Counterinsurgency Principles for Contemporary Internal Conflict

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ABSTRACT

For 26 years, Sri Lankan Armed Forces applied counterinsurgency principles while fighting against LTTE terrorists, but could not achieve the aim of defeating terrorism. During this period, the LTTE was able to establish itself as a real, conventional army. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were arguably one of the most feared, lethal and capable insurgent movements in the modem age. Yet despite their strength and wealth, the Sri Lankan armed forces destroyed the LTTE with a conventional army in a series of pitched battles from 2007-2009. This thesis argues that the destruction of the LTTE during the end-game of 2007-2009 was in part due to a loss of local legitimacy amongst the Sri Lankan Tamils that the movement purported to represent. This loss of local legitimacy was a product of LTTE coercion, facilitated by the enormous funding structures of the global Tamil Diaspora. As long as the Diaspora was able to provide not only funding but political legitimacy to the movement internationally, and the LTTE was able to control political space locally, this loss of legitimacy was largely irrelevant. However, as additional knowledge is gained it should be incorporated into the aforementioned findings into order to expand analysis on this subject. This thesis will provide a new approach to analyzing the Sri Lankan insurgency. No published author has yet to use counterinsurgency principles as a theoretical framework in which to assess Sri Lanka's political and military response to the LTTE's war against the government. As a further outcome, the paper may provide opportunity for scholarly assessment by decision makers to assess the possibility of modifying counterinsurgency principles based on the Sri Lankan experience. The conclusions stated in the paper have provided a foundation that others can ...