- Gift horse is welcome, but check its teeth
- What will a peaceful state do with air-defence guns?
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s three-day visit to Sri Lanka this week is strategically more significant than the relatively modest value of the agreements signed in Colombo might suggest.
Since the visit of K C Pant 38 years ago, in the troubled aftermath of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the notice given to Indian troops stationed in the North and East in 1987-90, this is the first visit by an Indian Defence Minister. It comes at a time when India is increasingly defining security in the Indian Ocean as inseparable from its own national security.
The visit, therefore, should not be viewed simply as another bilateral defence engagement. It represents an attempt by New Delhi to institutionalise India’s security relationship with Sri Lanka, while simultaneously reassuring Colombo that India’s expanding security interests need not threaten Sri Lankan sovereignty.
The April 2025 India-Sri Lanka Defence Cooperation MoU already created a broader framework for defence cooperation. Singh’s visit adds practical mechanisms to that framework. The September 2026 agreements, therefore, appear to be less about creating a new defence relationship and more about operationalising and institutionalising an existing one.
Three defence agreements
During Rajnath Singh’s visit, the two sides exchanged three defence-related agreements. Under the MoU, India will upgrade six L-70 air-defence guns already supplied to the Sri Lanka Air Force, with the work financed through an Indian Government grant. Indian sources say the modernisation is intended to strengthen the protection of critical assets.
This is the most strategically sensitive of the three agreements. On the surface, it is a relatively small military modernisation project. But it raises an important question: whether a new threat has emerged for which this additional air-defence capability is required.
Sri Lanka does not face an obvious conventional air attack from a neighbouring state. Therefore, the justification cannot simply be an immediate enemy threat. The guns could instead be relevant to protecting strategic infrastructure, airports, ports, energy installations and other critical facilities against drones or other asymmetric threats.
That distinction is important. Sri Lanka should ensure that defensive equipment acquired through bilateral cooperation remains under Sri Lankan operational command and Sri Lankan strategic decision-making. The agreement is, therefore, best understood as capacity enhancement rather than preparation for conventional war.
The need for the other two MoUs will be beneficial to Sri Lanka because of the need for training for Sri Lanka Army officers, starting from the school cadet level to senior officers attending the National Defence College.
Questions over air-defence needs
However, the sudden need conceived for enhancing the air-defence system is intriguing. Among military analysts, there are concerns over the decision to offer maintenance support for Sri Lanka’s existing Indian-supplied L70 air-defence guns, rather than necessarily a major new air-defence acquisition.
Sri Lanka received 24 L70 40mm systems from India over the period between 2000 and 2006. India has reportedly already maintained 18 and would provide free maintenance for the remaining six. However, earlier reports had described the MoU more broadly as covering the supply of Indian air-defence guns.
Defence analysts ask whether maintaining an inherited capability is strategically justified, while resisting unnecessary expansion of air-defence procurement. The basic question is: does the island need more air-defence guns?
Sri Lanka is preparing to deepen defence cooperation with India at a moment when Colombo should be pragmatically assessing the kind of military capability actually needed.
Foreign Affairs Minister Vijitha Herath indicated the MoU covering the supply of Indian air-defence guns concerns maintenance support for six remaining L70 40mm air-defence weapons supplied by India between 2000 and 2006. India had already undertaken maintenance of 18 of the 24 systems.
There is an important strategic difference between maintaining existing equipment at no cost and acquiring a new generation of air-defence weapons.
Sri Lanka’s defence planning should start not with what a friendly country can supply, but by analysing the threat, if any, that the weapon is intended to defeat.
Capability must match the threat
Air-defence systems are designed to protect territory, military installations, ports, airfields, command centres and other critical infrastructure against hostile aircraft, helicopters, missiles or, increasingly, drones.
Sri Lanka undoubtedly needs some capacity to protect its airspace and critical national infrastructure. But the scale and sophistication of that capability must correspond to the country’s actual strategic environment.
Sri Lanka does not presently face an identified conventional military adversary possessing a demonstrated intention and capability to launch sustained air attacks against the island.
Sri Lanka is not currently engaged in a conventional interstate war. Nor does Colombo have a declared enemy possessing the kind of air force, missile arsenal or long-range strike capability that would automatically justify construction of an expensive integrated air-defence network.
