{"id":147465,"date":"2025-01-19T17:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T00:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=147465"},"modified":"2025-01-19T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T00:50:08","slug":"us-economic-warfare-power-policy-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/01\/19\/us-economic-warfare-power-policy-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"US Economic Warfare & Power Policy in Sri\u00a0Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 12-18 January 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The crucial importance of gasoline as a raw material<\/strong>, of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the airplane as a weapon<\/strong>, and of the machine-tool industry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

as the industrial basis of modern warfare<\/strong>, points to the possibility<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that a tight control in a few strategic points<\/strong> within a country\u2019s economy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

might paralyze its power to prepare for war without impairing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

its capacity to produce for the purposes of civilian consumption.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Albert O Hirschman, National Power<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& the Structure of Foreign Trade<\/em>, 1945<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018US lifestyle magazine Vogue<\/em> has given Sri Lanka a glowing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

endorsement by claiming it is this winter\u2019s hottest travel destination.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Shivanthi Ranasinghe (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Is Our Economic Crisis Over?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Only 3 months before he began work on The Prince<\/em>, Machiavelli<\/strong> wrote<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in a letter to his friend & colleague, Florentine diplomat Francesco Vettori<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fortune has decreed that, as I do not know<\/strong> how to reason either about the art<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of silk or about the art of wool, either about profits<\/strong> or about losses, it befits me<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to reason about the state<\/strong>.\u2019 The Machiavellians of today would probably be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

astonished<\/strong> by this, since it reveals the complete failure of Machiavelli to perceive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

any connection between economics & politics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A textbook for the Modern Prince<\/em> should indeed contain, in addition<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to Machiavelli\u2019s classic chapters, extensive new sections on the most<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

efficient use of quotas, exchange controls, capital investment,<\/strong> & other<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

instruments of economic warfare<\/strong>. In this respect, practice has preceded theory. The<\/p>\n\n\n\n

extensive use of international economic relations as an instrument of national power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

policies<\/strong> has been, together with the \u2018war of nerves<\/strong>\u2019, one of the main characteristics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the period preceding the outbreak of the present war.\u2019 \u2013 Albert O Hirschman,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must be one of the strangest news items to inhabit the make-believe world of the merchant media in Sri Lanka: headlined: \u2018No room to renegotiate IMF program\u2019, the Wijeya Group\u2019s Financial Times<\/em> (FT<\/em>) simply, or baldly, asserts, without stopping to take a breath:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Senior Economic Advisor to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr RHS Samaratunga speaking at the Daily FT \u2013 ACCA & ICC SL<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

webinar \u2018IMF Agenda: Opportunities & Challenges for Sri Lanka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-2025\u2019, responded to a question about whether there is room to renegotiate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the current IMF program<\/strong> given the tough conditions in the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted there is very little space<\/strong> to make changes to the broader program<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

targets<\/strong>, the program has progressed satisfactorily so far<\/strong>. The program<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was mutually agreed upon<\/strong>, and therefore, there is no room to revisit it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Samaratunga emphasised that it is in Sri Lanka\u2019s interest to stay the course<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

