Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Say goodnight to the Tamil Tigers

I have been visiting all my favorite GWOT sites to see what they make of Sri Lanka’s seemingly definitive victory over the Tamil Tigers. While America and its occasional allies struggle and blunder in Iraq and Afghanistan, a seemingly unstoppable national insurgency in the former Ceylon has been--well, stopped. My tutor David Betz has the most thoughtful discussion on the Kings of War blog.

Sri Lanka did it to the Tamils. Russia did it to the Chechens. It seems that you can indeed go out and smash a long-running insurgency if you do it brutally and in territory that's your own, at least in practical terms.

And if you persist! With a bit more of a nod to the good opinion of mankind, so did Britain do it to the IRA, and Colombia to the FARC.

I wonder if David will be rewriting the counterinsurgency module for next year? Blue skies! — Dan Ford

2 Comments:

At 1:48 PM, Blogger Perf said...

The Tamil article pointed out that the leader of the Tigers never groomed a successor. That brings up an interesting idea.

For insurgencies that center power in a person, there is an advantage in that the leader's tenure is not limited like that of elected officials. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

 
At 2:05 PM, Blogger Daniel Ford said...

It certainly worked out that way for Castro. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

 

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