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New arithmetic of conflict: How the drone revolution is inverting economics of war

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2 days ago

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Iranian drone

The contemporary global landscape is currently defined by two distinct but interconnected theaters of conflict that are fundamentally reshaping the future of military engagement, as noted by political analyst Fareed Zakaria. This shifts the advantage toward smaller states, or even non-state actors, who do not need to defeat a superpower in direct confrontation; they only need to sustain a constant level of low-cost harassment. In the Middle East, the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran have moved beyond traditional brinkmanship into a high-stakes confrontation centred on the Strait of Hormuz and regional infrastructure. This direction is characterised by Iran’s sophisticated use of asymmetric ‘precise mass’ to challenge American naval and technological superiority, forcing a re-evaluation of how a superpower maintains deterrence against a revolutionary regime that views its own hardware as expendable. This theatre serves as a primary example of how a medium-sized power can utilise low-cost, high-volume technology to neutralize the traditional advantages of a much wealthier adversary, potentially driving the region toward a dangerous nuclear threshold as conventional red lines are blurred.

Simultaneously, the war between Ukraine and Russia has become the world’s preeminent laboratory for the digital transformation of the battlefield. The direction of this conflict has shifted from a 20th-century war of attrition into a 21st-century war of algorithms, where the most critical ammunition is no longer just artillery shells, but data and software. Ukraine’s rapid adaptation—turning commercial drones into precision interceptors and using AI to process millions of combat images—has created a template for modern survival against a larger industrial power. Together, these two conflicts signal a global transition where the ‘exquisite’ military models of the past are being dismantled by the ‘new arithmetic’ of mass-produced precision. This essay examines how the inversion of war economics in these regions is ensuring that future supremacy will not belong to those with the most expensive platforms, but to those who can master the integration of industrial-scale with near-real-time software intelligence.

Fundamental departure

The ‘New Arithmetic of Conflict’ represents a fundamental departure from the 20th-century military paradigm, shifting the focus from high-cost, high-performance ‘exquisite’ systems to the power of ‘precise mass.’ For the last 50 years, military supremacy—particularly for the United States and its allies—has been defined by technologically superior platforms, such as the F-35 fighter jet or the Tomahawk cruise missile. While these systems are undeniably magnificent in their capabilities, they are also incredibly costly and irreplaceable in the short term. Because they take years to design and manufacture, losing even a handful in active combat is strategically damaging and painful for a modern military. This old model relied on a limited number of high-end assets that were slow to produce and even slower to replace, creating a vulnerability that smaller, more agile adversaries have now begun to exploit.

This traditional economic model is being turned upside down by the rise of cheap, commercial-off-the-shelf technology that achieves results previously reserved for superpower budgets. The emergence of the Shahed-type drone, which costs approximately $35,000, illustrates this shift perfectly. Unlike a $2 million cruise missile, these ‘one-way’ drones are built from common parts and can be launched in massive swarms. This creates a state of ‘precise mass,’ where the sheer volume of incoming, low-cost threats can overwhelm even the most sophisticated and expensive defence systems. The attacker no longer needs a massive industrial base to strike with precision; they only need the ability to scale simple, autonomous hardware.

Perhaps the most radical aspect of this inversion is the ‘cost-exchange ratio’ between attack and defence. In the past, an attacker generally had to spend more to destroy a target than a defender spent to protect it. Today, the arithmetic favours the attacker by an order of magnitude. To intercept a single $35,000 drone, a defender may be forced to fire a Patriot interceptor missile that costs roughly $4 million. This means the defender is spending over 100 times more than the attacker just to maintain the status quo. This economic reality suggests that a wealthier nation can effectively be ‘bankrupted’ or depleted of its ammunition reserves by a much smaller state or even a non-state actor using constant, low-cost harassment.

Primary laboratory

Ukraine has served as the primary laboratory for this new era of warfare, demonstrating that the real value in modern conflict is shifting from hardware to software and data. Ukrainian forces are producing stinging interceptor drones for as little as $2,000, capable of taking down far more expensive hardware. More importantly, they are treating battlefield data as a strategic asset, using millions of annotated images from combat flights to train drone AI. This creates a cycle of rapid wartime adaptation where lessons from the battlefield are turned into mass production in days rather than years. Ultimately, the winner of future conflicts may not be the nation with the finest individual platforms, but the one that can combine a small number of ‘exquisite’ weapons with a vast, intelligent, and cheaply networked mass of autonomous systems.

