They Found A New Trick To Enslave EVERYONE | Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

Whenever old imperial vocabularies are declared obsolete, history often shows they have merely been repackaged. The conversation with Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake reframes contemporary interventions in small, strategically placed states as a new, more palatable form of domination: not conquest by bayonet but conquest by balance sheets, information systems, and the selective use of scarcity. Sri Lanka emerges in the discussion as a test case where economic engineering, legal instruments, and geopolitical maneuvering converge to produce loss of sovereignty without a formal declaration of war. The stakes are no longer merely national budgets; they are control over ports, cables, skies and narratives — the architecture of connectivity itself. ## Digital Colonialism and Full-Spectrum Dominance The term "digital colonialism" captures a key theme from the exchange: that domination in the twenty-first century operates through systems and platforms rather than strictly through territory. When a state becomes dependent on external currencies, satellites, surveillance networks, and multinational service providers, it cedes the levers of autonomy. Dr. Darini argues that what happened around Sri Lanka’s 2022 crisis was not merely an economic downturn but a "full-spectrum dominance, over-the-horizon operation" that used embargoes, market pressure, legal actions, and the media in combination. These multi-modal pressures produced outcomes that would have been difficult to achieve through any single mechanism. This form of warfare is hybrid: financial actors, rating agencies, law firms, and international NGOs can be the shock troops. When coordinated, their actions — downgrading sovereign ratings, initiating litigation in foreign courts, curtailing energy supplies — can precipitate a rapid collapse in liquidity and confidence. Digital architectures amplify these effects. Satellite-based maritime surveillance, data-cable chokepoints, and cloud platforms are not neutral infrastructure when they can be tied to strategic partnerships and conditional access. What appears as technical cooperation may, as the conversation highlights, be the thin end of a geopolitical wedge. ## The 2022 Crisis: Regime Change and the Manufacturing of Insolvency Sri Lanka’s political upheaval in 2022 is presented not simply as a consequence of misgovernance but as part of a layered operation. Mass protests, branded domestically as Aragalaya, combined with media narratives about corruption, famine, and imminent state failure to create a political opening. Dr. Darini emphasizes that these protests occurred in the wake of severe COVID-19 lockdowns — a period in which other forms of social discontent did not erupt. The timing and character of the mobilization raise questions about the composition and funding of civil society actors, and about the role of external entities that back dissent. The move from illiquidity to alleged insolvency is particularly instructive. External legal claims and the actions of shadow financial actors transformed a temporary balance-of-payments crunch into a full-blown sovereign default narrative. The conversion of an “illiquidity crisis” into a politically useful “insolvency” label was facilitated by downgraded credit ratings, sudden currency runs, and media stories projecting catastrophe. These elements mutually reinforced each other and, once accepted, constrained the policy space available to Sri Lankan leaders. What followed — a turn toward the IMF and austerity — looks less like a purely domestic policy choice and more like the predictable endpoint of a well-engineered sequence of shocks. ## Sovereign Debt, Dollar Dependence, and the IMF Trap A central thread in the discussion is the critique of dollar-denominated sovereign debt and of the International Monetary Fund as the default mechanism for crisis management. The structural problem is straightforward but devastating: when a country owes large sums in a currency it does not control, it faces dependency and leverage that go beyond lender-borrower relations. The IMF occupies the role of lender of last resort, but with conditionalities that often require austerity, privatization, and policy alignment with creditor interests. The analogy used in the conversation — a heroin addict seeking rescue from the dealer — is blunt but evocative. Dr. Darini highlights that much of Sri Lanka’s external obligations were to private creditors: bondholders, hedge funds, and asset managers who demanded high yields and then claimed repayment when risks crystallized. International economists urged cancellation or restructuring of this kind of "odious" debt, arguing that private creditors who profited from high yields should not be fully protected at the expense of an already-suffering populace. Yet the IMF-backed restructuring prioritized payments to these private actors, embedding conditionalities