Sri Lanka, March 10 -- Former Presidents may not have envisioned the country as a garrison state, but during the tenure of some of them, we almost ended up as one. We organised ourselves around military power, and, of course, during war, it was understandable. But what was the need for a garrison-mentality after the war had ended?

Yet, some Presidents and their Governments seemed wedded to the concept of a garrison state, partly because they had been intimately involved with the military as an organised force during the war. But much later, when the enemy threat receded, they couldn't get the military industrial mentality out of their minds.

So, they organised a coterie of firebrands whose sole raison d'etre was jingoism, and the justif...