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Govt will remedy shortcomings in Armed Forces - Milinda

The Government has examined carefully what has to be done to remedy the shortcomings observed in the facilities and equipment made available to the Armed Forces, Economic Reforms Minister, Milinda Moragoda said yesterday.

Making the keynote address at the convocation of the Army Command and Staff College, Minister Moragoda said most of these deficiencies have been caused by severe financial constraints imposed on the government, but "we would start with obtaining the necessary funds".

The Minister said:

"While not having the advantage of a detailed knowledge of the curriculum covered by each course, I venture to express the expectation and the hope that under some existing rubric such as "Foundation Studies" or perhaps "Management", officers are being fully briefed regarding the vital relationship of the government's armed forces, to its civil executive and legislative authorities, as enshrined in the Constitution, and in legislation relating to the armed forces commencing with the Army Act adopted on October 10, 1949.

I have in mind legislative or constitutional references to the functions to be performed by the Armed Forces, and outline the geographical scope of their authority; provisions that ensure their adequate financing and that designate the civilian authority to be their Commander-in-Chief. I shall return to this vital relationship between the government's civil and military wings in a moment.

Three subjects

"In the course of my brief address to you, I plan to touch on just three subjects. First, I would like to try to place our armed forces in an historical context; and, claiming no expertise of my own on that subject, I gratefully acknowledge my debt to Major General Anton Muttukumaru's "The Military History of Ceylon" written in 1987 and revised by him in 1993. Second, I will venture to comment on where that analysis leaves us, in the sense of what is needed to foster and promote the interests of our armed forces; and finally to make some further observations on the development of the relationship between the civil and military arms of our government, a relationship which I have already twice characterised as "vital".

"General Muttukumaru divides our military history roughly into three periods: (1) an Indian period, the early part of which began with the coming of Vijaya, and ended with the death of Devanampiya Tissa in 207 BC, characterised by an absence of hostilities with India; and a latter part, during which there were numerous incursions undertaken by the rulers of kingdoms in South India, notably Chola, Pandya and Kerala, and comes to an end with the close of the 15th century; and (2) the colonial period, during which parts of Sri Lanka were administered by the Portuguese and the Dutch, and which ended with annexation of the entire country by the British in 1815; and (3) a modern period during which Sri Lanka, first continued as a British colony, then regained its independence in 1948 after nearly 450 years of foreign domination, and established a standing army for the first time in 1949.

European colonists

"While the author expresses his admiration for individual feats of military prowess ascribed to kings such as Dutugemunu (101-77 BC), Vijayabahu (whom he dates at 1001 AD, drawing on accounts from the Chulawamsa), Parakrama Bahu the Great (1153-1186) and Raja Singha I (son of Mayadunne) in exploits against the Portuguese, all of whom he sees as having relied on charisma and national fervour in their attempts to rid the country of foreign domination and establish their authority over the whole country, he notes that there are no records of attempts to maintain a permanent, trained military force. With the ascendance of Parakrama Bahu there appears for the first time a reference to the four-fold structure of an army in the Indian tradition: elephant corps, cavalry, chariots and foot soldiers.

A fleet of sea-going ships is mentioned, but as in the case of India, no details are available regarding structure of the vessels or their equipment or number. Soon thereafter, however, the coming of the European colonists as well as internal rivalries seem to have forced intending monarchs to rely on short-term military plans including the marshalling of irregulars when needed, and the hiring of mercenaries.

"Looking back over his three historical periods, Muttukumaru notes that over the 25 centuries of Sri Lanka's recorded history, the country had been ruled by 178 kings or queens, governed by 20 Portuguese Captains-General, 31 Dutch Governors, 31 British Governors, 3 Governors-General who still acknowledged the Queen of the United Kingdom as the Queen of Sri Lanka and (as at 1992) two Presidents.

There are at least two conclusions by the author with which any reasonable person must agree. First, the recruitment, maintenance and equipment of a standing army has occurred, and perhaps can only occur, where sustained authority over a community could be exercised over some minimum period. The fractured history of our country offered little scope for such a development until the rule of Parakrama Bahu I, when it did take place.

Before his rule, and thereafter, it appears that nationalistic fervour and whatever helpful elements could be cobbled together as opportunities presented themselves, such as recruitment of citizenry otherwise employed, hiring of foreign mercenaries, and alliances with rivals or with foreign powers, were all that the country's leaders could rely on in their efforts to regain control of, or unify the country.

