Asanga Abeyagoonasekera Executive Director, South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN) Bangkok, Thailand (February 11th, 2025) – The South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN), based in Washington, DC, and the Nation-Building International Institute (NBII) in Thailand have entered into a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to foster research collaboration and academic exchange on 7thFebruary 2025 in Thailand. This landmark partnership will drive joint research initiatives […]

South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN) Abeyagoonasekera outlined how Sri Lanka’s evolving political landscape under the NPP offers an opportunity to strengthen its role within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He emphasized the importance of fostering pragmatic, synergetic cooperation between Sri Lanka and China, particularly through the BRI, as a pathway to support national development […]

ASANGA ABEYAGOONASEKERA Courtesy ORF At present, albeit in a different context, there is another westward strategy from the Eastern Pacific theatre. It is that of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii along with Japan, Australia and other like-minded allies.Sri Lankan navy at Sri Lanka’s 72nd Independence Day — 4 February 2020, Colombo. Photo: Ishara S. […]

ASANGA ABEYAGOONASEKERA Courtesy Observer Research Foundation Sri Lanka will hold its Parliamentary election on 5 August. The efficient leadership of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was demonstrated in managing the recent Covid-19 pandemic crisis. It is a proven leadership which will be a significant factor to ensure a landslide victory in the upcoming election for the Rajapaksa […]

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera* We’re going to turn it around. And we have the cards, don’t forget it. We are like a piggy bank that’s being robbed. We have the cards. We have a lot of power with China”[i] President Donald J. Trump during the 2016 election campaign. President Donald Trump was elected on a platform challenging […]

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera* The oldest form of systemic risk, which is that arising from viruses and pandemics”  Ian Goldin & Mike Mariathasan, The Butterfly Defect (Princeton 2014) ‘Pain of one nation is the pain of another; as we are all interconnected’ was the opening sentence of  my 2015 book ‘Towards a better world order’. We are […]

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera No longer were there individual destinies?; only a collective destiny. Made for plague and emotions shared by all.” Albert Camus In 430 BC, an entire chapter of the Peloponnesian war documented by the Greek historian, Thucydides was about a deadly epidemic. According to him, while Athenians prepared for war with Sparta, its […]

By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera Despite all the difficulties, there needs to be a concerted effort to develop a negotiating framework that can command the widest possible support. Such a negotiating framework must include at least minimal acceptance, by both sides, of the norms and standards relating to international human rights and a determination to restore peace, […]

ASANGA ABEYAGOONASEKERA Governments should adopt certain processes and values to certify the critical infrastructure projects of the Chinese. While globalisation was seen as a path to bring prosperity in the Western Hemisphere, UK who was championing the idea of the globalisation has officially exit from the European Union and disappointed its closest ally US, on […]

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera First, let me thank all of you for the tremendous support you have given me during the last few years to establish the National Security Think Tank of Sri Lanka, (INSSSL) under the Ministry of Defence. From the first email I sent to all of you from INSSSL in August 2016, it was […]

ASANGA ABEYAGOONASEKERA The previous Government gave it [Hambanthota Port] on a 99-year lease, and even though China is a good friend of ours and we need their assistance for development, I am not afraid to say that was a mistake.” Gotabaya Rajapaksa[i] 2020 dawns with a US airstrike. The significance of this strike, killing the […]