Thursday, December 20, 2007

ADIZs


The Sri Lanka Government has created an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in 11 key areas of the Island. The Air Navigation Act of 9th October 2007 states that “No flight or aircraft shall operate within, into or out of an ADIZ without a valid Air Defence Clearance (ADC).… Any aircraft flying without an ADIZ is liable for interception by the Sri Lanka Air Force under the interception procedure as published in the Sri Lanka AIP [1] (AIP refers to the Aeronautical Information Publication).

ADIZs form the first line of defence against aerial intrusions into a country and are vital to a country’s national security. They are usually formed along national borders, above a country’s coastal waters (Coastal Air Defence Identification Zone) and also, due to some recent high profile terrorist attacks, in specially designated areas of strategic military or political interests. In aviation terms, an ADIZ is defined as “The area of airspace over land or water, extending upward from the surface, within which the ready identification, the location, and the control of aircraft are required in the interest of national security.” A third variety of ADIZ is defined in the United States and Canada called a “Distant Early Warning Identification Zone (DEWIZ)”.

An important recent development of ADIZs is being observed in Sri Lanka and India. The first major international change on ADIZs took place following the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington DC. The US government decided to create an ADIZ for Washington DC, that country’s Capital. This was seen as a desire to protect that country’s Political establishment. In Sri Lanka, the majority of the ADIZs are over the skies of key Military Installations [2]. It is the same case in India. Interestingly, the skies over the Economic Capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, and the sacred Buddhist Shrine the Dalada Maligawa has also been declared ADIZs. Setting yet another precedent, the skies over President Mahinda Rajapakse’s ancestral home at Medamulana, Weeraketiya in Tangalle has also been declared an ADIZ. The last two locations, namely the Dalada Maligawa and Medamulana may enter the record books as the most unusual places ever to have been declared AIDZs.

ADIZs are worthless unless there’s a deterrence capability. Deterrence in this scenario is the capability to intercept enemy aircrafts flying in an ADIZ. To test this capability the Sri Lanka Air Force ran a mock trial on the 12th of this month in Colombo and previously at Katunayake, home to the SLAF’s number 10 Fighter Jet Squadron. The Indian joint operation Dhakshina Prahar, involving the Indian Air Force (IAF), the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard had also concluded a week-long simulated Air Defence Exercise which ended the day of the SLAF’s Colombo trials. Using Beyond Visual-Range Missiles, Sukhoi-30 and Mirage 2000 fighter jets, the Indian Air Force engaged mock intruders at Thiruvananthapuram, Vishakhapatnam and Arakkonam, all areas of possible intrusion by Tamil Ealam Air Force (TAF).

These and other developments since 9/11 point to some grave conclusions, which are as follows;

  1. The acquisition of ‘Air-capabilities’ by Non-state actors considered terrorists are a serious threat to global security.
  2. States, whether large or small or powerful or weak must take these threats seriously or face humiliation or grave threats to National Security.
  3. States, whether large or small are forced to spend enormous amounts of money for defence against preemptive attacks by terrorist planes while the terrorists themselves may use low-cost methods for such attacks.
  4. The threat of non-state actors, especially those branded terrorists acquiring air capabilities increases chances of transnational or cross-border terrorism.
  5. Whether it’s Washington DC, a religious shrine in Kandy or a small village in the rural south of Sri Lanka, no place is spared by the threat of the ‘airborne terrorist’.


[1] THE AIR NAVIGATION ACT, (CHAPTER 365), No. 1518/12 – TUESDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2007

[2] AIR NAVIGATION (AIR DEFENCE) REGULATIONS No. 1 OF 2007, No. 1524/16 – FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

BLOG PIRACY

May be defencewire do not like to answer this. But may be some one else could. What is that blog?

Unknown said...

I had a question about these new zones, how high up do they extend?

My question is with regard to commercial flights, would any pass through these areas even at high altitude, would they now need to be informed, etc.

There needs to be care not to mistakenly target such flights. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Can any 1 explain y did they decalre Madamulana as a (ADIZ).Is there a valid reason behind that???

NOLTTE=Peace said...

The USA LTTE supporters are conducting a huge campaign to mislead and lobby the congress.

The patriots based in USA, please be unite against the same.