Second observation

"General Muttukumaru's second observation is that nothing in the history of our fighting forces justifies the negative comments, ascribed to the author of the Chulawamsa regarding the quality of Sri Lanka's warriors. It is hardly necessary to respond to such negative criticism since on most occasions in that early period, those who were pressed into military service were artisans and farmers accustomed to routine peaceful pursuits and responsibilities, and totally lacking in training that would have prepared them for the rigorous and desperate exigencies of combat.

Moreover, during Muttukumaru's modern period Sri Lanka's armed forces have performed splendidly even when, as volunteer regiments they served in the wars undertaken by a dominant foreign power. And in recent years, inadequately trained and poorly equipped, they have loyally given life and limb in the bitter struggle to defend the integrity of their country, displaying exemplary endurance and courage.

Regular Forces

"Possessing in abundance the manpower needed to establish and maintain regular fighting forces of the highest standard, but deprived by a fractured history of the growth of an indigenous military tradition, we turned to the last of our European rulers for assistance, just as our giant neighbour India had done, and I believe, in doing so, benefited similarly from that association.

The British, whose military traditions had been strengthened through centuries of development under relatively settled internal regimes, and through the country's emergence in the nineteenth century as a world power; and, most importantly, whose language had emerged as the most widely spoken of all, became, in this respect, our mentor. They assisted in laying the foundation for the establishing of our army, providing basic training facilities and even assisting in the drafting of the necessary legislation and regulations. Their emphasis on training brings to mind the words attributed to General Patton, who said "More sweat in training, less blood in battle."

"I was interested to note that association with Britain continues in the establishment of this very College. And it seems to me that the military tradition which I have referred to as "British" (thereby perhaps causing resentment among those who dwell on the injustices of the colonial era) might be said to be, not British, but related rather to a much earlier association with a warrior brotherhood that is universal. As one writer remarks: "The peculiar skill of the military officer is universal in the sense that its essence is not affected by changes in time or location. Just as the qualifications of a good surgeon are the same in Zurich as they are in New York, the same standards of professional military competence apply in Russia as in America and in the nineteenth century as in the twentieth".

"The note explaining the crest of your College recalls the wise owl of Merlin, himself the wise counsellor of the British King Arthur who fought against Saxon invaders in post-Roman Britain. Reference to Minerva's owl, then takes us further back to the Roman goddess of war and wisdom. But Minerva was herself identified with Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom and heroes, and so takes us even further back in time to the patron goddess of Greece, the oldest European democracy, and one that maintained a trained regular army, that successfully challenged the forces of the more warlike military aristocracy of Sparta.

Arthrasastra

"But my purpose in making this digression on the basis of your crest is not to embark on a discourse on history, which I am certainly not qualified to make, but to support the suggestion that the brotherhood of the warrior is universal.

Indeed, we do not need even to go as far as Europe to find records of the maintenance of regular armies, military administration and well-established civil-military relations: as many of you will know much better than I do, the Arthrasastra, a treatise on government written, it has been said, about 2300 years ago by Kautilya, a counsellor to the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, contains much material on those subjects that is worthy of study. It is said that the Emperor could field an army of 100,000. Most cultures of the world, including our own, can boast examples of adherence to the soldiers' code of honour and chivalry which inspires the professional warrior even today.

"The Government of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has examined carefully what needs to be done in order to remedy the shortcomings observed in the facilities and equipment made available to its armed forces. I am aware of some deficiencies in organizational routine, and there may well be others that relate to the scope of training or the provision of necessary facilities and equipment. Most of those deficiencies have been caused by the severe financial constraints imposed on the Government, but we would make a start with obtaining the necessary funds.

Civil-Military relations

"I come now to the third and last of the matters on which I would like to share my thoughts with you today: it is the ancient subject of civil-military relations. The military have, throughout history and in all countries in which they have existed as an organized group, remained apart, a separate group that had its own specialized knowledge and capability, but also one within which a special code of rules and ethic applied, and which observed its own hierarchy, at least in the exercise of its particular vocation: it has seemed an autonomous society within society at large.

"The function, and the duty, of the organized military force has been to protect the persons, property and, by implication, the social values, of the wider community. That wider community in turn treats them with due deference as guardians, and through its economic activity, generates the resources wherewith to equip, train and arm them to perform their duties, and to lead comfortable, if not affluent lives. The wider community, however, having placed the ultimate power of weaponry in the hands of its guardians is often moved to consider: but who will guard the guardians?

"Plato, writing more than 20 centuries ago conceived the role of the guardian as being like that of a "noble dog", and in Book II of the Republic would require them to "be gentle to their own and cruel to enemies". So unique was their function, and so fraught with danger the prospect of their revolt, that he would select to be "guardians" the best offspring, to be taken from their parents and trained from infancy for their special role, having them breed thereafter among themselves to protect and perpetuate special qualities.

