From the ever-zesty SWJ, I saw this today: “Sri Lanka’s disconcerting COIN strategy for defeating the LTTE“. The thrust of the post is that yes, you can set aside the classic hearts-and-minds strategy and pursue the alternate, “chest and head” strategy, but that’s a policy few if any Western governments would care to adopt. In the main, I agree.
However, I will point out that the strategy the Sri Lankan government appears to have adopted (successfully) in this case has one admirable element that we would do well to emulate, in our own way– A single-minded, unwavering, ruthless pursuit of victory.
(The long and very ugly anti-Tamil campaign is not one of my areas of expertise, so perhaps there are nuances and unspoken truths that I’m missing. If so, do tell.)
