Karunarathne, Y. Ananda & Manawadu, L.
Journal of South Asian Studies/Institute of Indian Studies, DOI 10.21587/jsas.2018.24.3.001, 24(3), pp. 1-42
Publication year: 2018

Sri Lanka is one of the South Asian developing countries which
experiencing a spectrum of socio-political and economic
changes after the end of thirty years of civil war in 2009. During the war period approximately from 1983 to 2009, the country has
had to face a range of influences from the outside actors as a
developing country in terms of offensive and defensive
interventions. With heightened the magnitude of consequences
of interventions, the country experienced variegated
impediments in plenty particularly in her development trajectory.
Despite the facts that, on the other hand, the country had been
received some of genuine assistants from many allies in terms of
peace building. In this context, the objective of this work was to
examine the foreign interventions in the Sri Lankan civil war in
terms of internal socioeconomic and geopolitical predicaments.
The geopolitical maps were prepared in ArcGIS 10.3
environment. The examined insights and ideologies were
revealed that the foreign offensive interventions in which
directly or indirectly linked with the peace processes have been
made counterproductive consequences on her both the socioeconomic
and geopolitical context adversely. And also, some of
the acts had helped to lengthen the civil war, on the one hand
making it impasse in the peace negotiation process and on the
other hand making the terrorists’ military prowess strong which
affected the north-south livelihood and the economy continues
unabated. The contemporary development trajectory of the
country has been experiencing some of emerging trends with
the equilibrium of considerable human development level. As a
potential ally, current geopolitical role and geopolitical-codes of
India is very crucial and important in the Sri Lankan development
trajectory.
Keywords: Sri Lankan Civil war, Offensive and Defensive
interventions, Geopolitical Issues, Irredentism,
Diplomatic Pandora’s Box