{"id":57784,"date":"2016-08-19T06:23:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T13:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57784"},"modified":"2016-08-19T06:23:04","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T13:23:04","slug":"lanka-becomes-major-us-india-defence-cog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/19\/lanka-becomes-major-us-india-defence-cog\/","title":{"rendered":"Lanka Becomes Major US, India Defence Cog…"},"content":{"rendered":"

WINSTON\u00a0DE VALLIERE\u00a0Political analyst\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

On the one hand, we find the government, meaning, President Maithripala Sirisena and Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe becoming quite adept at almost with nonchalance brushing off every volley fired by the Opposition, with almost the demeanour of one flicking a blowing away with one puff the speck of dust off one’s shirt. Time was when the government seemed to knuckle under the heckling. But as JVP’s Tilvin Siva said it to a nicety, the Joint Opposition has become a laughing stock.<\/p>\n

That’s a statement he made with the utmost gravity. Politics in this godforsaken land has become too serious a matter to be left entirely in the hands of politicians. The President and Premier have apparently decided that on behalf of the people and country […my tongue’s reaching for my cheek] the ‘government’ is simply going to carry on with its programmes, plans, foreign policy initiatives, and what-have-you with a determination that commands however reluctantly, one’s applause.<\/p>\n

I’m committing this down to black and white because today’s aged 40-odd plus readership were late teens at that time and know nothing of recent historical facts which caused the emergence of today’s political ideologies which are more intent on tearing down rather than on building up. So then, what we have is the officially recognized Opposition in Parliament, to wit, the TNA and a couple of others as well as the Joint Opposition that Tilvin Silva calls a laughing stock!<\/p>\n

What Tilvin Silva, however, had not the foggiest idea about was that around the time he was ruminating on this in his mind, what you see below was happening right here in the heart of Colombo. And it’s a picture of the first ever Operational Level Bilateral Defence Dialogue between the armed forces of the United States and Sri Lanka was held on 8 and 9 August 2016. Sri Lanka Navy hosted the event at Naval Headquarters premises.<\/p>\n

This…. the first ever dialogue between the two armed forces at operational level was EXCLUSIVELY ON BILATERAL DEFENCE COOPERATION AIMED AT DRAWING UP AN AGENDA FOR CONCRETE BILATERAL ENGAGEMENT OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS.<\/p>\n

Listen to this: That agenda will include bilateral training ……..and exercises between members of the armed forces of United States and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

I predicted this two months ago in this column when Lankan services commanders were invited to attend the US 5th Fleet joint marine exercises off the north-east region of the Indian Ocean and exclusively reported on the recent visit of the massive US nuclear armed amphibian to Colombo.<\/p>\n

What this means is that we are already deep into the processes of a definite DEFENCE AGREEMENT WITH THE UNITED STATES.<\/p>\n

What’s most significant was that this was no middle or lower level meeting but one that included US representatives from different formations of the US Pacific Command and was attended by TOP MEN FROM THE LANKA ARMED SERVICES, Ministry of Defence [UNDER President Sirisena] and Office of the Chief of Defence Staff.
\nNow for something that will take most or many of you by surprise.<\/p>\n

Though the government has not denied statements by ministers…off and on…about the land bridge between India and Sri Lanka; it is obviously based on fact for the simple reason that such a bridge is indispensable in a conflict situation in the future because the fact is that while the US, Japan and India have a huge combined firepower they are together still not confident of their deterrent power against China which has a fleet and air force far greater in numerical and strike power than their collective power, especially within a limited area such as the Indian Ocean region.<\/p>\n

The Indo-Lanka Bridge, I predict, will be a reality within the next 10 to fifteen years and prefabricated sections of that bridge might be already in the process of construction.
\nWe were told a couple of months ago that the deal with Pakistan to buy 12 medium range Chinese-built fighter aircraft was good as through, but Jane’s weekly last week said…and you must read between the lines…the Lankan government will be calling global expressions of interest for the supply of 12 similar aircraft. We can be sure that the subtle change is not because the Chinese aircraft are inferior but because the effectively multi-lateral US-Indo-Lanka ties are expanded extremely quickly behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

That US Envoy Atul Keshap went to town about the donation last week of medical supplies for Jaffna raised a significant point.<\/p>\n

It was not US medical men and women who were airlifted all the way from the States for the event but the whole thing, personnel and all, was dubbed the, Operation Pacific Angel.<\/p>\n

The supplies and personnel were flown in by? You guessed it! the US Pacific Command’s Operation Pacific Angel (PACANGEL).<\/p>\n

Approximately 60 US military members, and members of the Sri Lanka Air Force, participated in the week-long programme.<\/p>\n

We are a few feet away from Lanka acquiring major fighter aircraft and our Navy being converted into a force with modern regional maritime combat capability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINSTON\u00a0DE VALLIERE\u00a0Political analyst\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today On the one hand, we find the government, meaning, President Maithripala Sirisena and Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe becoming quite adept at almost with nonchalance brushing off every volley fired by the Opposition, with almost the demeanour of one flicking a blowing away with one puff the speck of dust off one’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}