{"id":98272,"date":"2020-01-25T17:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T00:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98272"},"modified":"2020-01-25T17:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T00:58:00","slug":"how-india-turned-lanka-into-an-expendable-battleground-in-a-clash-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/25\/how-india-turned-lanka-into-an-expendable-battleground-in-a-clash-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"How India Turned Lanka into an Expendable Battleground in a Clash with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

A battle fought in\nown country will bring untold sufferings to own population making the war\nunpopular. However, a war fought over another country saves own population and\nthe battlefield can be devastated with any weapon that is available. This has\nbeen the case with many proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen,\netc. that devastated the unfortunate target country. India has turned Lanka\ninto its battlefield in a clash with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2020 India\npositioned BrahMos missile armed Su-30 fighter jets in a Tamil Nadu air base in\nThanjavur. It is a highly offensive move aimed at destroying Chinese fishing,\ncargo and military vessels if war breaks out. Su-30 jets are of Russian origin\nthat are highly agile attack aircraft with an average unfueled range of around\n2,000km. BrahMos missile which is a Russian-Indian collaboration is world\u2019s\nfastest cruise missile. Its air launched version has a range of 400km. One way\nrange of the plane and the total range of the missile puts 1,400km from their base.\nIn other words the weapons combination can strike anywhere within a radius of\n1,400km from Thanjavur.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planes and\nmissiles are not for the targeting of India\u2019s coastal areas which are defended\nby cheaper and far more devastating coastal defence systems. Visakhapatnam air\nforce and naval base is for the targeting of any Chinese vessels in the upper\nparts of Bay of Bengal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Thanjavur base is to target Chinese vessels from Sri Lanka\u2019s\nExclusive Economic Zone!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s Exclusive\nEconomic Zone extends 370km from coast. With a vertical stretch of 417km, the\noutermost point of Lanka\u2019s EEZ is 1,200km from Thajavur. This puts the entire\nLankan EEZ within the striking distance of the new Indian deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other sea areas\nthe attack radius extend are either not used by any Chinese vessels or come\nunder dedicated and better Indian defences. In short, India will destroy\nChinese vessels and suffer counter attacks within the territory and the EEZ of\nSri Lanka. As a result Sri Lanka is in the crosshairs of both powers in a\nconfrontation. Since such a clash will be fought outside the territory of both\nIndia and China, they will be more willing to pick a fight. It has no\ndevastation on their populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to\nmassive collateral damage, Sri Lanka will also suffer the wrath of China and a\npossible war crimes charge too as its territory and the EEZ are used to launch\nattacks on Chinese interests. China will probably retaliate which will once\nagain destroy matter within Sri Lanka\u2019s territory and EEZ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make matters\nworse, Sri Lanka recently agreed with India to share maritime surveillance\ninformation with India for $50 million. India uses Sri Lanka not only to attack\nChinese vessels but also to spy on them. These recent deals with India are on\ntop of already existing anti-China deals Lanka has with USA (ACSA since 2007\nand SOFA since 1995). Sri Lanka always allowed and continues to allow overfly\nfor US and Indian military planes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step by step, Sri\nLanka has moved too far away from its non-aligned and neutrality position. Now\nit is a military outpost of USA and India over which devastating battles will\nbe fought with China. All three players will generously use firepower as their\npopulations are safe hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. The non-aligned,\nmiddle path and neutrality policies as practiced by Colombo have turned Lanka\ninto the proverbial kindhearted woman who is pregnant every day. And the\npolitical blame game continues in the backdrop of the new Great Game. Who\nreally cares for Lanka when Lankans themselves don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara A battle fought in own country will bring untold sufferings to own population making the war unpopular. However, a war fought over another country saves own population and the battlefield can be devastated with any weapon that is available. This has been the case with many proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98272","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=98272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}