SRI LANKA NEEDS DEVIL’S ADVOCATES, NOT ARMCHAIR NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS
Sri Lanka’s national security thinking is yet to evolve.
Armchair national security experts dominate in national security architecture.
Needs devil’s advocates for course correction and to restore some balance.
Events unfolded in the recent past in the spheres of national security have raised a fundamental question. Has Sri Lanka had credible national security experts to advise politicians in power to make right national security decisions to prevent debacles for the best interests of the country? This is worth exploring for many reasons.
Reportedly, one expert’s advice, with no expertise in agriculture, to the former president Gotabhaya Rajapakse to go organic hurriedly in a midst of economic downturn was almost about to destroy country’s food security, an essential component in the national security. In another event, president Gotabhaya Rajapakse declared open an “agitation site”, at the Galle Face Green, Colombo just a few meters away right Infront of president’s office and his official residence. On both occasions there were national security experts to applaud him but not to advise him perceiving them as national security threats. On the latter, a Head of a State seriously mistaken with democracy and its enshrined freedom of expression had allowed the “vital ground” for his opponents to consolidate in disguise and attack the president’s house and the office. The president, ironically a veteran did not realize that sooner or later it would be a “deliberate ambush site” or rather a “Forming Up Place” (FUP) for his opponents to ideally position him in a Killing Zone. The ambush sprang as planned meticulously. Adversaries smartly and swiftly formed the “assault line” and attacked both targets. Transferring of executive power in an event of a political fallout to a successor could have been peaceful and safe with no anarchy if Sri Lanka had real national security experts in state’s national security apparatus to advise politicians in power.
The “national security blunders list” does not end there. Former president Maithripala Sirisena too made an unforgivable error thanks to armchair national security experts in his staff and at the national security think tank in the defence ministry. For him there were no threats to the nation after the demise of the LTTE and he openly declared it many times. Armchair national security experts in that government dared to contradict president’s utopian idea and thus, led to ignore precise intelligence warnings received from India on the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Those debacles are just a few to realize that Sri Lanka has no professional national security experts but a bunch of fakes at the expenses of public money in weakly organized entities in the name of national security and strategy. The new president needs to rethink of these armchair national security experts and how such establishments should work in order to strengthen the national security of the state.
It is striking to understand as to how potential national security experts have gradually faded away in a country that triumphantly ended a thirty yearlong very difficult high-intensity armed conflict or war, a decade ago. The state missed potential national security experts seriously after the war since they were “devil’s advocates” amongst amiable, incompetent and gullible armchair national security experts who dominate state national security thinking, teaching and policy making institutions with no relevance to their academic studies pursued, occupations held, training received, or experiences earned. The state after many loses over the course of time thanks to armchair experts has today, reached to a destination where devil’s advocates’ contribution is mandatory for course correction and restore some balance in Sri Lanka’s national security domain.
Devil’s advocates are those who pretend, in a discussion or argument, to go against an idea or plan that has a lot of support in hopes of uncovering flaws or mistakes. Therefore, devil’s advocates’ assessments naturally will contradict the established view. However, it will be very important as they encourage doubts among decision-makers as unilateral or collective thinking by the previous two governments have been failed on many occasions after the end of the war. Evidently, some countries in the national security and strategy gains the edge by following the tenth man rule which has its origins in devil’s advocacy. The Tenth Man Rule suggests that, if nine people in a group of ten agree on an issue, the tenth member must take a contradictory viewpoint and assume the other nine are wrong.
Politicians chase fame, power and popularity and so, in a difficulty to make right national security choices alone by themselves. Then they look for experts. Unfortunately, it is basically armchair national security experts who surrounds politicians in power smartly but, with no iota of practical knowledge or experience on conflict, war and strategy. What they have learned from books does not work as it is on real ground. The strategies they got to know from books are not strategies if repeats. Therefore, they are cherry picking; only go with the popular argument or the view that they desire or their superior wishes to have in them. Their research publications are full of red herring, distracting from real national security issues in the country. No alternative thinking but just book reading outcomes. They never predict anything contradictory to their superiors and so, they are only good at “national security autopsies”. Further, if carefully considered it is notable that those armchair national security experts are basically satisfying big power interests over state national security interests knowingly or unknowingly.
Then, who can be the devil’s advocates in Sri Lanka’s national security context? It can be by veterans. Veterans are professionally and academically qualified soldiers or officers who have served in real battlefields, realized the multifaceted nature of war, peace and conflict, and were honorably discharged under certain circumstances. Most of Sri Lanka armed forces veterans in the war have been moved to private sector employments but, they can still play important roles in Sri Lanka’s national security with their experiences and knowledge as analysts, military academics, advisors and experts. Veterans’ military experiences and knowledge on conflicts can be incorporated effectively into national security teaching, thinking and policy making in the country.
There are ample of veterans who are qualified both in academics and real conflict experiences. Veterans being devil’s advocates can improve strategic national security decision-making if certain conditions are met. Such conditions include avoid becoming an overly negative “carping critic,” meaning delivering deliberately unreasonable criticism, have a deep and sincere commitment to questioning the basic assumptions of the majority and cater the devil’s advocate role to meet the national security needs of the state. Had someone a kind of a devil’s advocate with real knowledge on national security and strategy purposefully doubted the two presidents’ and their armchair national security experts’ opinion, both the devastating Easter attacks and the Galle face fiasco could have been easily managed without endangering the country and the people.
Unfortunately, the devil’s advocates usually find it hard to survive among armchair national security experts owing to the harsh reality that politicians are more comfortable with the latter than the former. Whatever the national security decision that ruling politicians take seems to have been no matter to them as none is answerable to national security blunders at the end, in this fragile state.
Mr. Sagala Ratnayake is now the Senior National Security Advisor (NSA) in the country. Having such a new appointment in the government is timely and important, but the appointee is not from any national security background. National security and strategy are said to have been basically in military and foreign service domain. Contrary, serving military officers’ capacity to assist and contribute to national security academics, teaching and policy making as devil’s advocates is limited for obvious reasons of military discipline and expressed loyalty to whatever the government in power particularly indifferent to their thinking. In such a setting, the NSA must have a few credible retired veterans as devil’s advocates’ in his office to better advise the president and the government to satisfy the best national security interests of the nation. National security is too dangerous to be left alone only in the hands of armchair national security experts.
By Major (retd) Hemantha Dayaratne USP
Director, DayaLanka Strategic Solutions
(The writer, formerly an infantry officer in the Sri Lanka Army, Fellow Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, New Delhi and founding Research Officer and Lecturer, Department of Strategic Studies, KDU and international media officer to President’s media division.)