Building on the distinction between the ‘exquisite’ and the ‘expendable,’ the shift in military doctrine reflects a move away from the post-Cold War reliance on a small number of ultra-sophisticated assets toward a more resilient, high-volume architecture. For decades, Western military superiority was predicated on having the most advanced technology in the sky or on the sea, but the sheer cost and complexity of these systems have created a ‘fragility of excellence.’ When a single stealth fighter costs over $100 million, its loss is not merely a tactical setback but a national news event and a significant blow to the overall fleet’s readiness. This creates a psychological and strategic ‘risk aversion,’ where commanders may hesitate to deploy their most capable assets in high-threat environments for fear of losing an irreplaceable piece of national infrastructure.

Furthermore, the industrial reality of ‘exquisite’ systems is that they are built on highly specialised, low-volume production lines. In a high-intensity conflict, the rate of attrition—the speed at which equipment is destroyed—can quickly outpace the capacity of a modern industrial base to replace it. If a nation can only produce a few dozen advanced interceptors a year but loses hundreds of drones or missiles in a single week of combat, the mathematical deficit becomes insurmountable. This bottleneck has forced a re-evaluation of what constitutes a ‘good’ platform; the priority is shifting toward systems that are ‘good enough’ to be effective but cheap enough to be lost without compromising the mission or the budget.

In contrast to these legacy systems, the ‘expendable’ model treats hardware as a consumable resource, much like ammunition. By utilising modular designs and civilian-grade components, nations can mass-produce thousands of autonomous units that are inherently ‘attrition-tolerant.’ This does not mean the end of high-end technology, but rather its repositioning. Instead of a single $100 million jet trying to do everything, the future likely involves a ‘high-low’ mix where a few exquisite platforms act as command-and-control hubs, orchestrating vast swarms of cheap, expendable drones. This evolution ensures that even if the enemy successfully targets dozens of units, the collective network remains functional, shifting the strategic advantage back to the side that can sustain the fight through industrial scale and digital adaptability.

Concept of ‘precise mass’

The concept of ‘precise mass’ represents a strategic pivot where quantity possesses a quality of its own, enabled by the democratization of high-end technology. Historically, precision was a luxury available only to the world’s most advanced militaries, requiring specialised Guidance Systems and satellite constellations. Today, the ‘New Arithmetic’ flips this model by integrating commercial-off-the-shelf components—such as GPS chips found in smartphones and engines from hobbyist aircraft—into lethal, autonomous platforms.

This shift allows smaller states and non-state actors to achieve tactical objectives that once required a superpower’s budget, effectively levelling the playing field through the clever application of low-cost innovation.

The ‘Shahed Model’ serves as the primary case study for this transformation. By producing ‘one-way’ suicide drones for approximately $35,000 each, Iran has created a weapon that is essentially a flying piece of ammunition.

Because these drones are built from common, globally available parts, they are insulated from many traditional supply chain disruptions and can be manufactured at an industrial scale that far outpaces sophisticated cruise missiles. This approach prioritises ‘good enough’ technology—systems that are sufficiently accurate to hit a target but inexpensive enough to be deployed in staggering numbers without financial second-guessing.

The true power of this model is realised through ‘swarm tactics,’ which weaponise the mathematical limitations of modern air defences. When a country launches dozens or even hundreds of these low-cost drones simultaneously, it forces the defender into a ‘saturation’ crisis. Even the most advanced missile defence systems have a limited number of interceptors and can only track a finite number of targets at once. By flooding the airspace with cheap decoys and suicide drones, an attacker can ensure that while many units are shot down, a sufficient percentage will inevitably leak through to strike their targets. This creates a state of ‘precise mass,’ where volume becomes the ultimate delivery mechanism for precision, rendering traditional, high-cost defence umbrellas increasingly obsolete.

This evolution signifies that the era of the ‘silver bullet’—the single, perfect weapon—is giving way to the era of the ‘steel rain.’ In this new environment, the strategic advantage shifts to the side that can manage the highest rate of ‘precise attrition.’ Success is no longer measured by the technical sophistication of a single strike, but by the ability to sustain a continuous, overwhelming flow of autonomous threats that exhaust the enemy’s resources, patience, and defensive capacity.

