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Tony

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Please read carefully 


Possible titles  (your choice). 

The Club and the Ledger: From the 1987 Sri Lanka Crisis to the Weaponization of Global Finance

Or 

How the 1987 Sri Lanka Crisis Exposed the Rules-Based Order


Author: Dr Tony Donaldson 


To avoid using the word evil,  please change the last sentence,  last paragraph to read as follows, 

Ultimately, a system that uses the language of law to bypass the ethics of war and justify the starvation of entire populations is not merely a predatory architecture; it is a profound moral inversion.


Bibliography

Allison, G. (2018). The myth of the liberal order. Foreign Affairs, 97(4), 124–133.

Dixit, J. N. (1998). Assignment Colombo. Konark Publishers.

Gilpin, R. (1981). War and change in world politics. Cambridge University Press.

Krisch, N. (2005). International law in times of hegemony: Unequal power and the shaping of the international legal order. European Journal of International Law, 16(3), 369–408.

Schreer, B., & Tan, A. T. H. (2023). The "rules-based order" and the strategic narratives of middle powers. Contemporary Security Policy, 44(2), 221–245.

Trachtenberg, M. (2025). The rules-based international order: A historical analysis. International Security, 49(3), 7–43.

Whyte, J. (2022). Economic coercion and financial war. The Journal of Australian Political Economy, (89), 116–134.

Images 


IAF aircrew being congratulated by the ground crew on successful completion of the supply drop after landing back at Bangalore Airport on the evening of 4 June 1987.




Caption for image attached below
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene sign the historic Indo-Sri Lanka accord in Colombo on 29July 1987.

On Wed, 4 Mar 2026, 4:21 pm Tony, <tonydona@gmail.com> wrote:
Apologies Michael.  Have a lot on at the moment.. will get back soon

On Wed, 4 Mar 2026, 4:17 pm Michael Roberts, <mrober137@gmail.com> wrote:

TONY

THIS ITEM DESERVES A POST ..... 

TITLE & AUTHOR ?? ...plus two pix

ALSO ADD X-Refs to the TPS items [plural] on the 1987 INDIAN INTERVENTION and maybe Wikipedia too

michael

The 1987 Sri Lanka crisis serves as a quintessential case study in the inherent contradictions of the "Rules-Based International Order." During this episode, India violated Sri Lankan airspace—blatantly ignoring sovereignty to conduct a "humanitarian" airdrop—only to immediately pivot toward enforcing sovereignty through a treaty designed to bar other foreign powers from the island. This illustrates a defining characteristic of hegemonic power: by maintaining fluid and selective definitions of "legitimate intervention," a hegemon preserves maximum strategic flexibility.

The United States and its Western allies frequently employ this same duality. These double standards are not failures of the system; they are core components of how it functions to sustain global hierarchies. While the West defends these inconsistencies as a "Lesser of Two Evils"—arguing that an imperfect system is better than a "Law of the Jungle"—this is a false dichotomy. In reality, the Rules-Based International Order is not an alternative to the Law of the Jungle, but rather a sophisticated rebranding of it. It is a system where might makes right, and the interests of the powerful are prioritized at the expense of everyone else.

Furthermore, this modern Law of the Jungle has evolved beyond mere military aggression. It is now fundamentally financial. Through the weaponization of sanctions and the control of global banking systems like SWIFT, the "Rules-Based Order" can starve a population into submission without ever formalizing a declaration of war. We have seen the devastating results of this evolution from the "club to the ledger" in Syria, Iran, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Cuba. Ultimately, a system that uses the language of law to justify the starvation of nations is not just an inherently predatory architecture of power, it is evil.

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