See, this is example of why Robert Kaplan is so awesome. I’ve read plenty of interesting commentary on the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, but almost all of it focuses on local issues: how did the government’s counterinsurgency campaign work?; how has the Tamil civilian population been affected?; etc. By contrast, Kaplan discusses the conflict in the context of Chinese and American grand strategy, and great power naval competition between these two countries:

The biggest takeaway fact about the Sri Lankan war that’s over now is that the Chinese won. And the Chinese won because over the last few years, because of the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government, the U.S. and other Western countries have cut all military aid. We cut them off just as they were starting to win. The Chinese filled the gaps and kept them flush with weapons and, more importantly, with ammunition, with fire-fighting radar, all kinds of equipment. The assault rifles that Sri Lankan soldiers carry at road blocks throughout Colombo are T-56 Chinese knockoffs of AK-47s. They look like AK-47s, but they’re not.

What are the Chinese getting out of this? They’re building a deep water port and bunkering facility for their warships and merchant fleet in Hambantota, in southern Sri Lanka. And they’re doing all sorts of other building on the island. Now, why did the Chinese want Sri Lanka? Because Sri Lanka is strategically located. The main sea lines of communication between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, and between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It’s part of China’s plan to construct a string of pearls – ports that they don’t own, but which they can use for their warships all across the Indian Ocean.

There’s probably a lesson here for American dealings with other countries that are both strategically important and have questionable human rights records. There’s not much that American do to change the internal policies of, say, Egypt or Indonesia; but there is a lot that America could do, if it acts imprudently, to force these countries into the spheres of influence of other great powers.

(Oh, and read the rest of the interview. There’s plenty of interesting stuff there about Russia, India, Central Asia, and more.)