Uzair talks to Asanga Abeyagoonasekara about the ongoing political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka. Things have gone from bad to worse in the island nation, which is now suffering shortages of essential goods. Asanga explains how things spiralled out of control and the way out.

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is Senior Fellow at the Millennium Project and an international security analyst from Sri Lanka. He has led two government think tanks providing strategic advocacy in Sri Lanka and was the Founding Director General of the National Security Think Tank under the Ministry of Defence in the country. He is the author of Sri Lanka at Crossroads.

Reading Recommendations:

The Long Game by Rush Doshi

On Thermonuclear War by Herman Kahn

The Fateful Triangle by Tanvi Madan

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:50 What’s going on right now?

6:30 Why did the government fail to deal with it?

12:50 Poor decision-making of the government

17:40 China’s debt and strategic trap

23:40 Agency of domestic elites

29:20 Immediate financial needs

40:50 Near-term changes required

51:20 Reading recommendations