‘Bankruptcy of the Defence’

The ‘Bankruptcy of the Defence’ represents a critical failure in the modern military-industrial complex’s ability to counter asymmetric threats. In the 20th century, the financial burden of warfare typically fell on the aggressor, who had to invest in expensive bombers or long-range missiles to penetrate a nation’s borders. Today, that economic gravity has shifted entirely. The most radical part of this inversion is the ‘cost-exchange ratio,’ a mathematical reality that turns defensive success into a financial liability. When a defender successfully intercepts a threat, they are often winning the tactical battle while simultaneously losing the economic war.

This disparity is most visible in what can be called the ‘$4 Million Solution.’ In modern conflict zones, we regularly see sophisticated air defence batteries—designed to intercept high-altitude ballistic missiles—being forced to engage low-speed, ‘suicide’ drones. Using a $4 million Patriot interceptor to neutralise a $35,000 Shahed-type drone is an unsustainable strategy. Even if the defence achieves a 100% intercept rate, the attacker is essentially ‘trading up’ in value at a staggering scale. The defender is forced to expend a finite, high-cost resource to eliminate a nearly infinite, low-cost nuisance, creating a logistical bottleneck where the supply of interceptors can never meet the demand of the swarm.

This ‘Losing Game’ fundamentally alters the grand strategy of global powers. Mathematically, when a defender is spending over 100 times more than the attacker per engagement, they are participating in a process of rapid financial and material depletion. As Fareed Zakaria notes, this ‘new arithmetic’ shifts the advantage toward smaller states, insurgent groups, or even criminal organisations. These actors do not need to defeat a superpower’s navy or air force in a direct confrontation; they only need to sustain a constant level of low-cost harassment. Over time, the cost of maintaining a ‘perfect’ defense becomes so high that it can effectively bankrupt a wealthier opponent or force them to withdraw from a region simply because the price of protection has become greater than the value of the presence.

Interceptors alone won’t do

Ultimately, this economic inversion suggests that the future of defence cannot rely on ‘exquisite’ interceptors alone. The current model is built on a scarcity of precision, but in an era where precision is mass-produced, the defense must find a way to make interception as cheap as the intrusion. Until a nation can field directed-energy weapons or low-cost kinetic interceptors that match the $35,000 price point of the threat, they remain trapped in a defensive paradigm that is both mathematically flawed and strategically exhausting.

The final piece of this military evolution is the emergence of Ukraine as the ‘Great Laboratory’ of modern warfare, where necessity has birthed a model of adaptation that operates at wartime speed. This environment has transformed the country from a passive recipient of aid into a sovereign architect of a new kind of combat. Central to this transformation is the development of the ‘STING’ interceptor drone. Produced by groups like Wild Hornets for approximately $2,000, these drones can reach speeds of 280 km/h—fast enough to chase down and destroy the lumbering Shahed drones that have plagued Ukrainian infrastructure. By mid-2025, these low-cost predators had already downed over 3,000 enemy targets, proving that a $2,000 solution could reliably neutralize a threat costing tens of thousands, further tilting the economic scales in favor of the agile defender.

However, the most significant output of this laboratory is not the hardware itself, but the data it generates. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has noted that Ukraine now possesses a unique array of battlefield data that is unmatched anywhere in the world, including millions of annotated images gathered during tens of thousands of combat flights. In a historic move, Ukraine has begun opening access to this ‘digital ammunition’ through a dedicated AI platform. This allows international partners and defense firms to train their algorithms on real-world combat footage—spanning everything from electronic warfare interference to the movements of camouflaged ‘turtle tanks’—bridging the ‘sim-to-real’ gap that often causes sophisticated Western drones to fail in unpredictable, messy environments.

‘Software-defined’ battlefield

This data-centric approach has led to a ‘software-defined’ battlefield where the loop between a lesson learned, and a technical update is measured in days. Ukraine is now moving toward a procurement model where AI-driven analytics, rather than manual requests, determine which systems are purchased based on their real-world effectiveness. By treating every drone sortie as a data point in a broader matrix, the Ukrainian military is effectively closing the loop on procurement and employment, ensuring that only the most effective, attrition-tolerant technologies reach the front. This institutionalisation of failure analysis into the next generation of software means that the ‘Made in Ukraine’ badge has become a global gold standard for battle-proven, autonomous technology.

