What is the strategic Centre of Gravity of the Eelam War?

"How defeat is suffered in war while winning battles? This is an important question. Whatever it is according to the yardstick of patriotism, when assessed from the angle of military science this is a question of theoretical as well as practical importance."

It was US infantry Colonel Harry G. Sommers who wrote the most debatable work from the point of view of military science on the strategic policy of the United States relating to the Vietnam War. The work “On strategy: A critical analysis of the Vietnam War” published in 1982 was written as a study for the American Military Academy by the then Lieutenant Colonel Sommers. But even today after two decades Sommers’ work is included in the list of recommended works of study or US marine regiment soldiers. A certain incident contained in it, which is considered as an analytical handbook capable of exerting a long term influence on American military thinking, became a well-known quote constantly quoted by latter day military analysts. It is part of a dialogue between Colonel Sommers and a Vietnam People’s Army Colonel when the South Vietnam capital Saigon falling into the hands of Communist guerrillas was imminent, decisively marking the infamous defeat of the United States.

Colonel Sommers: Remember, you never succeeded in defeating us on the battlefield.

North Vietnamese Colonel: Yes, it can even be so, but just as much it is not relevant.

What is the significance contained in this short piece of dialogue continued to be quoted even after thirty years of the Vietnam War? The importance is this: It opens a way to clarify reasons for the important strategic problem as to how the United States that was victorious in the majority of strategic battles in Vietnam became the vanquished in the overall Vietnam War. If the reply, the Communist Army Colonel gave to Colonel Sommers is elaborated on a little, it would be: “It is true that you won every battle you fought in Vietnam. But that fact is not at all relevant to your becoming the vanquished and our being the victor in the Vietnam War. The reply the Communist Army Officer gave to the American Colonel was actually a number of years earlier had been reminded to American Army Chiefs in picturesque language by Vietnamese Communist Party’s leader Ho Chi Min. What he said was: “For every one of yours killed by me you can kill ten of my fighters. But even within such a circumstance you will get defeated and I will emerge victorious”. The lesson Communist guerrillas taught in Vietnam as to how defeat is suffered in wars winning victories in battles is being reminded to the United States armies by Afghan and Iraqi guerrillas even after thirty years.

Losing the war while winning battles

How defeat is suffered in war while winning battles? This is an important question. Whatever it is according to the yardstick of patriotism, when assessed from the angle of military science this is a question of theoretical as well as practical importance. Colonel Sommers seriously grappled with this question through his work published twenty five years ago. The central issue he raised with regard to military strategy revolves round the contradiction as to why the considerable series of strategic victories the American regiments won in the Vietnam battlefield had a negative effect on the final strategic result of the war. Sommers replies to it by his work. It is because his replies are controversial that it was mentioned that his work was a controversial one at the beginning of this article.

There is a reason why it is so. Even by the time Sommers wrote his work the predominant stream of thought entrenched within the United States military process was fundamentally based on the theoretical teaching of the classical military science. Its conceptual framework is mainly fashioned by the basic military principles and teachings of modern western military science’s leading military thinkers Karl von Clauswitz and Antoine Jomini. Clauswitz as well as Jomini drew their principles basically from the content of the Napoleonic wars that raged based on nation states in Europe contemporary to them. These wars raged based on conventional military formations. Therefore they were considered as raging within asymmetrical forces. But the challenge the American forces faced in Vietnam was an unconventional one. Therefore it was asymmetrical. A main

reason why Colonel Sommers’ reply was controversial was the contradiction that lay between the non-conventional reality he experienced in Vietnam and is conventional analytical framework. However, when inquiring about the final strategic result of the Vietnam War a certain extremely important military concept is found within the classical western military scientific teachings utilised by Colonel Sommers. That is the concept of centre of gravity advanced by Clauswitz.

Centre of Gravity of War

It is worthwhile to inquire as to what the basic essence of Clauswitz’s military concept Centre of Gravity (Schwerpunkt). This can be substituted in a war. The whole system breaks down when this centre of gravity is attacked hard and decisively. In a conventional war the Centre of Gravity of the opposing side is determined by taking, the circumstances and conditions peculiar to each war into consideration. It can be the military build up of the opposing party. If not it can be the administrative and economic infrastructure. If not it can be the individual factors providing military or political leadership, population and urban areas.