LTTE has set-up a "Hilary Clinton Supporting Fund" and a massive Lobbying Group http://www.sangam.org/congress/
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2007/12/22568.html
https://contribute.hillaryclinton.com/events/nj1212.html
http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2007/12/15/foreign-money/

Renegade! said...

Ninja Bandara,well i know of only 2 defence blogs-defwire & defnet..

onecountry said...

I think this blog piracy statement is not right. Who knows if both blogs get the news from the same source? Besides, both blogs report on the same events. It is very possible that articles may appear similar but without any piracy.

onecountry said...

In fact, I read both blogs and many thanks to all who contribute. Last thing we need is fighting amongst. Competition is good but without animosity. Most of us who read these bogs have one common desire - motherland without terrorism. I suggest that we move past these petty issues.

hemantha said...

Well said Onecountry.

Anonymous said...

one country,

First with out knowing what is the accused blog it's not possible to comment on this. It seems you have assumed on another blog.

I know only about Dnet and Dwire. So if we assume the blog Dwire talking about is Dnet, then you are correct.

If two groups reports same thing and if it is true then we should expect similarity. Dwire claim can be supported under a scenario like this; Dwire reports some thing false for sure, and then the other blog change the words and report same thing. Then Dwire in a good position to accuse. But as far as reports are true I don't know how Dwire can make such a claim on any blog. (means just by reading the blog; if you have a proof for piracy then it's different. Dwire statement is just a claim, not a proof.)

So it would be better if Dwire says what is the other blog. If we assume it is Dnet then Dwire claim is far from truth up to my knowledge and experiance on both of these blogs.

Defencewire said...

OC, Hemantha, NB,
We have observed blogs copying and pasting some of this work, most times not even mentioning us. Some others use information from this blog and interpret it in their own language and repost them. This is wrong. We are not pointing fingers at any particular blog. This seems to be happening in a broader scale. A recent article we wrote, the one about Tamil Ealam, was attacked by someone when it was taken totally out of context and pasted elsewhere.

This saddens us considering the length to which we go to obtain information at great personal cost and even threat to our lives.

Defencewire said...

one country,
DW does not use public sources of information. Therefore it is highly unlikely for us and other blogs to share the same source.

There is no fighting amongst us. But there should be some standards and respect for one another. Blogs must post something genuine. If not, all blogs would look the same.

Lightning_Struck_Tower said...

DW:

earlier
"We are sad to note a particular defence blog copying our information and posting the same information in different wording"

now
"We are not pointing fingers at any particular blog. "

Contradiction.

Anyway DW let me give you an advice from my experience. Once you put something on the net, it will begin replicating without boundaries. That's both the gift and the curse of digital age.

As you said DW there are (And will be) people who publish the entire content of a post without quoting.
When i once pointed this out to dnet via e-mail, their response was (i'm quoting exact words) "the more the better, what matters is the message gets across". and I think that's the right way to go about this. By that i dont mean hijacking blog entries is good, but it can be a blessing in disguise to expose your opinion to more readers.

After all, isnt this all about beating false propaganda?

Anti-Tiger said...

defence wire,
Respect what you do and the time you devote to it. But this whole "our information, we revealed first" thing is ridiculos and childish.

Just because you posted a news article first doesn't mean everyone else copied it from you.

Defencewire said...

LST,
"the more the better, what matters is the message gets across". and I think that's the right way to go about this."
If its the quantity you want, then that assumption is great. But its quality that we are after. The War in Sri Lanka has many faces. It is also a war of propaganda. In this midst, defence blogs (there are those which don't claim to be such but increasingly are, which explains your concern regarding a contradiction)must be accurate to the point that they can. This is NOT achieved through replication or mass proliferation of news. Therefore our stress is that reproduction of same news results in an a quantitative change but not a qualitative change to the overall status quo of vast misinformation in the country, on the www and elsewhere.

Anti-Tiger said...

My display name was supposed to be anti.tiger but it's displayed as anti. (lol) How do i change that?

Lightning_Struck_Tower said...

DW:
"reproduction of same news results in an a quantitative change but not a qualitative change to the overall status quo of vast misinformation in the country, on the www and elsewhere."

But still it would be better that republishing false propaganda wouldn't it? These sites will exist even if you somehow manage to stop your blog posts being replicated on them. In such an event what they would do is that they will switch to the next information source (which can be anything).