Ultimately, the implications of this laboratory stretch far beyond the current conflict. As human judgment gradually gives way to computer algorithms for target detection and navigation, the war’s most valuable legacy may be the creation of the world’s first ‘algorithmic’ military. The transition from industrial mass to algorithmic precision suggests that the countries that prevail in the future will not be those with the largest stockpiles of stagnant hardware, but those that can own and manage the ‘data polygons’ necessary to refine their autonomous systems in near-real time. Ukraine is no longer just fighting a war; it is hosting the debut of a future where data is the ultimate force multiplier.

The inversion of war economics signifies a fundamental shift where industrial capacity and software integration have eclipsed the traditional pursuit of ‘technological exquisiteness’ as the primary metrics of military power. For decades, the measure of a superpower was its ability to field a small number of nearly invulnerable, multi-million-dollar platforms. However, in the modern landscape, these ‘exquisite’ systems are increasingly vulnerable to ‘precise mass’—vast swarms of low-cost, autonomous drones that can be produced at a rate of thousands per day. This transition means that the ‘physical platform’ is becoming a commodity, while the true competitive advantage lies in the ‘compute foundation’ and ‘software-defined’ capabilities that allow these systems to be networked and updated in real-time. Consequently, the victor in future conflicts will not necessarily be the nation with the most expensive fighter jet, but the one that can maintain a resilient, high-volume industrial base capable of sustaining an ‘attrition-tolerant’ force that evolves faster than an adversary can target it.

Double-edged sword for smaller nations

For smaller nations like Sri Lanka, the arrival of this new military era offers a double-edged sword of strategic opportunity and profound vulnerability. Traditionally, small states were sidelined in the global arms race due to the prohibitive costs of ‘exquisite’ platforms like advanced fighter jets or missile destroyers, which often consumed unsustainable portions of a national budget. However, the shift toward ‘precise mass’ means that countries with limited resources can now develop significant deterrent capabilities through the localised production of low-cost, high-impact autonomous systems. By investing in software-defined defences and domestic drone manufacturing, a nation like Sri Lanka can achieve a level of coastal and territorial security that previously required a superpower’s investment. Not only that, but Sri Lanka can also develop into an export market for the new precise technology which has a wide demand from warring countries. Conversely, the democratisation of these ‘one-way’ technologies also means that non-state actors or regional adversaries can more easily threaten national infrastructure, forcing small nations to prioritise digital resilience and rapid technological adaptation over the maintenance of ageing, high-cost legacy hardware.

by Prof. M. W. Amarasiri de Silva


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Features

We banned phone; we kept surveillance; teenagers noticed

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58 mins ago

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2026/04/1

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THE GREAT DIGITAL RETHINK : PART III OF V

The Teenage Battleground

Secondary school has always been a battlefield of sorts, competing loyalties, volatile friendships, the daily theatre of adolescent identity. But in the past decade it acquired a new and uniquely modern dimension: the smartphone in the pocket, the social media feed refreshing every few minutes, the group chat that never sleeps.

The numbers, when they arrived, were not subtle. PISA 2022 data, drawn from students in over 80 countries, found that around 65 percent of students reported being distracted by their own digital devices in mathematics lessons, and 59 percent said a classmate’s device had pulled their attention away. Students who reported being distracted by peers’ phones scored, on average, 15 points lower in mathematics than those who said it never happened. Fifteen points is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful, measurable, recurring gap that appears consistently across countries with very different education systems.

Governments took notice of the situation. In a pattern that will be familiar to readers of this series, a number of them reached for the most visible, most politically satisfying tool available – the ban in Finland, Sweden, Australia, and France. The UK, in a characteristically chaotic way, involving years of guidance, and pilots, eventually legalised. One by one, secondary schools across the wealthy world have begun confiscating phones at the gate, storing them in pouches, locking them up in boxes, and discovering, somewhat to their own surprise, that this works.

When the Ban Actually Works

A 2025 survey of nearly a thousand principals in New South Wales found that 87 percent reported students were less distracted after the ban was introduced, and 81 percent said learning had improved. South Australia recorded a 63 percent decline in critical incidents involving social media and a 54 percent reduction in behavioural issues. These are striking figures, and they align with what common sense would predict: if you remove the distraction, concentration improves.

What is also emerging from Australian, Finnish and Swedish schools is something less expected and more interesting: the character of break times has changed. Teachers and principals report that when phones disappear from pockets, something older reappears in their place. Students talk to each other. They play. They argue, resolve disputes, make and lose friendships in the ancient, messy, face-to-face way that adolescence has always demanded but that the smartphone had been quietly crowding out. The playground, it turns out, was not broken. It was just occupied.

