Sri
Lanka has since earliest times been within the security
orbit of its massive northern neighbor. Successive
waves of invasion from the kingdoms of ancient India
brought the majority of the Tamil and Sinhalese inhabitants
to the island, while the overwhelming military power
to the north historically has been the dominant external
threat. In its distant past, Sri Lanka on a few occasions
was able to project military power beyond its own
shores to participate in the struggles of south India.
For most of its history, however, and for all of the
twentieth century, Sri Lanka's security posture has
been a defensive one, responding with a greater or
lesser degree of internal unity to the threats of
the outside world. Together with India, Sri Lanka
was swept along in the regional conflicts of world
powers, undergoing domination in turn by the Portuguese,
Dutch, and British.
Since
independence
in 1948, the nation has attempted to balance an external
policy of nonalignment with an increasing reliance
on Western development aid and an institutional affinity
to British
political and legal systems. While retaining membership
in the Commonwealth, Sri Lanka reclaimed military
bases granted to the British
under a 1947 defense agreement and has attempted to
insure its security by maintaining good ties with
both the Western and communist worlds. Within the
South Asian region, India
continues to play a dominant role in Sri Lankan strategic
consciousness and is perceived as the primary long-term
external threat.
New
Delhi's role in Sri Lankan national security has
been further complicated by the direct involvement
of Indian troops in the island nation's internal ethnic
conflict in the late 1980s.
Throughout
the 1980s, external threats to the nation's security
were long term rather than immediate and tended to
involve the rivalry between regional and world superpowers
for influence over the Indian Ocean. The port of Trincomalee,
one of the best natural harbors in the world, has
long been attractive to foreign nations interested
in Indian Ocean bases. India has expressed a determination
to prevent either the United States or the Soviet
Union from establishing a naval presence there, and
the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord helped confirm the Indian
claim of regional leadership.
The armed forces of Sri Lanka bear the clear imprint
of the British
institutions and traditions that shaped them. The
army
was initially formed as a volunteer force to supplement
the British
military presence in the late nineteenth century,
and British
leadership of Sri Lankan troops continued through
World War II. Even after independence,
Britain
continued to play a major role in training, equipping,
and symbolically leading of the Sri Lankan armed
forces.
During
the 1970s and 1980s, the armed forces were greatly
expanded and regularized in an attempt to cope with
the growing problems of domestic
instability. Despite these efforts, the military
still lacked both the strength and the training to
handle the crises that confronted the nation, and
on two occasions the Sri Lankan government asked India
to send in troops to restore internal order.
Because
of their limited size and the pressing demands of
internal
security, the military forces have not been deployed
overseas. Rare exceptions have been the dispatch of
small military observer groups, in connection with
international peacekeeping efforts, such as the United
Nations force on the Indo-Pakistani border in 1966.
In their largely domestic mission of internal
defense, the armed
forces resemble the paramilitary and police forces
of larger nations. Since independence,
their role has gradually expanded to include counterinsurgency
and counter-terrorism, controlling illegal immigration
and smuggling, protecting vital institutions and government
officials, and providing emergency relief during national
disasters.
Structure
and Administration of the Armed Forces
The armed forces consist of the Sri Lankan Army,
Navy,
and Air
Force. As stipulated in the 1978
Constitution, the president of Sri Lanka is the
commander in chief of the armed forces and has the
sole authority to declare war and peace. Under the
president, the formal chain of command includes the
prime minister, the minister of defense, and the individual
service commanders. In order to consolidate control
over the armed
forces, Jayewardene also assumed the portfolio
of minister of defense when he took office in 1977.
