Art of War

By Nacholibre

(April 24, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) War or Peace is essentially a political decision. While the former is like a blade that cuts both ways, it could make or break the political future of the decision maker, as any subsequent failure in persecuting war will definitely spell disaster for him/her as well as his country. The latter, meanwhile, is always the safer route though it might jeopardize a country’s pride and sovereignty in the end. A politician needs to have a cocktail of things in place for him to make that decision of whether to go to war or make peace in this 20th century.

The cocktail would include a number of things that must be amalgamated, like, public endorsement to go to war, most opportune time, willing and patriotic citizenry queuing in to join the armed forces to defeat the enemy even at the height of the war, brilliantly trained and resourced tri forces and intelligence units, unstinted and strategic support of the civilian administration in charge of war, intelligent human resources to keep the international diplomatic boat from rocking and a strong political commitment to hold the sail no matter what type of political winds are brewing. Under normal circumstances, people soon get weary of war and tend to topple the incumbent governments more often than not, thus, there is always that doubt and fear at the back of the politician who contemplates to go to war. While the weak-minded politician would chose peace and betray the nation under various intimidation and threats, a more strong-minded leader having patriotism at heart will chose the hard way and, in the process, would win the war and win the hearts and minds of his constituency, both at the same time. It does not mean that people enjoy war over peace but it is just that at extraordinary times, people lose hope and trust in fake peace deals and crave for a stronger leadership who could take the real threat to the country by its horns and defeat it.

In such times, it is not just the politician but also his followers who make the decision to sacrifice their freedom and many luxuries of life in order to support the course of action towards waging war, which they realize as much bigger nuisance. Examples are rare but nobody can argue that Mahinda Rajapaksha is the best example of a strong political leadership in the modern and contemporary world politics who came triumphant though he chose the less popular way of waging war on the most ruthless terrorist organization of the world. In to the fourth year of his swearing in as president, his popularity among the voters have sky-rocketed much to the bewilderment and disappointment of his rivalries, as well as the western super powers who wanted to see a weak nation and a weak leader leading Sri Lanka. Sun Tzu may have written the art of war, the oldest Military Treatise in the World, but there is no doubt that General Sarath Fonseka and his deputies will be able to write one of their own for the modern day warfare.

The world may have seen belligerent defence secretaries of the world’s most powerful Nation, the USA, come and go without seeing any success in their military operations worldwide in the years gone by, but Gotabhaya Rajapaksha, among his contemporaries will be able to teach all of them how and how not to carry out a successful military campaign to a decisive finish. Our island nation Sri Lanka may be small and is far below the level of many of the developed countries of the world in many aspects, but its people will be able to showcase to the world how best a resolved nation can be patriotic and brave in the face of concerted effort of the most ruthless terrorists and their coalitions and emerge victorious. That, in a nutshell, is the pride of our Nation.

-Sri Lanka Guardian