that effectively privatize public assets and shrink social spending. The result is a policy trap that can produce cyclical crises rather than sustainable recovery. ## Geostrategy: Ports, Space, and the Privilege of Location Geography matters. Sri Lanka sits astride vital Indian Ocean shipping lanes, under submarine data cables, and within reach of projecting military power. These facts turn any economic or political crisis into a geopolitical opportunity for external powers. The conversation illuminates how interest in Sri Lanka is not solely about debt; it is about the control of nodes in global transport and information networks. Proposals for a U.S. spaceport or closer partnerships with private U.S. space firms dovetail with maritime surveillance initiatives, forming a package that would anchor foreign strategic presence in the island’s skies and seas. Such attention also invites competing claims. The public narrative often frames investments by one major power as predatory "debt-trap diplomacy", while in practice the alternatives offered by financial markets and multilateral institutions can produce similar forms of control. Selling or leasing ports, cables, or energy assets to foreign purchasers under the rubric of "efficiency" or "investment" must thus be read alongside geopolitical intent: ownership and access are instruments of influence. The governance question becomes: who sets the rules for access when strategic infrastructure becomes principal collateral for debt? ## Alternatives and the Limits of BRICS and South–South Solidarity If de-dollarization is the pathway to decolonization, why has change been so slow? The conversation points to a gap between rhetoric and operational capacity among alternative blocs. While BRICS and other Global South initiatives promote non-dollar trade arrangements, converting that rhetoric into accessible liquidity for countries in crisis is complex. Currency swaps, regional reserve pooling, and multilateral development banks can help, but they require political coordination, trust, and scale — and often come with their own strings. Dr. Darini calls for a collective movement among indebted Global South countries to push for debt cancellation and new financial architecture. Such a coalition could legitimize currency diversification, demand better treatment for sovereign borrowers, and resist private creditor privileging. Yet the practical roadblocks are significant: entrenched power in global finance, the dominance of rating agencies and creditor coalitions, and the fragmentation of the Global South itself. The conversation underscores that alternatives must be both structural and political: they require new institutions and the mobilization of sovereign states in defense of common economic interests. ## Conclusion: Calm Before the Storm The narrative emerging from the conversation is unmistakable: what looks like political or economic failure is often the end-product of orchestrated sequences that exploit structural vulnerabilities. Sri Lanka’s 2022 crisis serves as a cauti

They Found A New Trick To Enslave EVERYONE | Dr. Darini Rajasingham- Senanayake Whenever the West says some old scheme is a thing of the past, you know they've just moved on to a more PR friendly version of the same. Colonialism is probably the prime example. Instead of exploiting people at the barrel of a gun, they now do it at the barrel of US Dollar denominated debt. Even resource rich and prosperous countries like Sri Lanka can't escape the terrible logic, once corrupt elites sign the contracts that kick-off debt-trap spirals of doom. Today I’m talking to Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake. Darini earner her PhD from Princeton University and Is now a social and medical anthropologist with research focus on international development and political economy. She is also a prolific writer in several online outlets on the politics of South Asia and especially her native Sri Lanka. She often points out the neo-colonial structures and the many regime change operations that have been economically and politically devastating her part of the Eurasian continent. Links: Article: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/facades-of-independence- masks-of-conquest-of-gladio-operations-raj-nostalgia-history-literary-festivals/ Goods Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #F1 We are now in an era of digital colonialism, and I think Sri Lanka was really a kind of test case in some sense. What happened in 2022 with the Aragalaya, regime change, and default was a full- spectrum dominance, over-the-horizon operation where all systems were used. There was an embargo on oil and gas, bleeding the country so that this default could be staged. So there's a new form of, I suppose, warfare happening. