Hard truths about Singapore"s defence

SINGAPORE – Recent months have seen National Service (NS) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) popping up as topics of discussion and debate among Singaporeans.

Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said on Monday a new committee would conduct a comprehensive review of the support network around NS. Recently, Mr Hri Kumar Nair, a Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, called for a defence tax on permanent residents and foreigners.

Last year, nearly 70 per cent of Singaporeans polled in an Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) survey said that having a male child who had completed NS is an important characteristic of being “Singaporean.” And Jack Neo’s Ah Boys To Men two-parter hit – movies about the trials and tribulations of a group of recruits – has broken new records at the box office, reflecting popular interest in NS.

Focusing on questions of equity between PRs and citizens and the proper recognition of the sacrifices made by NSmen are appropriate. After all, most, if not all, Singaporean families have members who are serving or have served in the armed forces.

What success has bred

The problem here, however, is that a focus on such issues looks at NS and the SAF through a domestic lens, and fails to put them in a more externally oriented and geopolitical context. Put differently, there is a risk of getting mired in the weeds.

The fact is that after 45 years of National Service, the SAF has fallen victim to its own success.

Because the city-state has deterred potential aggressors for so long, Singaporeans have to an extent been lulled into complacency, such that they now talk about “softer” issues, be it whether PRs serve NS, and even a trimming of the defence budget.

Granted, there are some grounds to be smug. Singapore’s defence budget, at a projected $12.3 billion this year, is the biggest in South-east Asia. And it is an open secret that Singapore has one of the highest per capita defence spendings in the world, after countries such as Israel. It possesses a highly-advanced “third generation” fighting force built on the principles of “see first, think quicker, kill faster”.

But to understand the SAF’s enduring validity, and the need for a substantial defence budget, one has to go back to where it came from.

Formed in 1967, the SAF provided strategic insurance in a Muslim neighbourhood that has often viewed the Republic’s predominantly Chinese population with suspicion, if not animosity. To compound matters, Singapore suffers from a lack of strategic depth – another way of saying that once an adversary had set foot on its soil, the war was all but over.

Hard truths about Singapore"s defence