Sweden’s nationwide policy, coming into effect in autumn 2026, will require schools to collect phones for the full day, not just during lessons. This is the more ambitious intervention, and the one that addresses what the Australian experience has already demonstrated: that the damage done by constant connectivity is not confined to the classroom. It happens at lunch. It happens between periods. It happens in the 10 minutes before the bell when a group of 14-year-olds are supposedly in the building but are actually, in every meaningful sense, somewhere else entirely.

87% of Australian principals said students were less distracted after the ban. The other 13% presumably hadn’t tried it yet.

But Here Is What Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the part that the ministers’ press releases do not mention. While the smartphone, the device the student owns, controls and carries, has been banned from the secondary classroom, the institution’s own digital apparatus has been expanding at an impressive pace throughout the same period. Learning management systems now mediate most of secondary school life in high-income countries. Assignments are distributed digitally. Work is submitted digitally. Attendance is recorded digitally. Grades are published on portals that students, parents and administrators can access in real time. The school that bans your personal phone may simultaneously be recording precisely how long you spent on each page of the online reading assignment last Tuesday.

Learning analytics, the practice of harvesting data from student interactions with digital platforms to inform teaching and school management, has moved from a niche research curiosity to a mainstream tool. PISA 2022 data show that virtually all 15-year-olds in OECD countries attend schools with some form of digital infrastructure. Behind that infrastructure sits a layer of data collection that most students and many parents are only dimly aware of: log-in times, click patterns, quiz scores, time-on-task measures, platform engagement metrics. These are assembled into dashboards, fed into algorithms, and used, with genuinely good intentions, in most cases, to identify struggling students early.

The genuinely good intentions do not resolve the underlying problem. Research on learning analytics raises serious concerns about privacy, about the opacity of algorithmic decision-making, and about what happens when a teenager is quietly flagged as ‘at risk’ by a system they never knew was watching. The irony of secondary de-digitalisation is not lost on those paying attention: we have removed the device the student controls, while expanding the systems that observe and score them.

The AI Proctor in the Room

During the pandemic, when exams moved online, a number of education authorities adopted software that monitored students through their webcams, flagging unusual eye movements, background sounds, or the presence of other people in the room as potential signs of cheating. The systems were sold as efficient, scalable and objective. They were, in practice, frequently absurd.

The software flagged students who looked away from the screen to think. It penalised students whose rooms were small, shared or noisy, disproportionately those from less privileged backgrounds. It struggled with students of colour, whose features were less well-represented in the training data. It was contested, appealed, gamed, and eventually abandoned by a significant number of institutions that had initially adopted it with enthusiasm. By 2024 and 2025, the rollback was visible. Universities and some school systems were returning, with minimal fanfare, to supervised in-person examinations, handwritten, on paper, in a room with a human invigilator, partly to solve the AI cheating problem, partly to solve the AI proctoring problem. The wheel had, somewhat dizzingly, turned full circle.

We banned the student’s phone. We kept the webcam that monitors their eye movements during exams. Progress.

The Equity Problem That Bans Cannot Solve

Beneath the headline politics of phone bans lies a more uncomfortable question about who, exactly, benefits from secondary school de-digitalisation, and who pays a cost that is rarely acknowledged. The argument for phone bans on equity grounds is real: unrestricted phone use in schools amplifies social hierarchies. The student with the latest device, the most followers, the most compelling social media presence occupies a different social universe from the student without. Removing phones during the school day levels that particular playing field.

But the equity argument runs the other way, too, once you look beyond school hours. Secondary schools in high-income systems have steadily increased their dependence on digital platforms for homework, assessment preparation and communication. If a school bans phones during the day and then sends students home to complete digitally-mediated assignments, the burden of that homework falls unequally.

There is also the growing phenomenon of what researchers are beginning to call ‘shadow digital education’: the private online tutoring platforms, AI-powered study tools and exam preparation services that affluent families use to supplement and extend what school provides. While secondary schools debate whether students should be allowed to use AI for essay drafts, some of those students’ wealthier peers are already using it, skillfully, privately and with considerable academic advantage. The phone ban, whatever its merits in the classroom, does not touch this market. It may even quietly accelerate it.

Two Worlds, Still Diverging

In Finland, Sweden and Australia, the policy conversation is about how to manage the excesses of a generation that grew up digitally saturated, how to restore concentration, how to protect wellbeing, how to ensure that institutional platforms serve learning rather than merely monitor it.

