Former Presidents may not have envisioned the country as a garrison state, but during the tenure of some of them, we almost ended up as one. We organised ourselves around military power, and, of course, during war, it was understandable. But what was the need for a garrison-mentality after the war had ended?
Yet, some Presidents and their Governments seemed wedded to the concept of a garrison state, partly because they had been intimately involved with the military as an organised force during the war. But much later, when the enemy threat receded, they couldn’t get the military industrial mentality out of their minds.
So, they organised a coterie of firebrands whose sole raison d’etre was jingoism, and the justification of a military mentality. There was no doubt that in the immediate post-war era, there was a need for a substantially sizable standing Army. There was absolutely no need to downsize the military in a hurry when the hostilities had just ended.
But as the threat of war or a relapse of hostilities receded, the military-industrial complex should have receded into the background. Instead, it became a quasi-executive force, with intimate ties to the elected President, the civilian Commander in Chief.
ASSESSMENT
Was that due to the nostalgia that militarily successful Presidents had for the Armed Forces? That’s a charitable way of looking at it. It was mostly, on the other hand, their propaganda machines — their ultra-nationalist agit-prop wings if you will — that created the conditions for the continued garrison state.
Make no mistake, there was a need for continued military readiness immediately after the war ended, and this writer too had advocated assiduously for it. There was no need to de-commission the military in a hurry without making a proper threat assessment. But now, it has been 16 years since the fighting ended, and very soon, it would be two decades. The jingoism of the ultra-nationalist set cannot last that long, and that has been proven after the political sea changes that have taken place recently.
The military industrial mentality effectively led to the country’s economic collapse. We defaulted on our debt when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in power, and it was his ultra-nationalist out on limb propagandists that wanted the garrison State to continue and be strengthened. Perhaps in the intervening years after the war, if we had appropriately and no doubt incrementally cut down our military expenses, we could have built up a growth-oriented economy that would have enabled us to withstand the post-Covid-19 economic threats.
leaders
But we fattened the military because the lackeys of powerful leaders wanted a perpetually large military to meet non-existent threats. They may have had their reasons, as some of them had vested interests in the military. The garrison state has its own economic momentum, which served the needs of a few who were intimately connected to the Armed Forces and the military industrial complex. They tended to get the go-ahead for big orders for certain military accessories, if not important equipment.
These involved parties didn’t want any rollback of the military might of the post-2009 Government — that being the year the war ended — while people entertained hopes of an economy that would improve dramatically, and make dramatic gains sans the burden of war. The economy, however, did not make such expected gains. While the military industrial complex grew and the garrison mentality gained momentum, there was less money for the Government to invest in, or deploy for an economic renaissance, with the military consuming a massive slice of Government expenditure.
However, the narrative had now been built up that downsizing the military or advocating any such move was downright unpatriotic, and that it amounted to treachery. But this was several years after the war, when military threats had receded, and there was no rational explanation for keeping military numbers ridiculously high.
It may have even been a fact that some Governments went looking for new enemies just so that they could keep the military as bloated and money consuming, as they were now habitually used to.
This mimics what happened in the U.S. from the 40s up to the 80s. Harry Laswell, the author of the book that first mooted the idea of the garrison state had noted that those who wanted the U.S. to be made into a garrison state, and had vested interests in the military industrial complex, went looking for new enemies. His later protégés mused that the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War phase of deterrence-centred militarisation, would spell the end to dreams of those who wanted a garrison state.
A version of the same seemed to have happened here after the end of the war in 2009. The militarisation habit had become so soundly entrenched in the Establishment that successive Governments began to take a bloated military for granted. If a huge Army was there, it must be necessary, was the rather un-inquisitive, and perhaps unimaginative conclusion of the financial policy planners of several Governments that followed.
This type of indifference had drastic consequences. Taxpayers were slow-marching towards disaster, because this type of military expenditure — among other needless expenditures of course — was wholly unnecessary.
When a global financial crisis occurred post-Covid, it was, of course, too late. Even if the war hadn’t destroyed us, post-war military expenditures which were clearly avoidable if only anyone had thought of it, had driven us bankrupt, among other factors that contributed to that abysmal fate.
Wars are an expensive business, but having warlike expenditure during peacetime is a cardinal folly, even though no jingoist would take responsibility for that. If today, anyone says that we need a standing Army of the proportions we maintained during or in the immediate aftermath of the war, that kind of pseudo-patriot alarmist can be asked to identify the threats. There aren’t any, which doesn’t mean we do not need an Army or don’t need some type of military readiness. But Army and Tri-Forces numbers do not have to be in giddy excess, that drives the country towards impoverishment. The fact is, an impoverished country is the best hunting grounds for predatory potential enemies, if any are having designs on the Sri Lankan State. Sundry jingoists should take note of it.
ECHELON
Of course, on the flip side, when a military is gradually de-commissioned, there would be able men who would be bereft of employment. They should be absorbed into the private sector, or should be able to embark on gainful self-employment.
When downsizing the Army, any regime should doubtless ensure that there wouldn’t be a situation of idle ex-military men running amok, in the same way there are plenty of deserters who got out of the Army, sometimes with weapons, that began handy careers in the underworld.
The tunnel vision of certain individuals, policymakers and the responsible elite, however, with regard to Army numbers is mind-blowing. They wanted a military to fight a phantom enemy which is not to say that those among the country’s enemies who wanted to destroy us aren’t still around. But, there is a difference between a potent force hell bent on destroying the country in an armed campaign, and activists who rant and rave against us but are fringe provocateurs at best.
All Armies are brought down in size after a war, and this is the regular practice anywhere in the world. Military readiness could also be mobility-readiness. The top echelon in charge of national security can plan the phasing out of military numbers in such a way that there is a plan to mobilise, arm and deploy civilians at relatively short notice, just in case there is an eventuality. This should not be taken to mean that there is still some imminent lurking threat. But an abundance of caution is always advisable, and who would argue with that? The military doesn’t have to be a bloated liability for a country to be safe, thriving and secure.