Small states frequently make the mistake of allowing defence cooperation to become equipment-driven.
A friendly major power offers equipment, training or concessional financing. The receiving country accepts because the political relationship is valuable. Over time, however, the armed forces acquire platforms that may have little relationship to their most pressing security problems.
Defence cooperation should not become procurement-driven
India’s defence industry is expanding rapidly, and New Delhi is increasingly promoting Indian-made defence equipment as part of its strategic partnerships. At the India-Sri Lanka Defence Industry Seminar in Colombo in March, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary highlighted opportunities arising from India’s rapidly expanding defence manufacturing sector, including technology transfer, training and joint ventures. That is an opportunity, but it should not become a procurement obligation.
There is a perfectly defensible argument for keeping existing L70 systems operational. India’s offer to maintain the remaining six weapons free of charge could save Sri Lanka money and preserve an existing capability. If the systems are already in Sri Lankan inventories, maintaining them at minimal cost can be rational.
But maintenance should not automatically become the first stage of a larger procurement programme. The Government should publish, or at least have Parliament’s relevant oversight mechanisms examine, the operational assessment behind any expansion.
These are not anti-India questions. They are responsible defence-planning questions.
Its principal assets include ports, shipping lanes, energy infrastructure, telecommunications, undersea cables, airports and offshore economic resources. The country’s security priorities, therefore, extend well beyond conventional air defence.
Maritime domain awareness, coastal surveillance, search and rescue, cyber-security, protection of critical infrastructure, intelligence-sharing, disaster response and counter-drone capabilities may offer considerably greater practical security value than expanding traditional gun-based air defence.
A broader security approach
A modern air-defence system is not simply a collection of weapons. It is a network of sensors, command systems, communications, trained personnel and interceptors.
India and Sri Lanka have legitimate shared security interests. India’s stated approach is centred on regional security and its “Neighbourhood First” policy, while Colombo has repeatedly emphasised the importance of close bilateral defence cooperation.
India has also provided Sri Lanka with substantial defence assistance, including a military stores and medical consignment valued at more than US$5 million in June 2026. Such cooperation is valuable. But the relationship should not become defined primarily by defence hardware.
The proposed cooperation between the two countries’ National Defence Colleges and cadet organisations may ultimately prove strategically more valuable than an additional weapons system.
Sri Lanka’s long-standing foreign-policy tradition has sought to avoid becoming a military platform for competing major powers. That principle becomes even more important as geopolitical competition intensifies across the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka should, therefore, maintain sufficient defensive capability to protect its sovereignty while avoiding an arms race that could make the island strategically more militarised than its security circumstances require.
An independent threat assessment
Colombo should conduct an independent National Air Defence Threat Assessment to examine which countries or non-state actors could realistically conduct an aerial attack against Sri Lanka, which national assets genuinely require protection, what acquisition, ammunition, maintenance and training will cost over 10-20 years, whether radar, electronic surveillance, counter-drone systems or cyber capabilities would provide greater protection, whether acquisition could create perceptions that Sri Lanka is becoming part of another country’s military architecture and whether Parliamentary oversight committees should ensure that major defence commitments are subjected to transparent scrutiny rather than treated exclusively as executive decisions.
Sri Lanka should not purchase weapons simply because a friendly country produces them, because a defence agreement is politically convenient, or because military cooperation has become a symbol of bilateral friendship.
Strategic autonomy must remain central
Rajnath Singh’s visit marks a significant transition from episodic defence cooperation to institutionalised strategic engagement. The challenge for Sri Lanka is not whether to cooperate with India. It should. The real challenge is how to cooperate without sacrificing strategic autonomy. Sri Lanka’s ideal position should be neither anti-India nor pro-India, but pro-Sri Lanka.
India’s security concerns deserve respect because India is Sri Lanka’s closest major neighbour. At the same time, Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, neutrality and non-alignment, and freedom to maintain relations with all major powers must remain equally non-negotiable.
That balance will determine whether the Rajnath Singh visit becomes a model of mutually beneficial Indian Ocean cooperation or another step towards the strategic militarisation of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy.
The writer is a journalist, diplomat, and media professional with experience in public communication and international media relations
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The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication