Why the Pearl of the Indian Ocean must swap its rusty sword for a digital spear
(Lanka-e-News -17.June.2025, 11.20 PM) There comes a time in the life of every nation when it must stop polishing the rusted shields of the past and instead forge new weapons fit for the battles of the future. For Sri Lanka, an island that has too often stared at its belly button while the world charted strategic maps around it, that time is now.
Wedged like a gem in the ocean’s brow, Sri Lanka finds itself in the bullseye of the Indo-Pacific chessboard—where elephants (India), dragons (China), and eagles (America) play rough. Yet, Colombo’s defence doctrine—if we dare call the present patchwork of military policy a doctrine—is less a grand strategy and more a fossil, with one toe still stuck in the Cold War and the other dangling in post-colonial confusion.
The global theatre has changed, and so must Sri Lanka's role in it.
Geographically, Sri Lanka is blessed. It lies along one of the busiest maritime routes on earth. But strategically, it is cursed by complacency. While Indian frigates practice “freedom of navigation” near the Gulf of Mannar, Chinese Vessels dock at Colombo and Russian signals drift from the southern skies, Sri Lanka’s defence doctrine remains remarkably mute.
The current policy, if it can be called that, pivots around three crumbling pillars: maintain neutrality, avoid entanglement, and pray someone else intervenes if it all goes to hell.
But neutrality without readiness is simply naivety.
Sri Lanka cannot remain an idle monk on a mountain while its neighbours build cyber temples, satellite armies, and hypersonic arsenals. The world is no longer just about boots on the ground; it is about bytes in the cloud. Welcome to the age of algorithmic warfare—where your national security might be hacked before it is bombed.
To be clear: Sri Lanka has never had a coherent, future-facing defence doctrine. What it has had, traditionally, is a reactionary military posture—against the LTTE’s guerilla war, and now the occasional narcotics boat or human trafficking dinghy.
This might have sufficed in 2009. It is criminally inadequate in 2025.
The island must now, urgently and unapologetically, draft a New Sri Lankan Defence and Security Doctrine. A doctrine that is not merely a bureaucratic PDF stuck in a Ministry filing cabinet, but a living, breathing roadmap guiding investments, innovation, and international alliances.
This new doctrine must imagine a Sri Lanka 30 to 40 years into the future—a Sri Lanka with advanced surveillance capabilities, resilient undersea data cables, anti-drone infrastructure, electromagnetic warfare resilience, and the sort of cyber command unit that doesn’t rely on YouTube tutorials to repel attacks.
There’s an elephant—or perhaps a dragon—in the room.
China, which built Sri Lanka’s highways, towers, ports, and even conference centres, is now keen to introduce the island to the next wave of military-industrial innovation: 6G warfare. While Western democracies still bicker over broadband speeds, China is designing weapons that can jam a satellite using a cloud-based signal.
Beijing has reportedly offered to share some of these future-forward technologies with “friendly” countries. Sri Lanka, perpetually cash-strapped and strategically located, is an obvious candidate.
Is this an opportunity or a trap? Likely both. But Colombo cannot afford to dismiss either.
A new doctrine must weigh these offers—not merely through the old colonial lens of “India vs. China” or “Washington’s wrath”—but through a sovereign calculus. Can Sri Lanka absorb and develop these technologies domestically? Can it balance donor ambitions with national autonomy?
Let’s not be naïve. If Sri Lanka doesn't write its own rules, someone else will write them on its behalf.
As the world accelerates into the aerospace frontier, Sri Lanka still trains pilots on 1970s-era Czech trainers and considers drones as glorified toy helicopters. This must change.
The new doctrine must pave the way for an Aerospace Division of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces—not to play Top Gun cosplay, but to protect critical infrastructure from 21st-century threats. The island’s dams, power grids, satellites, communication towers, and undersea resources need layered protection—from air, sea, cyber and space.
Imagine: locally developed drones patrolling the maritime economic zones. Hypersonic sensors scanning atmospheric distortions. Sri Lankan satellites providing real-time mapping of incursions—commercial or military.
This isn’t fantasy. It is merely ambition—and ambition costs less than occupation.
A land army wins you territory. But an island’s real sovereignty lies in its waters.
The Sri Lankan Navy must evolve from a brown-water patrol force into a true blue-water deterrent—equipped not just with ships, but with AI-guided subsurface drones, maritime satellites, cyber fortresses, and the capability to identify and intercept threats before they make the 12 o’clock news.
Sea-bed mapping, real-time ocean surveillance, and satellite-guided response units must form the backbone of this transformation. Sri Lanka has already discovered undersea mineral wealth like the Afanasy Nikitin Seamount. But if we don’t protect it, someone else will mine it.
Let’s not repeat the sorry tale of our coastal fisheries: exploited, unregulated, and increasingly invaded.
No military doctrine can thrive on hardware alone. Sri Lanka must create its own Defence Intellectual Core.
This means investing in defence universities, partnerships with international think tanks, scholarships for military engineers, and forming a national pool of civilian and military strategists who speak the language of cybersecurity, energy security, space law, artificial intelligence, and geopolitics.
In short: we need generals who read beyond Clausewitz, and cyber-sentinels who don’t faint at the sight of code.
Every modern defence doctrine must link innovation to security. Sri Lanka should establish a National Security Innovation Council—comprised of military thinkers, tech entrepreneurs, engineers, and academics—to constantly assess, update, and guide national doctrine.
Imagine a monthly war-gaming simulation at the Ministry of Defence. Imagine a panel of Sri Lankan tech graduates from Moratuwa and Peradeniya universities brainstorming quantum communication for national intelligence. Imagine R&D funding not for “meetings and minutes” but for military-grade applications of AI, robotics, drone swarms, and anti-satellite defence.
We don’t need a billion dollars. We need a billion-dollar mindset.
Finally, let us address the geopolitical elephant parade. Sri Lanka’s doctrine must reiterate a principle both ancient and futuristic: Sovereignty is strength. And strength is credibility.
Neutrality is not passivity. True neutrality demands preparation, parity, and power. No one respects a country that pleads for neutrality while borrowing warships or begging for intelligence.
Whether engaging with QUAD, BRICS, Russia, the EU, or the Chinese Belt and Road—Sri Lanka must ensure it never becomes a pawn. It can be a partner, a player, even a pressure point. But never a puppet.
Sri Lanka has for too long treated its defence sector as a ceremonial relic—full of brass bands, parade uniforms, and commemorative speeches. Meanwhile, cyber threats grow, ports become vulnerable, and geopolitical tides rise.
If ever there was a time for a New Sri Lankan Defence and Security Doctrine, that time is now. Let it be a doctrine not just of defence, but of vision. Let it be written not in panic, but in purpose. Let it ensure that when the next storm comes—from the skies, the seas, or the digital void—Sri Lanka is not caught holding a sword in a gunfight.
Let’s drop the flute. It’s time to pick up the keyboard—and the laser-guided missile.
-By LeN Defence Correspondent
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by (2025-06-17 20:02:53)
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