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake. Darini earned her PhD from Princeton University and is now a social and medical anthropologist with a research focus in international development and political economy. She's also a prolific writer in several online outlets on the politics of South Asia, and especially her native Sri Lanka. She often points out the neo-colonial structures and the many regime change operations that have been economically and politically devastating her part of the Eurasian continent. This is what we want to discuss today. So, Darini, welcome. #F1 -- 1 of 12 -- Thank you, Pascal. Nice to be with you. #M2 Thank you for taking the time. I had a couple of discussions about Sri Lanka and India in the past, but I was wondering if you could give me an update on the situation in Sri Lanka, because you also went through a regime change not too long ago and you've got new people in power at the moment. What's happening in your country, and how are things developing? #F1 Well, things are relatively calm. Some say it's the calm before the storm, as Sri Lanka is in a U.S. dollar–euro bond debt trap and has to start paying back the capital debt in a couple of years. That's when large amounts of money are going to be needed, and the country is expected to go into another economic crisis. But right now, things are fairly calm. Of course, there are discussions about setting up a U.S. spaceport and maritime security hub in Sri Lanka at this time. As you know, it's a very geostrategically located country at the center of Indian Ocean trade, energy, and submarine data cable routes, and also about 50%—or less than 50%—of the global container traffic passes through the seas of Sri Lanka. So there's a lot of interest in it, and therefore, simultaneous with the economic crisis that happened in 2022—after which Sri Lanka effectively lost its economic sovereignty to the IMF and the Washington Consensus—now there are discussions about a tripartite framework partnership between SpaceX, the U.S. Space Force, and the Sri Lankan defense establishment. It's just talk right now, but, you know, talk at an official level often leads somewhere. The idea is to set up satellite-based maritime surveillance systems in Sri Lanka. As we know, there has been a long-standing interest from the United States and the West in establishing military bases in this country, given its geostrategic location. So this is all sort of happening as things seem relatively calm in the country right now. And everybody, of course, has been looking at what's happening in India and Pakistan, which are both nuclear-armed neighbors to Sri Lanka. This happened with attacks a couple of weeks ago—three weeks ago—in Kashmir, in the Pahalgam area, when 26 tourists were attacked by Islamist terrorists. This was blamed on Pakistan, and these two nuclear-armed countries seem to be heading for another confrontation. Ironically, these attacks happened just when the U.S. Vice President, J.D. Vance, his Indian-origin wife, Usha Vance, and their children were visiting India. And simultaneously, Prime Minister Modi was visiting Saudi Arabia, which is where you have historically had some of the Wahhabi, Salafi, fundamentalist Islamist networks emanating from that have sort of been around. These networks of terror have originated in the Middle East and have also ravaged Sri Lanka. You know, in 2019, we had so-called ISIS-claimed attacks on seven tourist hotels and churches, which sort of destroyed the economy of this tourist-dependent country. But somehow, -- 2 of 12 -- the similarities of the attacks—because the Pahalgam attacks in Indian Kashmir also focused on tourists and the economy—are striking. The parallels have not really been picked up in this, and it's just been glossed over as a confrontation between Pakistan and India, whereas we've had these kinds of terror attacks in other parts of South Asia. My sense at this time is that South Asia has increasingly been drawn into the new Cold War between the United States and China, which has also become most evident as a hybrid economic sort of proxy war in South Asia and the South Asian region. So, India and all of the South Asian countries, more or less, have been, as you said, through regime change operations in India, dealing with this Pakistan issue. But the whole region as a whole can be seen as a new regional proxy war site in the Cold War standoff between the United States and China. #M2 Yeah, that is very worrisome. #F1 At this time. #M2 It's very worrisome to me. And, you know, I remember back in 2021, I wrote a short article in The Diplomat together with a Sri Lankan student of mine about how, at the time, Sri Lanka, under the leadership of the Rajapaksas—one of your political dynasties, if I can put it that way—was trying to balance between these fronts. Actually, the Rajapaksas were talking about Sri Lanka being a neutral country and being open to everybody, giving port access to the Chinese, but also to the Japanese, and offering it to everybody. That was in 2021 and 2022. And then came riots. Can you maybe explain what happened in the political shift after the Rajapaksa era and where we are standing today in your internal