Elsewhere, across much of Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of the Middle East, the secondary school conversation remains anchored to a different set of concerns: how to get enough devices into enough classrooms, how to train enough teachers to use them, how to ensure that the smartboard contract does not expire before the teachers learn to turn it on. Vendors are present, helpful and commercially motivated. Development banks are funding rollouts. Government ministers are visiting showrooms. The playbook being followed is the one that Finland and Sweden wrote in 2010 and are now revising.

SERIES ROADMAP:

Part I: From Ed-Tech Enthusiasm to De-Digitalisation | Part II: Phones, Pens & Early Literacy | Part III: Attention, Algorithms & Adolescents (this article) | Part IV: Universities, AI & the Handwritten Exam | Part V: A Critical Theory of Educational De-Digitalisation

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A Buddhist perspective on ageing and decay

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2026/04/1

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Buddhism is renowned for its profound insights into ageing and decay, known as jara in Pali. Through its teachings and practices, Buddhism cultivates the wisdom and mental clarity necessary to accept and prepare for the inevitability of ageing. The formula jati paccayaā jaraāmaranaṃ translates to “dependent on birth arise ageing and death,” clearly illustrating that birth inevitably leads to ageing and death, accompanied by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Without birth, there would be no ageing and death. Therefore, ageing is a fundamental aspect of suffering as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddhism encourages us to confront the realities of ageing, illness, and mortality head-on. Old age is recognised as an unavoidable aspect of dukkha (suffering). Old age is fundamentally and inextricably entwined with the concept of impermanence(annicca), serving as the most visible, undeniable evidence that all conditioned things are in a state of flux and decay. Ageing, illness and death create in us an awareness not only of dukkha but also impermanence. The Buddha taught, “I teach suffering and the way out of suffering.” Here, “suffering” encompasses not only physical pain but also the profound discomfort that arises when our attempts to escape or remedy pain stemming from old age are thwarted. Instead of fearing old age, Buddhists are encouraged to embrace it, release attachments to youth, and cultivate wisdom, gratitude, and inner peace.

Ageing is a complex process shaped by both genetic and environmental factors. From a Buddhist viewpoint, we should perceive the body realistically. Fundamentally, the human body can be seen as a vessel of impurities, subject to old age, disease, decay, and death. The natural process of ageing is gradual, irreversible, and inevitable. Every individual must ultimately come to terms with the reality of growing old, as change is an essential fact of life.

In Buddhism, impermanence (anicca) holds a central position. Everything that exists is unstable and transient; nothing endures forever—including our bodies and all conditioned phenomena. Thus, anicca, dukkha, and anattaā (non-self or selflessness) are the three characteristics common to all conditioned existence. The reality of impermanence can often evoke pain, yet a wise Buddhist fully understands and appreciates this simple yet profound truth.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus encapsulated this notion when he stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” Old age was one of the four sights that prompted Prince Siddhartha Gautama to seek enlightenment, alongside sickness, death, and the wandering ascetic. Coming to terms with these aspects of existence was pivotal in his transformation into the Buddha.

At Sāvatthi, King Pasenadi of Kosala once asked the Buddha, “Venerable sir, is there anyone who is born who is free from old age and death?” The Buddha replied, “Great King, no one who is born is free from ageing and death. Even those affluent khattiyas—rich in wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver—are not exempt from ageing and death simply because they have been born.” This interaction underscores the universal challenge of ageing, transcending societal divisions of wealth or status.

Ageing presents one of the greatest challenges in human experience. Physically, the body begins to deteriorate; socially, we may find ourselves marginalised or discounted, sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly. Some may encounter dismissal or condescension. Ageism remains one of the most persistent forms of discrimination. The physical and social difficulties associated with ageism can undermine our self-image and sense of self-worth. Common perceptions often portray old age as a stage where the best years are behind us, reducing the remaining years to a form of “bonus years” frequently presented in sentimental or patronising ways.

The suffering associated with ageing can serve as a powerful motivation to engage in practices that directly address this suffering, allowing us to gradually transform it or, at the very least, make it more bearable and manageable. We must recognise that this principle applies equally to our own bodies. The human body undergoes countless subtle changes every moment from the time you are born, never remaining the same even for two consecutive moments, as it is subject to the universal law of impermanence.