"The question of how to manage the guardians persists to this day, but the solutions proposed are less drastic than that of Plato. In military dictatorships, the issue does not arise, since the guardian also governs. But history has shown that such situations lead inevitably to unacceptable, even horrific, excesses, that society refuses to tolerate. Only one step removed, are situations where the military have chosen not to govern, but to be the power behind the governors, ostensibly to ensure fair play and equitable treatment for all, sometimes promising to return the country to democracy when conditions improve. This, too, has proved to be a perversion of the guardian role, and to breed rampant corruption and cronyism. Examples of the situations I have referred to have occurred on every continent and are familiar to you, so that it will be unnecessary for me to mention names.

'Objective civilian control'

"The prescription most favoured by democracies today has been described as "objective civilian control", implying a form of civilian control based on efforts to increase the professionalism of the officer corps, carving off for it a sphere of action that is independent of politics. This is the thesis of the distinguished political scientist Samuel Huntington, who contrasts that prescription with an alternative which he calls "subjective control", the aim of which is to control the military by "civilianising" it, to be achieved through rendering it politically aware in the expectation that they will accept the prevailing social aims whatever they may be, or by transplanting into the military, civilian elites who would accomplish that objective. The latter was the case earlier among the armies of Europe where the officer corps was drawn from aristocratic or noble families.

"It is difficult to challenge the prevailing democratic preference for the path of "objective control". Of course, like any prescription it is capable of distorted interpretation, or even deliberate misapplication, but it seems to fit with the rest of our democratic institutions, all of which require the exercise of restraint and the maintenance of a certain balance and flexibility, to operate successfully. Objective civilian control leaves a vast area of military procedures, operations and culture untouched, and requires only that the military observe fidelity to the policies of the government. The consistency of those policies with the ultimate authority of the Constitution enacted by the people, will be assured by Parliament and the Courts. Thereafter, faithful implementation is required, peacefully if possible, but by force if necessary.

"It is important, however, that the elements of a governmental policy requiring implementation "by force, if necessary", be clear to those who may have to implement it. In addition to being clear, I believe it is desirable to explain and clarify the extent possible, to those in positions of leadership, the aims and purpose of the policies which the military may be called upon to implement. Those aims and purposes, since they represent the express will of the community, should readily commend themselves to its guardians.

Manpower mobilisation

"There is one last thought that I would like to mention here, and it concerns my tentative suggestion that a system of compulsory national military service be introduced following the practice established in several countries. The foundation for this initiative was laid out by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe many years ago when he introduced the Manpower Mobilisation Law. One advantage of compulsory service would be that it would instill a sense of discipline, while providing experience of living under rigorous circumstances that could prove of value whatever career is eventually followed by the individual.

A second clear advantage would be the experience of living and working together with persons who might speak a different language, have a different religious belief, or belong to a different community or social background. Sri Lanka has suffered for too long from such divisions, and its progress has been seriously weakened as a result.

If a consensus is reached, the details of this proposal can be worked out, but precedents indicate a period of one year to 18 months for enlisted men, and a slightly longer period of training for officers. The period of service might be undertaken say at age 18. Upon completion of the period of military service, an individual would remain a member of the Reserve, liable to be called up for duty if required, and for brief periods of re-training. I am advised by countries that it is an expensive project, calling for the deployment of a broad range of administrative and organisational skills.

I believe, however, that such an investment will yield substantial rewards in the form of social integration and disciplining of our able work-force. In addition, in times of peace, national service recruits are likely to gain an appreciation of and foretaste of the environment to which our servicemen are exposed.

"This brings me to the conclusion of my address in which I have attempted to place our armed services in a historical context, and to gather, in that process, the extent to which our millennia-long experience of conflict failed to produce a coherent military tradition.

"This lack has been filled through assistance from countries that possess such a tradition, notably the United Kingdom, and other countries of the Commonwealth, and we noted the universal or global nature of the warrior tradition of which we are now members. I have emphasised the Government's desire to make good such deficiencies in organisation, training facilities and equipment of the armed forces, as would be possible, given the depleted state of our finances. I touched upon the age-old issues of civil-military relations in the context of reconciling the interests of the armed forces with those of the un-armed community at large; and finally referred to possible advantages to be gained by establishing a period of national military service.

"In conclusion, I would like to encourage the Faculty and participants in the work of the Army Command and Staff College to in its capacity as a policy research institute to give thought to elaborating on some of the ideas I have outlined here.

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