politics? #F1 Yes, well, Sri Lanka has long tried to have a neutral foreign policy. It was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement and played a very strong role under the first woman prime minister in the world, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, at the time. There has been this commitment to be non-aligned and neutral throughout, but there are always external power plays happening through politics in the country. And so what happened in 2022—and this was simultaneous to the regime change operation that was happening in Pakistan, where Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted— And he was a very popular, democratically elected prime minister who was also trying to forge a very non-aligned course for Pakistan at the time. And he was ousted, and he directly said that the -- 3 of 12 -- Undersecretary for South and Central Asia, Donald Lu, in Washington, was involved in that operation. And of course, now Imran Khan is in jail, and we have this Shehbaz Sharif government, which is now, you know, there are all these issues with India at this time. #M2 May I just interject one thing? Because that undersecretary you just mentioned—we have records of him officially saying that the United States cannot accept Pakistan's aggressive neutrality. He actually spoke of "aggressive neutrality" or "hostile neutrality"—I forget which, but he used that term—and he said that's not acceptable to the United States, to the then ambassador to Sri Lanka, that very guy. And then the regime change happened. And in Sri Lanka, too, the Rajapaksas were ousted from power. #F1 Yeah, so this was happening simultaneously in the spring-summer of 2022. That was happening in Pakistan and in Sri Lanka. We had this USAID, NED, and Soros Foundation-funded Aragalaya protest, which was an outpouring of civil society, apparently, and NGOs—funded NGOs—protesting against the Rajapaksa regime, which was unpopular because of enormous amounts of nepotism and corruption. But at the same time, they had been democratically elected. And so we had this sort of regime change operation happen to bring in Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had lost his seat, by the way, at the previous elections, as the new president to supposedly save Sri Lanka from the Rajapaksas, etc. So we had simultaneously a regime change operation amidst these staged protests, the Aragalaya. And of course, one of the reasons, I think—as a social scientist, I would say—for Aragalaya and this outpouring of protests was also that it was in the immediate wake of two years of economically devastating COVID-19 lockdowns. These protesters never, ever came out to protest the lockdowns. And then suddenly, you had them all over, having this extravagant beach party on the beachfront at Galle Face Green and protesting against the regime. So it was kind of interesting to note that. But in any case, we have the regime change, we have these claims that Sri Lanka is bankrupt, and we have then the narrative that Sri Lanka has to go into default. And this is where I really have started to question the narrative. Because if you look at the rest of South Asia—and I'm just back, actually, from India, from Delhi, and I was also in Varanasi—Sri Lanka is by far the wealthiest country in South Asia in real terms. That is by all metrics, whether it's in terms of purchasing power parity, GDP per capita, social development, human development, physical quality of life index, infrastructure, whatever—except for the Maldives, which is really tiny. And so the question then is, how can Sri Lanka be bankrupt and the rest of South Asia, which is actually poorer in real terms, not be bankrupt? And it comes down to the narrative that Sri Lanka doesn't have exorbitantly privileged US dollars and therefore it's bankrupt. -- 4 of 12 -- But the question then is, is the US dollar an adequate measure of the wealth of nations? And this really is one of the core questions that I think the world needs to grapple with at this time, when there are 56 other Global South countries caught in these international sovereign bond debt traps. But in any case, that's a narrative that we have to challenge. And also, what appears retrospectively to have happened is that what we might consider to be an illiquidity crisis was claimed to be an insolvency and extended. This probably happened because Sri Lanka is a small country and it's geostrategic, through a whole series of external and internal geopolitical activities. There was also lawfare—the use of law as a form of economic warfare—to crash the economy. So, the shadowy Hamilton Reserve Bank in St. Kitts and Nevis took out a court case in New York against the government of Sri Lanka for not paying a small amount of interest. And then there were rating agencies—coordinated, Moody's and Fitch, etc.—that downgraded the currency. And so there was a run on the rupee and its depreciation overnight. So there were all these sorts of external activities against the currency, and