Major General (Rtd.) Dipankar Banerjee delivers public lecture at INSSSL

Major General (Rtd.) Dipankar Banerjee was the speaker at a public lecture hosted by the Institute of National Security Studies on 5 April 2017. 

Given the speaker’s immense experience in the subject of defence and security, he focused on the very important topic of ‘National Security: Changing Times, Shifting Paradigms’. INSSSL Director General Asanga Abeyagoonasekera introduced the speaker as a retired officer of the Indian Army with over 27 years of involvement with strategic planning at the national level. He was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi from 1987-1990 and later its Deputy Director from 1992-1996. Subsequently, he was the founder and Co-Director of the autonomous think tank the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi from 1996-1999. From May 1999-2002 he was the Executive Director of the Colombo-based South Asian think tank, the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies. He next spent a year as a Jennings Randolph Fellow at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, DC before reverting to being the Director and Head of the IPCS. During this period IPCS emerged as a leading think tank on strategic and disarmament issues in all of Asia.

The speaker’s association with Sri Lanka, he said, goes back 20 years to 1997, which was the 10th anniversary of the Rajiv Gandhi-J.R. Jayewardene Accord. He credited Sri Lanka with being the only country to attain victory over violent terrorism and the most developed country in South Asia in terms of human development indices and many other factors in measuring security.  However, he noted that in the new era there are new challenges that are emerging. The primary focus of his lecture was how to deal with these challenges. South Asia and Sri Lanka in particular, being located in an area of growing geo-strategic contestations, was shown as a crucial factor when conflicts, especially in Asia, are moving away from land-based conflicts to oceanic conflicts and attention and development will be entered around oceans in Asia. The situation will be in conditions of global and regional ethno-religious strife. Here, he drew parallels with Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’ as that factor can be seen playing out in much of Asia with different ideologies between governments that have created conflict with each other. It is to be considered that these are times of international socioeconomic turbulence and possible global protectionism which is manifest in the ‘Trump-era’ as he calls it. 

He pointed out that this phenomena might also be seen in greater parts of Europe in the time to come. The crucial meeting between President Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping, he said, would shape the nature of the world order in the immediate future. It is noteworthy that these occurrences take place in times of greater global interdependence. Therefore, Sri Lanka, although with its island status and being secured by the seas around it, cannot remain removed from the larger global dimensions of conflict in a rapidly changing global environment.

In this backdrop emerges what he calls the “new concepts of security”. The current world order which was based essentially on the Westphalian treaty in the 17th century has now evolved where countries have decided to lay out the parameters of national sovereignty and how states interact with each other. Therefore, the conflicts more recently have been of a different nature. He further stated that there is now a distinct shift from territorial security to the economic security of individuals and citizens of a nation, moving from physical security to ideals of human security. 

The goal of a nation today is not just to secure its territory but to promote economic wellbeing and further the economic interests of the State. Therefore security is becoming more comprehensive, cooperative with emphasis on the human factor, which is a distinct shift which has evolved from nation states to regional organisations and a shared sovereignty.

As regards ‘Sri Lanka and challenges to its national security’, Gen. Banerjee pointed out that the primary challenge would be to ensure peace and security within the nation. Thus, ensuring development and prosperity; trade and economic growth; high-quality education; acquiring modern day skills and improved standards of living are present-day challenges facing Sri Lanka and any other nation state. 

In this context, he noted the importance of considering emerging global challenges such as great power contestations, the inward-looking isolationist policies of the West, the rise of Asian giants and Islamic radicalisation which could well lead to a clash of civilisations that could fundamentally alter the security of nation states and finally, environmental issues. 

As such, the current global security landscape is one which has evolved from traditional military challenges to that of hybrid threats. The speaker further highlighted a group of ‘Emerging strategic challenges’. Today, he says wars are being fought in six dimensions as compared to the three dimensions of land, sea, air in conventional warfare. The new and considerably more severe spheres being the dimensions of space with satellites that play a vital role not just in communication but in the deployment and direction of weapons, cyber warfare capabilities which can inflict physical violence to interfere with important systems which govern and control systems. 

The unchartered territory deep under the ocean was also shown as a possible sphere for future warfare. Robotics, computers, artificial intelligence and mass casualty weapons such as bio and chemical are also possible future security challenges to a nation state. These, he pointed out, will require different leadership strategies in governance as the aim of current warfare is to undermine the socioeconomic resilience of a hostile nation.

Several senior members of the tri-forces, academia and media were among those present at the discussion.