Very rarely have so many policymakers and military leaders, in so many countries, taken such notice of events in Sri Lanka. For while the Americans, Russians, Turks, Israelis, and numerous African and other Asian governments, struggle with 'asymmetrical warfare' actors - the insurgents and terrorists we hear so much about - the Sri Lankans seem to have achieved something most experts considered impossible. Despite decades of brutal conflict, they have wiped out their adversaries with one decisive military campaign. Sri Lanka's spectacular victory has taken the world by surprise - and what is causing such head-scratching is that the success of their military campaign flies in the face of conventional military, strategic and political thinking. The post-'Bush doctrine' consensus tells commanders and policymakers that terror cannot be defeated by military action alone, but by an emphasis on social and economic policies, with military action only resorted to when absolutely necessary. Overuse military power, it is argued - as events in Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Gaza seem to be telling us - and you in fact embolden, not weaken, the terrorists, as the carnage and 'collateral damage' (civilian casualties) that your campaign causes recruits the 'common man' to the ranks of the 'bad guys'. Yet Sri Lanka has seemingly totally eliminated its previously potent enemy with an old-fashioned military onslaught. Some have thus been quick to claim that the Sri Lankan case study proves aggressive military tactics do bear fruit, and should be reconsidered. Such sweeping assessments are a little premature. The impressive nature of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers should not allow us to ignore the fact that it is vastly too simplistic to assume such a solution could just be dropped into other conflicts, like a generic magic cure. The unique context in Sri Lanka limits possible comparison elsewhere - for example, the downfall of the Tigers may in part have transpired because they were no longer an 'asymmetrical actor' - in other words, by structuring themselves in the style of a traditional army, they were able to be engaged and destroyed as one. The Taleban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan don't mobilise as a traditional army, nor do militants in the Middle East or Africa. It is highly unlikely that such an assault could have such dramatic results in any of these examples. It must also not be lost in the analysis that the Sri Lankan victory is also far from guaranteed to be permanent - the war may have been won but it was at the cost of many thousands of civilian lives, and Sri Lanka remains a long way from attaining real peace. Failure to do so raises the real possibility of future tensions, if not a return to outright military conflict. The temptation to copy the Sri Lanka approach elsewhere, without due thought or analysis, must be avoided at all costs. Hagai Segal, a terrorism and Middle East specialist, lectures at New York University in London
