    But Sri Lanka’s successful victory one year ago stands all this conventional wisdom on its head. It was brute military force, not political dialogue or population control, which ended its brutal decades-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, a separatist group perhaps most notorious for popularizing the suicide bomb. The final military campaign lasted months, not years or decades. It was a gruesome finale, to be sure. The Sri Lankan government paid little heed to outside calls for preventing collateral damage. While humanitarian workers and journalists were barred from entering the war zone, as many as 20,000 civilians were killed in the crossfire and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamils were corralled into camps after war ended . It was, as one journalist I spoke to in Colombo put it, “a war without witnesses.” Hearts and minds took a backseat to shock and awe.

    Still, the lesson from Sri Lanka’s COIN experiment is that overwhelming force can defeat insurgents, terrorists and other irregular armed groups in relatively short order, but at a steep cost. Its model disproves the notion that counterinsurgencies must be drawn-out, Vietnam-like campaigns. With U.S. forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also provides states fighting small wars with a different counterinsurgency template. Not without reason did Pakistan and Thailand, which both face insurgencies on their peripheries, seek out Sri Lanka for military training and advice in recent months.

    So do America’s warrior intellectuals and COIN theorists have it all backwards? Should we be emphasizing military solutions over political compromises and accommodation, overwhelming force over clear-hold-and-build campaigns, defeating the enemy over winning locals’ “hearts and minds”? Does Sri Lanka’s COIN strategy provide any lessons for Washington as it escalates the war in Afghanistan, or for other countries facing violent insurgencies along their unruly peripheries?

    Or does the fallout from the use of massive force—the high death toll, the lost hearts and minds, the accusations of war crimes, the unresolved grievances of ethnic minorities—negate whatever victory is achieved on the battlefield or goodwill that comes from a peaceful settlement? It is a perplexing question for military strategists. “The end of the Sri Lankan civil war,” wrote Robert Haddick, a managing editor at the Small Wars Journal, “most especially the way it ended, with a clear military solution – will cause many sleepless nights for Western counterinsurgency theorists.”

    Download the Full Article:

    Lionel Beehner is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University and formerly a senior writer at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is also a term member.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-27-2010 at 04:53 PM. Reason: Copied for reference from SWJ Blog

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    Joint Force Quarterly # 59, due to be published next week, will contain an article by myself covering some of the same ground as Mr. Beehner's piece above - but with a very different take.

    From my reading of events, Sri Lanka's victory had much, much more to do with the economic and physical isolation of the LTTE between 2001 and 2007 than the shift in tactics (brutality) emphasized in most of the literature and papers published thus far (including this one)

    The LTTE’s collapse was the result of cumulative external and internal forces, not simply the employment of ruthless new tactics. Indeed, there is little beside the ability to disregard Western criticism that distinguishes Sri Lankan tactics or brutality post-2005 from earlier eras, as the conflict was already one of the most violent and ruthless in the world. Critical blows from internal defections, loss of external funding, a global antiterrorist mindset after 9/11, and second order effects of the 2004 tsunami crippled the LTTE. At the same time, foreign aid, domestic politics, and external political cover from China enabled the Sri Lankan government to resume its COIN campaign from a position of strength. The combination of these factors proved decisive in the defeat of the LTTE.

    Hopefully I will be able to link the JFQ paper on SWJ in the next week.

    Niel

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    Joint Force Quarterly # 59, due to be published next week, will contain an article by myself covering some of the same ground as Mr. Beehner's piece above - but with a very different take.

    [snip]

    Hopefully I will be able to link the JFQ paper on SWJ in the next week.

    Niel

    (xposted from blog comments)
    I look forward to reading this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    I look forward to reading this.
    And it's out!

    http://www.ndu.edu/press/understanding-sri-lanka.html

    Quote Originally Posted by JFQ
    An examination of Sri Lanka's victory reveals the LTTE's collapse was the result of cumulative external and internal forces, not simply the employment of ruthless new tactics. Indeed, there is little beside the ability to disregard Western criticism that distinguishes Sri Lankan tactics or brutality post-2005 from earlier eras, as the conflict was already one of the most violent and ruthless in the world. Critical blows from internal defections, loss of external funding, a global antiterrorist mindset after 9/11, and secondorder effects of the 2004 tsunami crippled the LTTE. At the same time, foreign aid, domestic politics, and external political cover from China enabled the Sri Lankan government to resume its COIN campaign from a position of strength. The combination of these factors proved decisive in the defeat of the LTTE.

