Why we should be looking at Total Defense?

Most of the successful small nations in the world, may it be Singapore, Finland, Estonia, Taiwan or even Ukraine has one thing is common. They have thought about their security, national security before anything else. They have put national defense front and center even before economic policy because they understand the one thing we seem to not: A nations ability to protect it sovereignty in both physical, digital and most importantly cognitive domains is the key to its progress in all other domains.

A nation that cannot defend its territory, secure its cyber domain, or protect its people from manipulation is a nation destined to fail. In the modern era, sovereignty depends as much on resilience against cognitive threats as it does on the defense of physical or digital borders.

As a nation, we have failed to accord national security the prominence it deserves. Without the stability and strategic depth to safeguard it, every other national ambition—economic, political, or social—rests on mercy of global powers in this competitive world.

Sri Lanka today has no long term strategic thinking when it comes to national security, nor does it think of national security beyond the occasional gifts from the U.S. or China or India. Neither the country nor its leaders understand what national security is. National Security is not the standing armies or navies or how much weapons we have. It is also not the safety of the citizen against crime or natural disasters.

National Security — in its simplest understanding — is the coordinated and strategic employment of all instruments of national power to safeguard and advance a nation's interests.

It is not the domain of the nations’ military nor of its law enforcement. It is the domain of everything and of everyone.

Especially for smaller countries, so called small or weak states it is of paramount importance that they have an understanding and preferably sound policy for them to survive and it is evident when you look at the above mentioned countries.

All of them — facing different geopolitical aggressors — has managed to maintain and progress their own interests and agenda because they have shown remarkable resilience and civic responsibility. What most of them term “whole-of-society” approach to national security.