For instance it was the British urban systems that Hitler thought to be the main centre of gravity of Britain, during the Second World War. He expected that Britain could be made to surrender by continuous and massive air raids targeting them. In the first Gulf War it was Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his republican guard, nuclear, chemical and biological military capabilities of Iraq that United States Central Command Operations Commander General Norman Swashkoft considered as the Centres of Gravity of the Iraq War. But his joint Air Force Commander General Charles Homer thought that 12 factors including the Iraqi national leadership, railways system, airport and harbours should be considered as Centres of Gravity. Finally what was targeted in the ‘Operation Desert Storm’ were a few of these selected at random.

These apply to wars between conventional forces. But it is entirely different in the case of wars between asymmetrical forces. This is especially so in guerrilla warfare. In a war of national liberation it lies in the collective political will with regard to national freedom against the invading force. In simple terms, in a guerrilla war it is the collective that is the Centre of Gravity. This cannot be destroyed by air raids. It cannot be rendered inactive by capturing cities and land. What is needed is a political approach.

Centre of Gravity of the Eelam war

At least thirty years have been taken by the Eelam war to date. That is in terms of an armed struggle. But it is a logical development of the peaceful unarmed political struggle of the Tamil people that existed prior to it. This logical nexus was not negated by the assassination of Amirthalingam by Prabhakaran. It cannot be vanquished by bullets. The collective political will cannot be destroyed by capturing Jaffna. The de-merger of the North and the East, the Muttur and the Sampur victories have actually intensified the fear of the Tamil people of the destruction of their collective national existence. It is this political will that is disclosed by the letter dated December 26th last year sent by V. Ananda Sangaree, who according to the majority of the Sinhala people in the South is anti-Tiger, to the President, with regard to the de-merger of the North and East. It is the same collective aspiration that the press communiqué issued on December 25th last signed by Karuna Ammans political ally Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front President G. Gnanasekaram. It is this same political aspiration that is endorsed by the document ‘Programme for a Practical Solution’ issued on January 01^st 2007 by the Eelam People’s Democratic Party of Douglas Devananda whom the majority of the Sinhala people consider to be a genuine representation of the democratic political stream opposed to Prabhakaran.

It is by taking these realities into consideration that the strategic consequences of the strategic victories the government forces won from Sampur to Vakarai should be assessed. Merely reading through the concise report UTHR-Briefing No. 06 of the University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) who are considered to hold anti-Tiger views or the article titled ‘The continuing agony of the Eastern Tamil civilians’ on the Tamilweek Website would suffice for such an assessment.

Is there a decisive victory in a guerrilla war?

In a war between conventional and guerrilla armed formations, victory and defeat cannot be assessed by a common system of measurement. According to the military expert Victor Davis Hanson, 'militarily and culturally asymmetrical belligerents are apt to disagree on the definition, feasibility and consequences of so called decisive victory'. When eminent British military historian Jeremy Black wrote 'war has multiple contexts' he was also crystallizing the above ideas. Decisive victory is a concept of a conventional army. According to Mao 'there is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle'.

On 2 January 2007, Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, met with the Prelate of the Asgiriya Chapter in Kandy. Fonseka stated that “after eradicating the Tigers from the East, full strength will be used to liberate the North.” In line with the calculations of the army chief, the defence columnist of the Daily Mirror argued “the military top brass therefore is convinced that it would be able to bring the LTTE down to its knees on all counts if the forces can maintain the present military momentum till July this year.” The defence analyst went on to say “there is anticipation that there will be a crucial battle in the June-July period in the North most probably in Muhamalai once again.”

There is a growing expectation, even a certainty, expressed in southern political circles and by the Colombo media, that there will be a decisive victory for the Sri Lankan armed forces in the near future. A popular myth is being created among the ordinary Sinhala masses that the final battle, which will exterminate the Tigers, is just round the corner. The daily news reports from the eastern front feed the belief that the three-decade long conflict can be solved by military means.

Enthusiasm created by recently achieved tactical victories is obliterating the more important question of an overall strategic victory in the Eelam War. According to Mao Tse Tung, “… the task of the science of strategy is to study the laws for directing a war that govern a war situation as a whole.” Strategic brilliance is invariably a measure of correctly combining military power with sound political policies. The three-decade long Eelam wars have exposed the inability of successive governments’ military planners to realise this point. One has to turn to history in order to understand that there are no military shortcuts to solve deep-seated political conflicts.

