As 2023 unfolds, Sri Lanka is wrestling with a series of political and economic crises, with growing fears of insecurity for the island. A narcotics and arms bust by Indias National Investigation Agency (NIA) in April identified a Pakistani criminal network associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the terrorist outfit Lakshar-e-Taiba (LeT) as responsible for an uptick in shipments between India and Sri Lanka. Further investigative details on the case also indicated a desire by the criminal group to revive the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the prominent militant group that engaged in a decades-long civil war with the Sri Lankan government until its defeat in 2009.

In addition to the NIAs bust, a sensational claim in February 2023 by a Tamil nationalist suggested that the LTTEs founder and former leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, long believed to be deceased, was still alive. Though still unproven, this claim and the NIA bust has renewed debate over a potential revival of the LTTE. Compounding these concerns is an economic recovery effort in Sri Lanka that continues to lag.

Historical context

The LTTE emerged in the context of deep-seated ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, becoming the most prominent group advocating for Tamil rights and, eventually, for a separate state known as Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Tigers distinguished themselves with a high degree of efficacy and sophistication in their attacks, proving their capability as a formidable non-state military force with naval and air power at its peak.

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Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has distinctly strayed from its original purpose.  It has become, almost shamelessly, the vessel and handmaiden of US power, while its burgeoning expansion eastwards has done wonders to upend the applecart of stability.

From that upending, the alliance started bungling.  It engaged, without the authorisation of the UN Security Council, in a 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia at least what was left of it ostensibly to protect the lives of Kosovar Albanians.  Far from dampening the tinderbox, the Kosovo affair continues to be an explosion in the making.

Members of the alliance also expended material, money and personnel in Afghanistan over the course of two decades, propping up a deeply unpopular, corrupt regime in Kabul while failing to stifle the Taliban.  As with previous imperial projects, the venture proved to be a catastrophic failure.

In 2011, NATO again was found wanting in its attack on the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.   While it was intended to be an exemplar of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, the intervention served to eventually topple the doomed Colonel Gaddafi, precipitating the de-facto partitioning of Libya and endangering the very civilians the mission was meant to protect.  A continent was thereby destabilised.  The true beneficiaries proved to be the tapestry of warring rebel groups characterised by sectarian impulses and a voracious appetite for human rights abuses and war crimes.

The Ukraine War has been another crude lesson in the failings of the NATO project.  The constant teasing and wooing of Kyiv as a potential future member never sat well with Moscow and while much can be made of the Russian invasion, no realistic assessment of the wars origins can excise NATO from playing a deep, compromised role.

The alliance is also proving dissonant among its members.  Not all are exactly jumping at the chance of admitting Ukraine.  German diplomats have revealed that they will block any current moves to join the alliance.  Even that old provoking power, the United States, is not entirely sure whether doors should be open to Kyiv.  On CNN, President Joe Biden expressed the view that he did not think its ready for membership of NATO.  To qualify, Ukraine would have to meet a number of qualifications from democratisation to a whole range of other issues.  While hardly proving very alert during the interview (at one point, he confused Ukraine with Russia) he did draw the logical conclusion that bringing Kyiv into an alliance of obligatory collective defence during current hostilities would automatically put NATO at war with Moscow.

With such a spotty, blood speckled record marked...