• Centre for Law & Security Studies Exec. Director Nilanthan Niruthan on why peace is so elusive in the world

The Global Peace Index ranks Sri Lanka in the 107th position among 163 countries. Iceland takes the top spot and Afghanistan is at the bottom, while Sri Lanka is closer to the bottom of the list. However, while the dialogue always skews to the side of peace being an organic process, the role that geopolitics plays in a country’s sustainable peace is highly penetrative.

On ‘Kaleidoscope’ this week to discuss the role of geopolitics in ‘real’ peace was the Centre for Law and Security Studies’ Executive Director Nilanthan Niruthan. A defence analyst and commentator on global and national security issues, including hybrid warfare, maritime piracy, military technology, and urban insurgency, some of his articles have been published in The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Review of International Affairs and the Columbia Journal of International Affairs. 

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Why is peace so elusive in this world?

There are two main reasons. The first is that most institutions around the world don’t seem to desire peace. They seem to desire giving the illusion of peace, rather than actual peace. The second seems to be a biological reason where humans are naturally competitive. Therefore, when we look at things like national borders and territorial resources, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any other option at the moment than fighting each other.

How much of peace is organic to a country and how much of it relies on geopolitics?

None of it is organic; all of it is reliant on geopolitics. You could have the most peaceful society, but if the geopolitics change, you could be conquered, you could find yourself in a war, or you could find all kinds of interferences in your affairs. Peace itself is not a natural state. Conflict seems to be the natural state. Therefore, your geopolitics will shape everything in that regard.

Is Sri Lanka able to build sustainable peace, given the geopolitics that we are embroiled in most of the time?

We can build sustainable peace if we are aligned to a specific power base. Our problem is that we have never really been aligned in the long-term. Depending on the political party in power, our closest friend in the region or internationally, changes. If we can keep one ‘partner’ for a generation or two, we can safeguard our geopolitical interests.

Sri Lanka has always called itself non-aligned. Does being non-aligned work?

Not in my assessment. When we look at the history of non-alignment, not only for Sri Lanka, but essentially for any country, I find that non-alignment just means that you stand for nothing. You can attend many conferences and make a lot of gestures of camaraderie, but nobody really comes to your aid when you need it. Alignment is what gets you friends who will come to your aid when needed. All the rich countries in Asia and the Middle East for example – Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea – have been very specifically aligned over two or three generations to one particular power sector. That’s been a major reason for these countries’ rise to the top. Just look at any of these countries, they will all be aligned.

If you look at Sri Lanka, what is the benefit we would have by aligning ourselves to a power centre and who should we align ourselves with?

There are pros and cons to aligning ourselves with either China or India or the United States (US). Culturally, India and the US would be easier for us to synthesise with. At the same time, the Chinese don’t really put the same types of demands or pressures on Sri Lanka that the Americans or the Indians might. Purely from a Sri Lankan sovereignty point of view, I would say that India would be the best partner right now, because there’s a synergy of interest between both the countries. However, the decision would have to be up to the long-term policymakers of this country, not short-term analysts like myself.

How important is leadership when it comes to forging sustainable peace?

Leadership is everything, particularly in our context in two key areas. The first is in creating some kind of consensus on what peace is. Right now, from what I can see, there is no bipartisan or multi-partisan consensus on what peace and reconciliation would actually mean in this country. The second is in terms of mending, fixing, and strengthening our relationships with other nations in the world. We need a leader who can be a statesman rather than a politician. That’s where the role of leadership both in terms of domestic and global security comes in.

Complex as it sounds, does a benevolent dictator work?

Benevolent dictators have worked. For example, late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore could be termed as a benevolent dictator. You could also say that Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in Saudi Arabia is a somewhat benevolent dictator. In theory, nothing stops that from working, but in practice, what we find is that almost all benevolent dictators inevitably turn malevolent at some point, once too much power goes to their heads; that’s the risk. On paper, it could work. In practice, we see them going down a slippery slope too often.

Hybrid warfare and cyber warfare, how do these impact Sri Lanka?

These impact Sri Lanka in a great way because these allow countries to not only wage war against us but infringe on our interests without making it obvious. Hybrid warfare for instance, is warfare with political, legal, and military means in order to destabilise a nation. Legally and politically speaking, there are many things that countries around the world can do to us. In terms of cyber warfare, there are hobbyist hackers in China, India, and in the US who could wreak a lot of havoc in a small country like ours. These technological challenges will always be a major minefield that we need to navigate.

The smaller the nation, the more vulnerable it is. Is that the case with Sri Lanka?

It’s more to do with political size rather than geographic size. For example, Israel is geographically smaller than all its neighbours, but it has repeatedly defeated its neighbours in many wars. Singapore is smaller than all its neighbours but it has far more geopolitical power than even Malaysia. It has more to do with alignment and with things like your per capita income rather than the geographic size of the nation. 

Looking around the world, are there countries that have forged real peace?

In a sense, yes. Britain and France fought each other for 200 years but now, they have had over a century and a half of unbroken peace. There are parts of the world where long periods of war are followed by long periods of peace. As a global community, we have made a lot of progress. Despite what the news tells us, the world in general is a lot more peaceful today than it was a 100 or 200-years ago. Long-term peace is possible but specific places will never have peace forever. There will always be some kind of conflict that breaks out somewhere, periodically.

What about economic, social and environmental warfare?

There’s also cultural warfare and information warfare. There are multiple types of warfare that can be categorised, which is why in the old days, military scholars never really tried to categorise warfare. They took it all to be warfare. If you read Indian polymath Kautilya in the treatise ‘Arthashastra’ which was written 2,500 years ago, he talks about economic warfare and diplomatic warfare, among other things. War comes in many different avatars or phases and it’s our job to be able to decode that.

How can Sri Lanka circumvent the issues that geopolitics brings and work towards sustainable peace in some format? 

In terms of geopolitical security, I feel that alignment should be our way forward because, historically and statistically, especially in Asia, that has been the way to achieve long-term stability and prosperity. As far as peace goes, once again, if we can have some kind of all party consensus on what we mean by peace and on what we mean by reconciliation and if we can get the parties to agree on some kind of common narrative, that in itself would go a long way in long-term peace building.

For a leader of Sri Lanka, what should be the playbook in going towards that?

A leader should be capable of creating some kind of all party consensus and be capable of aligning the country in the long-run with a specific power centre in a way where even the successors of that leader will carry on with that policy. One of the big failures of our leaders so far is in their inability to implement long-term policies. If they lose power and an opposition party comes in, the policy changes. It is necessary to have some kind of vision which, regardless of who wins the next election, will ensure a fixed policy and alignment.

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)