Eelam War I

J. R. Jayewardene, emerging victorious in the 1977 election and embracing the all-powerful office of the presidency one year later, appointed Brigadier Tissa Weeratunga, the then chief of staff of the Sri Lankan army, as overall commander of the security forces in the administrative district of Jaffna on 11 July 1979. On the 14 July, Jayewardene issued him with a special dispensation: “It will be your duty to eliminate in accordance with the laws of the land the menace of terrorism in all its forms from the island and more specially, from the Jaffna district. I will place at your disposal all resources of the state. I earnestly request all law-abiding citizens to give their cooperation to you. This task has to be performed by you and completed before the 31 December 1979.” (Sri Lanka: Witness to History - S. Sivanayagam).

Jayewardene believed that threat posed by the Tamil youth to the state’s monopoly in using armed force could be crushed within six months. After Weeratunga duly declared that the task had been accomplished by 31 December, Jayewardene appointed him to the post of Sri Lanka’s high commissioner in Canada.

But seven years after the professed ‘eradication’ of youth militancy, Jayewardene had a different story to tell. In an interview with the pre-eminent Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar, appearing in the London Times of 27 January 1986, Jayewardene said: “I shall have a military solution to what I believe is a military problem… I am winning this war. I have come to realise that only success matters. I do not care what New Delhi, London or any other country says. How quickly and effectively I can exterminate the militants is the crux of the problem and I am on the point of achieving this…. My army is better equipped and better trained.”

Then, as today, it was believed a final battle to wipe out the Tigers was imminent. But, three years after he made this statement, Jayewardene felt obliged to loosen his iron grip. The LTTE demonstrated that strategic success is a matter of correctly combining military power with politics. They intensified the crisis that Jayewardene was facing by bringing the Indian factor into the equation. Giving the responsibility to India to tame the very guerrilla organisation it had once succoured, Jayewardene retreated to Ward Place. The Tamil armed group, which Weeratunga had claimed he had eliminated within six months, went on to encircle the fourth largest army in the world to inflict a humiliating defeat on the flat terrain of the North and East of the island.

It is important to recognise that the Indian army, which had achieved tactical victories forcing the LTTE to resort to guerrilla warfare, had to, in the end, suffer a strategic defeat of historic proportions. The Tigers demonstrated their ability to combine military power with political acumen and turn Sri Lanka’s North and East into India’s Vietnam, costing 1845 Indian soldiers, while entering in to an agreement with the Colombo government to neutralise the Indian factor.

Lieutenant General Sardeshpande, the principal Indian military commander in the Jaffna Peninsula was to state in 1992, “Our (IPKF) unit and formation commanders too came under the mental hypnosis of the LTTE. They would graphically explain how well entrenched the LTTE was in the midst of the people, how ungrateful people were to us, how elusive the LTTE was, how perfect it was in the midst of the people and in its actions, how effective was its grip over the public and so on – virtually admitting that it was an impossible task and that all our endeavours were pointless.” (Assignment Jaffna, p.152)

Eelam War II

As expected, the contradictions between the LTTE and the Colombo government sharpened with the departure of the Indian army. The Premadasa Government committed itself to the second Eelam War during a period of triumphalist euphoria, which followed the military crushing the JVP uprising in the South. Soon after war resumed, the armed forces, with a series of rapid military manoeuvres, were able to reduce the LTTE’s military capability to one of undertaking only limited guerrilla offensives. The Sri Lankan armed forces with considerable experience in positional warfare were able to win many of the tactical battles against the Tigers. As at present, there was much expectation that the final victory against the LTTE was imminent.

Addressing Sri Lanka’s parliament on the 18 June 1990, the then Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne did not mince words when he said “I am going all out for the LTTE. I never do anything in half measures. I challenge Mr. Prabhakaran to come out in the open. He wants my head. I want his… Now the LTTE is running without their shoes... very soon their pants will go too. The IPKF got rid of the hardcore elements, what is left is the baby brigade of young boys and girls. They will wet their pants when they meet my armed forces. I finished the JVP. I will finish the LTTE.”

In February 1990, at a press conference, the minister emphasised the military option further: “We can’t fight a war the way you want us to fight. You want us to extend the war for the next 10 years – saying ‘civilians, civilians.’ I am not prepared to fight a war for 10 years. My time frame is my time frame…”

But history is written differently. It was Wijeratne, who swore to hunt down the LTTE that was eventually hunted down. On 2 March 1991 he was assassinated near the Police Field Force headquarters in Colombo. Keen to capitalise on their successful use of asymmetrical warfare, the Tigers intensified their onslaught: they assassinated the navy commander, Vice Admiral Clancy Fernando in the capital in November 1992. Within six months, the supreme commander of the armed forces, President R. Premadasa too, fell victim to a suicide attack.

