Well, i think victory as I defined earlier can only mean a
limited occupation of malaysia rather than a full blown crushing of
malaysia in total.
I mean, pushing them back far enough so as to create a physical
buffer is one thing; occupying their entire country is
another.
And really, I for one sincerely doubt that there is such a thing a
'totally crushing a population' so that they will not rise like 'an
itch' again in the future.
Unless you are talking about the sort of destruction that the
allies and the Russians visited on the Germans - leading to the
total and physical destruction of everything that was German...then
maybe there is a point to the madness.
But can anyone here ever envisage such an act from S'pore being
committed to Malaysia?
I mean, I surely would be open to the idea that if we somehow
destroyed every single iota of malaysian infrastructure and we
could control the populace, then sure, sign me up and I'd gladly do
the destruction - cos I would know that there is a tangible result
to be obtained.
But, history has shown that the total destruction of a country
ensures nothing, not the security which we crave so much.
And how are we to do something like that? We have no nukes, no
strategic bombers, no WMD to ensure something like that, even if we
wanted to. And thus to send in waves after waves of our soldiers to
fight a politically blind war with no definite purpose is a
horrible and unproductive solution.
Our economy will fall to ruin while we attempt to put down a
possiblly hostile population, with no intention of submitting.
Moreover, we'd lose all the moral high ground of acting in self
defence if we over stay our assault. The Vietnamese were seen as
'peaceful intervenors' in 1979 in Cambodia, but then they, er, sort
of like overstayed for 10 years! and they lost whatever moral
mandate they started with (though i think that too was a glib lie)
Further Vietnam became tied down in attritional guerilla warfare
which drained their economy dry.
So i guess the only possible solution is a limited offensive aimed
at carving out a huge hole in their country; then to fight a
holding battle or in the worst case, a retrograde operation over a
few weeks, to give time for the UN to act.
I do wistfully wish that yes, perhaps that we still lived in the
lands of yore, where we as conquering hordes can sweep over the
enemy's land and destroy evernthing that displeases us in our path,
subjugate their populace and crush all resistance. But sigh, this
unfortunate little blimp called international law has put a dent in
such ambitions 