Whatever your age. However young-looking you try to remain through external means, the truth is that you are getting older every minute. Every minute, every second, our lives are getting shorter and closer to death. Since you were conceived in your mother’s womb, your life is getting shorter. We see external things going by rapidly, but never reflect on our own lives. No matter what we do, we cannot fully control what happens in our lives or to our bodies. With time, we all develop lines and wrinkles. We become frail, and our skin becomes thinner and drier. We lose teeth. Our physical strength and sometimes our mental faculties decline. In old age, we are subject to multiple diseases.

Many people live under the illusion that the body remains constant and is inherently attractive and desirable. Modern society, in particular, has become increasingly obsessed with the quest for eternal youth and the reversal of the ageing process. Many women feel inadequate about their physical appearance and constantly think about how to look younger and more attractive. Enormous sums of money are spent on cosmetic procedures, skincare, and grooming products to remain presentable and desirable. The global beauty and cosmetics industries thrive on this ideal, often promoting unrealistic standards of beauty and youthfulness. But no amount of products available in the world can truly restore lost youth, as time inevitably leaves its mark.

Therefore, in Buddhism, mindful reflection on ageing and the human body is considered essential for overall well-being. This contemplation provides insight into impermanence as we navigate life. Reflecting on the nature of the body—its true condition and its delicate, changing state—is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. By understanding the body accurately, we support both wisdom and peace of mind.

Buddhism recognises forty subjects of meditation which can differ according to the temperaments of persons. Contemplation of the human body is one of them. Of all the subjects of meditation, reflection on the human body as a subject is not popular among certain people particularly in the western world as they think such contemplation would lead to a melancholic morbid and pessimistic outlook on life. They regard it as a subject that may be somewhat unpleasant and not conducive to human wellbeing. Normally, people who are infatuated and intoxicated with sensual pleasures develop an aversion towards this subject of meditation. In Buddhism this mode of contemplation is called asuba bhavana or mindfulness of the impurities of the body. It is all about our physiology and individual body parts and organs internal as well as external. This subject of meditation is unique to the Buddhist teachings.

To appreciate the body as it truly is, we must set aside preconceived notions and engage in a calm and honest inquiry: Is this body genuinely attractive or not? What is it composed of? Is it lasting or subject to decay?

In embracing the teachings of Buddhism, we find the wisdom to navigate the journey of ageing with grace, transforming our understanding of this natural process into an opportunity for growth and acceptance.

When our fears centre on ageing, decay, and disease, we cannot overcome them by pretending they do not exist. True relief comes only from facing these realities directly.

Reflecting on the body’s unattractive and impermanent nature can help us gain a realistic perspective. In an age when the mass media constantly bombards people with sensual images, stimulating lust, greed, and attachment, contemplation of the body’s true nature can bring calm and clarity.

All beings that are born must eventually die. Every creature on earth, regardless of status, shares this common fate. After death, the body undergoes a series of biological changes and decomposes, returning to the earth as organic matter. It is part of the earth and ultimately dissolves back into it.

Understanding this, we can meet ageing, decay, and death with greater wisdom, less fear, and a deeper sense of peace.

by Dr. Justice Chandradasa Nanayakkara

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Partnering India without dependence

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1 day ago

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2026/03/31

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President Dissanayake with Indian PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again signaled the priority India places on Sri Lanka by swiftly dispatching a shipload of petrol following a telephone conversation with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The Indian Prime Minister’s gesture came at a cost to India, where there have been periodic supply constraints and regional imbalances in fuel distribution, even if not a countrywide shortage. Under Prime Minister Modi, India has demonstrated to Sri Lanka an abundance of goodwill, whether it be the USD 4 billion it extended in assistance to Sri Lanka when it faced international bankruptcy in 2022 or its support in the aftermath of the Ditwah cyclone disaster that affected large parts of the country four months ago. India’s assistance in 2022 was widely acknowledged as critical in stabilising Sri Lanka at a moment of acute crisis.

This record of assistance suggests that India sees Sri Lanka not merely as a neighbour but as a partner whose stability is in its own interest. In contrast to Sri Lanka’s roughly USD 90 billion economy, India’s USD 4,500 billion economy, growing at over 6 percent, underlines the vast asymmetry in economic scale and the importance of Sri Lanka engaging India. A study by the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy identifies Sri Lanka as the second most vulnerable country in the world to severe food price surges due to its heavy reliance on imported energy and fertilisers. Income per capita remains around the 2018 level after the economic collapse of 2022. The poverty level has risen sharply and includes a quarter of the population. These indicators underline the urgency of sustained economic recovery and the importance of external partnerships, including with India.