The LTTE, which had retreated during the first round of Eelam War II, succeeded in entangling the Sri Lankan armed forces in a protracted war. Developing sufficient conventional military capability within one year, the Tigers were able to turn tables on army during its Yal Devi offensive in October 1993. Swift on its heels, on the 11 November, the LTTE stormed and overran strategically important Pooneryn –Nagatheevanthurai military complex, which was situated on the southern shore of the Jaffna Lagoon. This offensive, which cost over 500 Sri Lankan soldier lives, was instrumental in bringing down the UNP government within one year.

Eelam War III

In April 1995, soon after Eelam War III opened, there was unprecedented expectation of a decisive military victory against the rebels. Within eight months Jaffna had been captured by government forces. On 5 December, two months after completing the first phase of Operation Riviresa, (which started on 17 October 1995), the lion flag was fluttering over the Jaffna Fort. The LTTE left the Jaffna Peninsula, which many regarded as the heartland of Tamil resistance, and retreated to the Vanni mainland. Marking the end of three phases of fighting, Thenmaradtchchi too came under the control of the government forces in February 1996.

But within five months, on 18 July, the LTTE overran Mullaitivu army camp, in a matter eight hours by launching a surprise attack codenamed Unceasing Waves-I. The loss of Mullaitivu made land supply routes to the newly captured Jaffna peninsula vulnerable. To neutralise this setback, the government’s armed forces advanced southwards from their military complex at Elephant Pass and started operation Sathjaya on 26 July the same year. By 30 September Kilinochchi fell into government control.

Once again the expectations were fuelled in the south that the annihilation of the LTTE was at hand. Strengthening the expectations for a final victory, a new offensive – Jayasikurui – was launched on 3 May 1997 with the same goal – constructing an overland supply route to the Jaffna Peninsula. The then deputy defence minister, General Anuruddha Ratwatte, gave an assurance that on the 4 February 1998, the day marking the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence, Jaffna would be linked to the south. On 11 December 1997, at a dinner hosted at his Stanmore Crescent residence for the Sri Lanka Foreign Correspondents’ Association, Ratwatte declared “at any cost we have to re-unify the country. Those who scoff at our plans are in for a shock. I will meet Prabhakaran and shake hands with him, but only after we win and he is defeated. We can teach other armies a thing or two about guerrilla warfare.” (Sunday Times - 14 December 1997)

He was absolutely right. In fact, Operation Jayasikurui provided material for many countries to learn important lessons about guerrilla warfare. In September 1998, as the government forces advanced to link Vavunia to Kilinochchi by capturing Puliyamkulam, Kanakarayankulam and Mankulam, the Tigers swiftly overran the garrison town of Kilinochchi by launching Operation Unceasing Waves II.

Meanwhile, as the government forces advanced southward, the LTTE fell back until Mankulam, allowing the army to enter its territory and thereby stretch itself thin on the ground. Then in a lightening assault – Unceasing Waves III – the LTTE captured Oddusuddan military complex on 5 December. The army’s two-year long operation to link the Jaffna with the south and secure overland supply to the Peninsula was completely reversed in a matter of four days. On 3 November, Nedunkerni fell; by the 6 November the army lost control beyond Kaddumurippu, Mankulam, Kanakarayankulam and Pulliyankulam. Within the next four months the massive Paranthan-Elephant Pass military complex to the north of Killinochchi too was to fall into LTTE control.

So, is a decisive victory imminent today?

What I have outlined above is a historical overview vital to understand recent events in the East. In a war between conventional and guerrilla armed formations, victory and defeat cannot be assessed by using conventional benchmarks. According to the military expert Victor Davis Hanson, “militarily and culturally asymmetrical belligerents are apt to disagree on the definition, feasibility and consequences of so-called decisive victory.” When British military historian Jeremy Black says “war has multiple contexts” he is crystallising the above ideas.

Decisive victory is a concept of a conventional army. According to Mao “there is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle.” Based on victories achieved in the recent tactical battles in the East, there is no doubt that top brass of the government’s armed forces are confident that they will gain total control of the East in February and begin operations to liberate the North in June. But setting a time frame to wipe out a politico-military movement engaged in guerrilla warfare is to give precedence to tactical victories over strategic foresight. It is to ignore the vital connection between military power and political incisiveness: J. R. Jayewardene, Ranjan Wijeratne and Anuruddha Ratwatte traversed the same path and came to a sorry end.