within the broad parameters<\/strong> of the program.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there it is. The word made flesh. \u2018There is no alternative\u2019. So says the Daily FT \u2013 ACCA & ICC SL<\/em>. FT<\/em> is the Financial Times<\/em> owned by Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s relatives: Wijeya Group<\/strong>. The ICC = International Chamber of Commerce. The ACCA = Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. What else is new? At any given time on any given day, turn on your news device and they will be saying the same thing. Have been saying so since the end of history was declared in New York in 1989. Or was it 1848? There is no end to their endings. Otherwise, why tell us: There is no alternative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Sri Lanka has been further encoiled in the embrace of the US government. Yes. Media are even quoting Marx & Lenin (but not Stalin or Mao), left and right. Yes. The JVP are suspected of biding their Bolshevik time. Red-baiting is digging new depths. Oh wait, with AKD in Beijing, Mao reemerges like a terracotta warrior as crafty inscrutable despot. Others claiming themselves instant \u2018Leftists\u2019, \u2018Neo-Leftists\u2019, \u2018Real Leftists\u2019, \u2018AI Leftists\u2019, are also declaring the inauthenticity of each other\u2019s claims. And speaking of false accreditations and awards, examine the titles taken on by local agents \u2013 merchants, moneylenders, importers really \u2013 our \u2018Symbolic Capitalists\u2019? The most high apparently is CEO\/Chairman\u2026 then there are the latest breed of \u2018Independent\u2019 bankers & \u2018Independent\u2019 directors\u2026Independent of what, and of whom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The media always lags behind its own revelations: long before US President D. Trump claimed Greenland, that sod of ice had already issued its first licenses for oil and gas exploration off the western Greenlandic coast, to Chevron<\/strong> & Exxon-Mobil<\/strong>. Trump\u2019s first Foreign Secretary in 2017, Rex Tillerson, was an Exxon CEO, who refused to accept office until bribery was allowed! \u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Way earlier, in 1903, US President Theodore Roosevelt engineered a phony \u2018revolution\u2019 in Colombia<\/strong>, creating the new state of Panama<\/strong>, taking over the Canal Zone. The Panama Canal Co\u2019s lobbyist, JP Morgan-related New York attorney William Nelson Cromwell<\/strong> directed the \u2018revolution\u2019 while sitting in the White House. Old French Panama Canal Co shares had already been purchased by a US financial syndicate of JP Morgan, Rockefeller, etc\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media & academic system go to great lengths of fiction and assorted facts to declare the \u2018independence\u2019 of economics from politics, and the politics of economists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Albert O Hirschman\u2019s 1945 book \u2013 at the height of the mass slaughter of WW2 \u2013 is still cited, 80 years later, as an authority on economic warfare \u2013 <\/strong>on \u2018power policy\u2019<\/strong>. This \u2018silent war of penetration\u2019 involves maintaining a monopoly over industrial processes<\/strong>, their initiation, operation and destruction. A prerequisite for control over such processes involves sovereignty over a territory, Hirschman\u2019s study being funded by the Exxon Rockefeller Foundation, as part of a Trade Regulation Project<\/strong> under the University of California<\/strong>, Berkeley\u2019s Bureau of Business & Economic Research<\/strong>, perhaps made Hirschman choose to misunderstand (Ha! Ha!<\/em>) that Machiavelli\u2019s main interest was in the unification of an Italy divided into warring principalities. After all, Machiavelli dedicated his book to a merchant banker prince, of the Medici family (Michelangelo painted a Medici heiress as their Virgin Mary), to describe the bald doings of a rival merchant family of Borgias, one of whom as Pope, had just divided (in 1494) the world between Spain & Portugal, sending them to assail us from the West (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the world prior to the entry of the Portuguese into the Lakdiva Sea saw Lankans relatively unhindered travel East & West. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, in the wake of the Sri Lankan President\u2019s voyage to the People\u2019s Republic of China, continues our attempt to depict Sri Lanka\u2019s long and \u2018enchanting\u2019 historical engagements with China. We continue from the 3rd<\/sup>-5th<\/sup>C AD, with its major irrigation and architectural complexes. 317-419 is when formal Chinese links with Lanka presumably begin, after the first Qin Dynasty<\/strong> was set up, and Anuradhapura unified under the Hela language<\/strong> and Buddhism<\/strong>. By the Wei Dynasty (386-458), Lanka is famed for its Buddhist statues, and many countries send artisans here to study. Fa Xian (337-422) traveled the Southern Silk Road, and in 426, Lankan nuns arrived at Guangzhou port. In 520, Egyptian geographer Cosmas Indicopleustes, merchant from Alexandria, was calling Lanka an active \u2018Emporium Mediatrix\u2019 of the Africa-China trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last few years, even as our economists and media faithfully bellow the NATO version of free trade, while further entrapping Sri Lanka in their coils, many of their governments have put forward Economic Security Strategies <\/strong>to \u2018derisk\u2019 their economies \u2018from foreign dependencies\u2019. G7 governments in 2023 issued their Economic Resilience & Economic Security<\/em><\/strong>. Japan\u2019s Economic Security Protection Act was announced in Oct 2023. The European Commission recommended \u2018advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies & biotechnologies\u2019 be classified as \u2018critical technologies\u2019. England\u2019s National Security & Investment Act \u2018gives the government powers to scrutinise and intervene in business transactions, such as takeovers, to protect national security\u2019. The Future Made in Australia initiative highlights the country\u2019s valued minerals and energy resources, while South Korea in Oct 2022, announced the National Strategic Technology Nurture Plan\u2026 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While media promotes US President Trump\u2019s trade sanctions, the \u2018US grip on global financial services\u2019 provide the USA with \u2018another source of leverage\u2019. China apparently \u2018has hegemonic power over global manufacturing, via its dominance of many supply chains\u2019, while the USA has hegemonic power, in finance, \u2018via the dollar-based system\u2019. Meanwhile, Trump\u2019s Treasury secretary nominee<\/strong> Scott Bessent says countries with military protection from the US should be forced to buy more dollar debt. He also says the world is heading for \u2018Bretton Woods Realignments\u2019 \u2013 perhaps \u2018to weaken the dollar in order to help US exporters\u2019 with \u2018an attempt to replicate the 1985 Plaza Accord.\u2019 (see ee Random Notes<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 We used to be so enthralled about SBD de Silva\u2019s xray-sharp insights into SL economic malaise, thrilled by his vision for transforming Sri Lanka\u2019s economy. We would bug him to share his views with the media. He without saying much just laugh grimly with a curl of whimsy in his cheek, \u2018Let me interview them<\/strong>. Let\u2019s find out what they actually know about the economy. Have they chosen to investigate?\u2019  When we would mention that so-and-so wished to interview us, he would curiously ask, again with a smile, \u2018Did they bring a camera!?\u2019 Fake media: All about ego? Grim reality of tinsel!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another tactic by the media called \u2018local\u2019 is to fake modernity<\/strong>, as if turning on a computer is the same as making a computer or its parts. Fake claims about fake \u2018industrialization\u2019 are a regular feature in a fake Sri Lankan media. Handicraft, manufacture, assembly are all labeled \u2018industry\u2019. The latest car importer press release<\/strong> parading as a news item claims that \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019s local assembly and automotive component manufacturing sector has become a significant pillar of the nation\u2019s economy\u2019. Really! All this while the media is full of wailing about taxes on car imports<\/strong>. Meanwhile, it turns out the buses plying the roads are built on lorry chassis<\/strong> \u2018not in conformity with modern mass transportation standards in terms of passenger comfort\u2026\u2019 Meanwhile, here\u2019s another lovely\u2026.: SL makes groundbreaking entry into region\u2019s luxury yachting market\u201d\u2026 Parking lot? Cargo cult?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, as colonized Japan advocates censorship of the publication of its latest and edgiest patents on technology \u2013 their public curtailment of such statistics is not new \u2013 this ee<\/em><\/strong> looks at the latest moves by the white powers to wage war by economic means: through the prevention of the diffusion of the latest technology, and the destruction of competitive industries. A recent ee<\/em><\/strong> 28 December 2024 looked at how US & European Universities Block Asian & African Students from Advanced Technology <\/em>programs\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Albert O Hirschman described \u2018silent economic penetration\u2019 as including the intensive study of consumer habits (see Unilever\u2019s Kantar, ee<\/em><\/strong> Random Notes<\/em>) to control a country\u2019s home market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Of course, his example of such economic warfare at that moment in 1945 was Germany \u2013 the object of English sabotage prior to the outbreak of real war in 1939.  Protectionist forces had the media portray the encroaching evil as economic aggression & penetration rather than call it \u2018foreign competition\u2019, which would have exposed their rhetoric about \u2018free trade\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In times of war <\/strong>between the People\u2019s Republic of China<\/strong> & the West,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the knowledge that comes with economic presence & knowledge of the [Panama]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