Anti(tiger):
Log in with your info to www.blogger.com and click 'edit my profile'. You can change it from there.

Defencewire said...

LST,
How about this way?
Wouldn't it be better if we all investigated and wrote good articles to beat the false propaganda?

My suggestion X the number of blogs = Lesser chances of false propaganda.

Here's how it is now;

Same information X the number of blogs = Chances of reducing false propaganda

Lightning_Struck_Tower said...

DW:
"Wouldn't it be better if we all investigated and wrote good articles to beat the false propaganda?"

It would definitely be better. No arguments on that count. But the reality is that there will always be blogs that act as "Content Aggregators". The best way to go with these sites is Defence net's method IMHO.

tangara said...

Out of topic,

http://www.island.lk/2007/12/21/news3.html


Guys this is good news..Instead of striking , JVP is hoisting black flags...

Looks like JVP is REFORMING itself fast after my scathing email attacks..

Keep writing to these JVP/JHU clowns...

Only way to reform them..

I sent to JVP/JHU clowns during the last few months..

The results:
JHU virtually stopped making any Public Political statements.

JVP is reducing the no of Strikes.

Conincidence..I don't know.

Tell me what you think.

Defencewire said...

LST,
That's the 'don't fix if not broken' theory with a small twist to sound like 'if it can't be fixed, don't even try'.

Here at DW, we have a slightly different approach. We like to tag these issues and discuss them with informed people, like you for example. Let's see what the others have to say.

tangara,
Talk about being an agent of change...

Lightning_Struck_Tower said...

DW:
Content aggregators (http://tinyurl.com/yrwzn8)
are not an anomaly.
It is my personal opinion that if you go on treating CAs as pirates, it would do your site no good.
Cheers.

Defencewire said...

LST,
We appreciate your honest engagement on this issue. Thank You!

Unknown said...

DWire,

Guys, simply you are doing a superb job. No argument about that and hope everyone here will agree with me.

Please do not go down and dissapointed when somebody copy a result given by you with some hard work. I truely feel the feeling you are having, but think about these;

If others copy your comment that means ;;

a) either they couldnt reach for that news independently

b) and/or they confirm and beleive to their knowledge that your news is right and take the risk of beeing criticising if it goes wrong. Sure they dont want to spoil their image, if they arent so sure about it, right ?

c) either way they (others) and you (DW) both accept the importance of that news or information to be published, at the right time. Again spreading "GOOD" propoganda by more than one party, which is good.

If someone really wants to check who reported first then there is a time stamp in your reports and in most of others too.

We all know its not a race for "Headline" news item but a strugle for credible information. Thats why most of us are here with you.

I strongly beleive by your body language the other blog what you are refering here is DNet, and by not stating "its NOT DNet that you accuse here" you simply confirm it according to my senses. Just my thought.

If so (and only if so) it could be on the news item that confirmed the injuries to Prabha.

As we all are talking about the same LTTE, same SLDF, same prabha cant we see the same picture in all sides? even through unique specific and independent informers?

Cant others report the same info found from their own feeds?

Also i strongly beleive DNet is doing a genuine and honest work similar to you guys. The objectives could be same and much appreciated. Lets not dragged on too much in this issue which prevents you and others from reaching the objective of serving readers with such an important blog in this war againt blood thirst LTTE.

Thanks.

Illegal.existence said...

Bentz, why would they declare "Madamulana" an ADIZ? How about cos the LTTE's #1 target lives there.

And guys come on, this is supposed to be a defence blog, so I'd rather be reading defence related stuff than all this.

Defencewire said...

skywalker,
Thank you for your comments. I think there's a lot of sense in your arguments.

Illegal.existence,
Agreed. We will limit discussion to defence-related matters.

TropicalStorm said...

Nolte=peace

Thanks for publishing those pro-tiger links. These issues have not been countered effectively until now, but rest assured that there are many very motivated Sri Lankans working towards educating the US law makers on the facts of what is happening in Sri Lanka. It won't be easy, since we are countering a moving target; recently approx 40 tamils met a US senator and alleged that 'tamil Christians' are being discriminated against in Buddhist Sri lanka. This rapid mutation capability proves that we will continue to encounter a situation similar to the researches who are attempting to find a cure/antidote for the HIV virus. But one needs to trust in the old adage that not everyone can be fooled all the time. These folks are lying and doing it to a people who do not easily forgive being lied to. This time they are not dealing with the leftist europeans, but a different animal that treats a liar with utmost contempt.