It is, however, important for Sri Lanka not to abdicate its own responsibilities for improving the lives of its people or become dependent and take this Indian assistance for granted. A long unresolved issue that Sri Lanka has been content to leave the burden to India concerns the approximately 90,000 Sri Lankan refugees who continue to live in India, many of them for over three decades. Only recently has a government leader, Minister Bimal Rathnayake, publicly acknowledged their existence and called on them to return. This is a reminder that even as Sri Lanka receives support, it must also take ownership of its own unfinished responsibilities.

Missing Investment

A missing factor in Sri Lanka’s economic development has long been the paucity of foreign investment. In the past this was due to political instability caused by internal conflict, weaknesses in the rule of law, and high levels of corruption. There are now significant improvements in this regard. There is now a window to attract investment from development partners, including India. In his discussions with President Dissanayake, Prime Minister Modi is reported to have referred to the British era oil storage tanks in Trincomalee. These were originally constructed to service the British naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. In 1987, under the Indo Lanka Peace Accord, Sri Lanka agreed to develop these tanks in partnership with India. A further agreement was signed in 2022 involving the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation to jointly develop the facility.

However, progress has been slow and the project remains only partially implemented. The value of these oil storage tanks has become clearer in the context of global energy uncertainty and tensions in the Middle East. Energy analysts have pointed out that strategic storage facilities can provide countries with greater resilience in times of supply disruption. The Trincomalee tanks could become a significant strategic asset not only for Sri Lanka but also for regional energy security. However, historical baggage continues to stand in the way of Sri Lanka’s deeper economic linkage with India. Both ancient and modern history shape perceptions on both sides.

The asymmetry in size and power between the two countries is a persistent concern within Sri Lanka. India is a regional power, while Sri Lanka is a small country. This imbalance creates both opportunities for partnership and anxieties about overdependence. The present government too has entered into economic and infrastructure agreements with India, but many of these have yet to move beyond initial stages. This has caused frustration to the Indian government, which sees its efforts to support Sri Lanka’s development as not being sufficiently appreciated or effectively utilised. From India’s perspective, delays and hesitation can appear as a lack of commitment. From Sri Lanka’s perspective, caution is often driven by domestic political sensitivities and concerns about sovereignty.

Power Imbalance

At the same time, global developments offer a cautionary lesson. The behaviour of major powers in the contemporary international system shows that states often act in their own interests, sometimes at the expense of smaller partners. What is being seen in the world today is that past friendships and commitments can be abandoned if a bigger and more powerful country can see an opportunity for itself. The plight of Denmark (Greenland) and Canada (51st state) give disturbing messages. Analysts in the field of International Relations frequently point out that power asymmetries shape outcomes in bilateral relations. As one widely cited observation by Lord Parlmeston, a 19th century prime minister of Great Britain is that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” While this may be an overly stark formulation, it captures an underlying reality that small states must navigate carefully.

For Sri Lanka, this means maintaining a balance. It needs to clearly acknowledge the partnership that India is offering in the area of economic development, as well as in education, connectivity, and technological advancement. India has extended scholarships, supported digital infrastructure, and promoted cross border links that can contribute to Sri Lanka’s long term growth. These are tangible benefits that should not be undervalued. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to ensure that it does not become overly dependent on Indian largesse or drift into a position where it functions as an appendage of its much larger neighbour. Economic dependence can translate into political vulnerability if not carefully managed. The appropriate response is not to distance itself from India, but to broaden its partnerships. Engaging with a diverse range of countries and institutions can provide Sri Lanka with greater autonomy and resilience.

A hard headed assessment would recognise that India’s support is both genuine and interest driven. India has a clear stake in ensuring that Sri Lanka remains stable, prosperous, and aligned with its broader regional outlook. Sri Lanka needs to move forward with agreed projects such as the Trincomalee oil tanks, improve implementation capacity, and demonstrate reliability as a partner. This does not preclude it from actively seeking investment and cooperation from other partners in Asia and beyond. The path ahead is therefore one of balanced engagement. Sri Lanka can and should welcome India’s partnership while strengthening its own institutions, fulfilling its domestic responsibilities, and diversifying its external relations. This approach can transform a relationship shaped by asymmetry into one defined by mutual benefit and confidence.

by Jehan Perera

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