Category Archives: military expenditure

June 21, 2020 · 7:41 am

David Blacker on the SL Army’s Land Warfare Campaign in 2006-09

 The SL Army’s Land Warfare Campaign in 2006-09: Debating the Lines of Strategic Emphasis THREE: David Blacker’s Clarification

In a telephone conversation in June 2020 relating to the Sri Lankan armed forces successful military campaign on land against the formidable LTTE forces during Eelam War IV,[1] issues arose regarding the lines of strategic emphasis. As I was not familiar with one of the summary terms mentioned in this chat, I formulated a ‘QUESTION’ which I sent to several personnel with a military background.[2]


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June 4, 2020 · 3:44 am

USA as World’s Policeman 1945-2020

An Incidental Point from Dr Cornel West’s Indictment of the US Administrations’ Internal Policing Programs

KEY Detail within Transcript: USA has 800 military bases worldwide; and has has carried out 211 interventions since 1945.

SEE video and transcript of yesterday’s interview with Dr Cornel West on the 7.30 Report on ABC in Australia = https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/dr-cornel-west-looks-at-the-unrest-in-the-united/12318386

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May 15, 2020 · 8:02 pm

Colossal Kills on All Fronts in 1944/45, World War II

Michael Roberts

In venturing into reflections on VE Day commemorations, by pure chance I stumbled on You Tube reviews of the ways in which German POWs were dealt with in Britain during and after the war. This data base also provides partial information on the enormous loss of life on the various moments in the Western front as the Allied forces advanced on Germany after D Day in June 1944.

 Hitler Germany’s greatest reach 1942

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May 13, 2020 · 11:43 am

Dolphin Hotel as Army Quarantine Centre

News item, 7 May 2020, with this title “Army uses Hemas’ Dolphin Hotel as a fully dedicated quarantine centre”Hemas Holdings PLC controlled Club Hotel Dolphin, Waikkala, has completed its fifth successful week as a dedicated COVID-19 Quarantine Centre. All operating costs, during this time period, are being borne by the Hemas Group, and the Dolphin Hotel, in the interest of supporting the government, frontline healthcare workers and armed forces personnel.

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February 16, 2020 · 4:13 pm

Malinda and Shenali tilt at SOFA and MCC Schemes

Editor: I have not had the time to study the SOFA and MCC proposals or the several conflicting reports on this set of topics; while I have reservations about my own deciphering capacity on economic issues. An academic with a broad span of experience across several countries indicated to me this month  that the discussions surrounding these two issues has been marked by writings that “[ignore] facts that are unfavorable to the case that is being made or willfully distorting facts or using outright lies”.

He added: : ‘Unfortunately, this kind of unacceptable commentary is now common practice the world over and that includes some people in the highest levels of US government and academia.”

To this caution I add Sam Samarasinghe’s[i] cautionary email note to me a few months back where he indicated that the USA’s governing order is complex and its various arms do not always work with one mind.[ii]

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November 14, 2019 · 3:32 pm

The Ceylon Army’s British Heritage

Jayantha Somasundaram, courtesy of THE CEYLANKAN, November 2019

Sri Lanka’s maritime areas were ceded to the British in 1796 and for the next one and a half centuries there was a British military presence on the Island. As a consequence the Ceylon Army which was established seventy years ago in October 1949 was heavily influenced by this British legacy.

In the early British years under a Lieutenant General, Britain stationed four regiments of infantry, two Ceylon Rifle Regiments, a regiment of the Royal Artillery, a regiment of the Royal Engineers and a troop of cavalry on the island. But after the rebellion in the former Kandyan Kingdom was put down in 1848 and for much of the next century of British rule, there was a more limited British military presence on the island. So by the turn of the twentieth century the British Army in Ceylon, now under the command of Brig Gen R.C.B. Lawrence, consisted of a battalion of infantry, a company of the Royal Artillery, a company of Ceylon and Mauritius Royal Artillery and details of the Royal Engineers and  Royal Army Medical Corps. (Wright: 857) Continue reading →

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October 9, 2019 · 1:49 pm

The Sri Lankan Army in Its First Decade, 1949-59

Jayantha Somasundaram, in Island, 10 October 2019, with this title “Sri Lanka Army At Seventy: Recalling The First Decade”

Under the terms of the Defence Agreement, signed in November 1947, between London and Colombo, a British officer, the Earl of Caithness was seconded, in 1948, as military advisor to the Government of Ceylon. During World War II, Brigadier James Roderick Sinclair, 19th Earl of Caithness CBE DSO, had led his regiment the Gordon Highlanders, through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and into Germany.

Earl of Caithness

Brigadier Caithness proposed to the Ceylon Government, that the soon-to-be formed Army consist of an infantry battalion, an artillery regiment, signal, supply, ordnance, electrical and mechanical, and medical units; a works services engineering detachment to maintain buildings, a military police section and a training depot. Such a modest military establishment would only require one per cent of total government expenditure, and its personnel would, initially be drawn from the Ceylon Defence Force (CDF), the volunteer Army that had existed since 1910.

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May 27, 2019 · 3:13 pm

Gota’s Role in Eelam War Victory: Peiris challenges Roberts

Gerald Peiris in Kandy to Michael Roberts in Adelaide, 20/21 May 2019

Here are my observations on two of your comments (reproduced below in brown) on Long’s article**

  1. So, Gotabaya was not the single decisive hand in shaping the outcome of Eelam War IV. But in support of some lines in the Stephen Long essay, I shall dwell on several of his special contributions within a separate essay. Moreover, the recent Easter Sunday attacks and subsequent tensions in Sri Lanka encourage me to endorse Stephen Long’s caustic account of the glaring shortcomings in the intelligence operations of the Yahapaalana government. That, ofcourse, is a conclusion that is widely shared.
  2. However, the Sri Lanka Army began to transform its infantry divisions from around 2001 with the development of the SIOT concept which encouraged operational planning from the frontline-upwards and sharpened soldier skills.[2] General Sarath Fonseka is one to whom this course of development can be attributed, but I speculate that there were others involved.

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April 14, 2019 · 3:12 am

Athulathmudali to Wickremasinghe: Logistics Hub is One Pillar in USA’s Strategic Design for Sri Lanka

Daya Gamage in Asian Tribune, 12 April 2019, where the title reads “At 2020 Sri Lanka elections, stakes are high for the U.S.”

Washington interests toward countries and regions work in very strange ways. Its national interest is foremost. Maintaining the existing regional hegemony, or designs seeking to penetrate into regions it once dominated but over time slipped out of, are deeply associated with that foremost national interest.

Sri Lanka knowingly or unknowingly tasted it in 1987, and now this dimension is very clearly visible over the these two years when Washington woke up like Rip van Winkle to combat Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific region and took stpes to transform Sri Lanka into a U.S. military hub. Continue reading →

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January 4, 2019 · 9:09 am

Tangram’s Study of the Tamil Tigers enters our world

This book offers an accurate and easy to follow explanation of how the Tamil Tigers, who are officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was defeated. Who were the major players in this conflict? What were the critical strategic decisions that worked? What were the strategic mistakes and their consequences? What actually happened on the battlefield? How did Sri Lanka become the only nation in modern history to completely defeat a terrorist organization? The mind-blowing events of the Sri Lankan civil war are documented in this book to show the truth of how the LTTE terrorist organization was defeated. The defeat of a terrorist organization on the battlefield was so unprecedented that it has rewritten the narrative in the fight against terrorism.

THIS NOTE is from http://www.lulu.com/au/en/shop/damian-tangram/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-tamil-tigers/paperback/product-23830132.html

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