canal zone & its vulnerabilities could be exploited to shut down the canal in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018deniable\u2019 ways, from the sinking of container ships<\/strong> in key locations, physical<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or digital sabotage of the locks themselves<\/strong> (&) threats from mining, (to) threats<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to shipping at the entrances to the canal.\u2019 \u2013 Evan Ellis, US Army War College<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, US can\u2019t hurt China\u2019s interests in Panama & Greenland)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Without referring to English colonial practices where the destruction of economic power ran parallel with real warfare, Hirschman is candid enough to divulge, that what the Germans were accused of by their enemies was what the English & the USA themselves practiced as \u2018business as usual\u2019. Due to a lack of \u2018systematic analysis of the connection between national power and international economic relations\u2019:  \u2018All these arts and practices are nothing else than an intelligent seizure of legitimate business opportunities\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Export subsidies, import certificates, emigration measures (of skilled workers, machinery, etc), came to be used not as normal methods of economic activity, but as an active means to suffocate rival nations. From the dumping of goods at low prices to crush domestic industries; to buying \u2018exports\u2019 at high prices at first to then acquire a monopsonistic position to later lower prices; by direct intervention or by manipulating exchange rates. Then there is the \u2018export of enterprises & scientific personnel\u2019, with the penetration of German capital into local enterprises, by controlling the country\u2019s most important banks & key industries, particularly textiles, metallurgy, and shipping, and through industrial espionage by preventing credit facilities to \u2018hostile\u2019 local establishments, control investment, instigating industrial strikes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In Hirschman\u2019s book, countries were divided into agricultural & industrial<\/strong> (destined to exchange natural commodities, including their bodies, for manufactured goods). After they instigated war against Germany, the 6 Allied nations \u2013 England, France, Italy, Russia, Belgium, Japan \u2013 met at a \u2018Paris Economic Conference\u2019 in 1916: Allies also deliberately made \u2018encroachments upon the rights of neutrals under the guise of measures against Germany\u2019. They took \u2018drastic measures\u2019 \u2018to prevent as far as possible the rebuilding of industries & commerce (of the Central Powers) after the war\u2026  Though they claimed the opposite\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
US Economic Warfare & Power Policy in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/blockquote>