    Those who wish to use the LTTE's defeat as a foil for criticizing U.S. COIN doctrine have adopted an overly simplistic narrative of the LTTE's defeat. These critics have missed the larger picture of what occurred in Sri Lanka. Appropriate and legitimate debate continues as to the significance of populationcentric tactics practiced by the U.S. military during the surge to the successful reduction of violence. Without doubt, numerous changes in the wider internal and external dynamics of the conflict coincided with the tactical shift and accelerated the turnaround in Iraq. Likewise, by 2009, the LTTE was a shadow of its former self, bankrupt, isolated, illegitimate, divided, and unable to meet an invigorated government offensive of any kind. At almost every turn, the LTTE made profound strategic miscalculations in the post-9/11 environment by continuing its use of terror tactics despite a fundamentally changed global environment. Failing to realize this shift, Prabhakaran made poor strategic and tactical choices that doomed his movement long before the government began its final offensive. Taken together, these conditions proved essential to the collapse of the LTTE after nearly 30 years of conflict.
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    The key to remember is that while this particular organization, the LTTE, may well and truly be defeated (time will tell, and it probably takes about 3-5 years to accurately assess such a defeat); true success will only be if no similar organization emerges from the ashes to continue the challenge against popular perceptions of poor governance. The military is far too quick to assess these political operations in military terms. How many times have the insurgencies in Algeria and the Philippines been "defeated" militarily, only to reemerge a few years later?

    This is but one more reason why it is so helpful to look at insurgency as a civil emergency, a condition existing within a populace based on their perceptions of poor governance on the part of the government that may result in non-violent or violent illegal challenges depending on the nature of the group that rises to challenge.

    Yes, LTTE may well be defeated, but if the perceptions of poor governance have not also been addressed it is just a matter of time before that, or some other, group emerges to challenge yet again. This is the lesson of history. It has little to do with either threat-centric or Pop-centric COIN (both are flawed), it has to do with insurgency itself.
    Robert C. Jones
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    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

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    Default Thanks

    Neil,

    Outstanding article! One area where we may disagree on is the value of one of the factors listed, and that is the Chinese aid. As you mentioned the conflict ebbed and flowed over the years, and more than once in the 1990s the Sri Lankan forces "almost" defeated the LTTE militarily, but they were not able to sustain the fight and had to pull back allowed the LTTE to reconstitute its military organization. With the billion dollars Chinese aid (and the other factors you listed) the Sri Lankans were able sustain their assault until victory was realized.

    Despite the claims of extreme left in Europe and the U.S. the LTTE was not a widely popular groups among the Tamils, as they tortured, terrorized and murdered their own people to garner support. If the West will get off its high horse and stop pushing for war crimes (based on tragic, but normal behavior during wars) and instead assist the Gov of Sri Lanka in providing humanitarian aid to the Tamils it may be possible to build a lasting peace.

    The good governance argument has no merit there, as the LTTE would have been worse for the Tamils than the Sri Lankan government. This was a power struggle between leaders waged military, not a struggle over ideas of how to govern better. It is very naive in my view to think that if Sri Lanka changed their discriminatory behavior towards and offered additional financial aid to the Tamils that the LTTE would have stopped fighting.

    The LTTE is one brutal organization I'm glad to see defeated, and wish would do the same elsewhere in the world. Not every insurgent/terrorist leader has the welfare of his people in mind, and it is western foolishness to believe that is the case.

    Just like the defeated Germans and Japanese needed help at end of WWII, the Tamils need help now. We didn't apologize to the German people for all their civilians killed to defeat Hitler, or have to ward off silly claims of war crimes. We focused on doing what was right, and we need to help the Sri Lankan Government do the same for the Tamil people, instead of pushing for war crimes.

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    Default "Shot!" over.

    I sense my bow has been scorched by the shot fired across it! I do agree that this is a well researched, well written article. I won't however jump on the celebratory bandwagon just yet.

    To be clear, I have never said that the insurgent offers "good governance" (though they will certainly promise it); only that they emerge to challenge "poor governance." The difference is significant, and clearly applies here, as the Sinhalese majority of southern Sri Lanka saw independence for Great Britain as their opportunity to create a Bhudist, Sinhalese homeland, banning the language and culture of the Hindu Tamil minority in the north. All to often it is a greater evil than the one in power that emerges to challeng poor governance. Too often good people will support the cause of change, but will not take the step to become outlaws to challenge the government directly.

    I will not laud the LTTE, they were every bit as bad as Bill says; but that has little to do with what caused them to emerge, and what will in turn cause some new organization to emerge in due time; as I suspect that little has been done to address the conditions that gave rise to the LTTE in the course of the military defeat of the LTTE.

    Celebrate the victory, but understand that it is merely a suppression of a particular insurgent movement, and that the grace offered is temporary unless the underlying issues are addressed as well. By understanding the role of governnce in insurgency it enables clear thinking. This defeat is an opportunity, but only if taken advantage of will it really mean anything in the long run. Hopefully the brutal tactics of the government did not dig a hole so deep that they can never climb out of it.

    Now is the time to put pressure on the government to focus on true reforms that include the entire populace, not to believe that somehow the problem is resolved through military action alone. Also to engage the Tamil people to refocus as well, and to work with the government and if forced to act out illegally again to strongly consider the use of non-violent tactics that have worked so effectively for others in similar situations.

    This is not the end, it is a beginning. Time will tell where this beginning leads.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

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