TropicalStorm said...

anti

It must be because you are such a sexy aunty....

Can I have your number please...

Unknown said...

DW
100% agree with you and SkyWalker.
IMHO...your blog doesn't have the political slant that the other blog has and like you rightfully said they are slowly becoming another mouthpiece for government propaganda..especially to shoring support for present leadership
That's sad.

But we're glad that you're here and this blog will continue it's path away from political alliances and talk only about our great country's defence issues.

Keep up the great work guys :)

DefenceNet said...

DefenceWire,
We've been silently watching these word exchanges regarding blog piracy since yesterday.

We do not know if you meant DefenceNet by "one particular Defence blog'. But if you did (and that is a big if), we can assure you that you are dead wrong. We have been in operation for nearly an year now. IF we've been paraphrasing your articles, what did we post for those 9 or so months in which DefenceWire did not even exist?

We may not always be the first to report (this is due to the volatile nature of our work - most of the time we do not have internet access) but that does not mean we copy news articles from those who published first. We do not wait for someone else to post a news item and then post a paraphrase. Honestly, sometimes we do not even have the time to go through the comments in DefenceNet blog let alone analyzing and paraphrasing articles by others.

We post our own articles whenever we get access to internet. It has been like that and will always be like that. Not only you have uniques non public sources. Not only you go to great lengths to obtain information. It is with great difficulty we maintain DefenceNet and we are not doing that for the fun of it.

ranil,
"doesn't have the political slant that the other blog has and like you rightfully said they are slowly becoming another mouthpiece for government propaganda..especially to shoring support for present leadership
That's sad."

By other blog if you meant DefenceNet (again, a big IF), please show us where we have shored support for present leadership or where we included government propaganda. We have tried our level best not to include politics in the blog be impartial and it's disappointing to see that it has been a fruitless attempt.

Anyway we did not post the above in hatred. This is merely our point of view and anyone is entitled to have their own opinion. If there were any misunderstandings, we apologize.

Finally, apologies to DefenceWire for going off topic in this post to express our opinion. Ultimately we believe that there was no love lost between the sites as we do have a common enemy to defeat.

Unknown said...

DW and Dnet
Guys guys, C'mon now :)
Like D'net has rightfully said...
We have all have a common enemy to defeat... let's leave in fighting to stupid politicians...
we all post here and visit here because these sites are the only ones that are drastically different to the like of defence.lk etc etc
They all play it safe and mostly yo please the present government...

DefNet...
there are many forums, sites that carry info from both you and DW...
I'm sure you are aware of those even more than i do..

Like i said before...let's leave the infighting for the politicians and discuss what's happening and what can be done to ensure that we defeat LTTE

Unknown said...

DefNet

"We have tried our level best not to include politics in the blog be impartial and it's disappointing to see that it has been a fruitless attempt."

I've been on your blog much longer than i have been on this one. At worst, your blog has "bloggers" who are quite "vocal" about their political support and most of them boast and support the present regime. So maybe when one goes through the blog they might think that the blog itself is heading in that direction.
I remember how your team tried to keep politics out of it and only focus on defense issues since that was the best thing to do maintain healthy flow of information.
You have little control over what bloggers post so it's not your fault if the overall view seems political if that's what it is in the first place.
Sorry if what i posted insulted your work. It's a mistake from my part and not that you have failed in the duty that you set out to do.
You're doing a great job and please do keep it up. Don't let these kinda incidents stop you.
I'm gonna stop posting on either of the blogs and just be a spectator from now on :)
cheers brothers and keep up the great work against these terrorist bastards
Signing off
Ranil

Saj said...

Serisouly DefenceWire... GROW UP. Who the fuck cares? You do your reporting and be happy that you did. The problem is that in Sri Lanka everyone wants the credit, they are never happy doing something for the sake of it, it's only for the power and glory. Everyone wants a name for themselves, even if it's at the expense of the country.

Defencewire it's really unfotunate that you started this bullshit and petty rivalry so please stop it and concentrate on the excellent work you've been doing for quite a while.

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