Can Singapore win a war? Yes i believe it can, militarily. As
earlier posters have pointed out, the SAF is more than a match for
the armed forces of most neighbouring countries in terms of
equipment and training. You can find this out easily from open
source info on the web, there is no need for any top secret info
here.
Actually, i rather hope that the neighbouring countries visibly
improve their armed forces so that Singapore doesn't get too cocky
and over-confident and trigger happy. If the armed forces in the
region are more balanced, it will decrease the chances of armed
conflict breaking out because nobody can be sure that they will win
it.
And as for the SAF pledge, which Altrex brought up:
All male citizens above 18 pledged their "allegiance to the
President", "to support and defend the Constitution" and "to
preserve and protect the honour and independence of our country
with our lives". These lines are taken from the SAF Pledge. How
many of you actually understood what you've pledged yourself to and
lived by it?
I would suggest that oaths taken under duress don't count for
much. Singaporeans are forced to say pledges and are conscripted
into the army by law, not because they really want to.
Besides, how many Singaporeans actually know what a constitution
is, let alone what their country's constitution says? If you don't
know what your constitution says, how are you going to "support and
defend" it? And why should you risk your life doing so when the
constitution that you die defending may be changed the next day to
suit the whims of the ruling party? If, for example, the
constitution was changed so that citizens who are most likely to
vote for a certain party get 2 votes whereas those who are least
likely to vote for them get no votes, would you still support
it?
And as for "allegience to the president," what does that actually
mean? If the president asked you to stage a military coup and
install him as a dictator, would you do it?
And as for preserving the "honour and independence of our country
with our lives," go look for a poem called "dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori".
I urge all Singaporeas to think about the pledges and oaths that
they take. Do they make sense? Do we mean what we say when we take
the pledges or do we just say them just in order not to get in
trouble with the authorities?
And do the authorities behave as though they themselves honour the
spirit of the pledge? For example, the Singapore pledge says "...to
build a democratic society, based on justice and equality...", but
don't we keep hearing that "democracy" and human rights are western
inventions and not suitable for us because we have "Asian values"?
And what of "equality", in a materialistic "meritocracy" like ours,
do we actually treat all citizens with equal respect, or are some
citizens more equal than others? We spout high-sounding slogans
like "every singaporean counts" but on the ground we act
differently.
Some of the pledges and slogans Singaporeans say do indeed sound
like they have noble ideals, but theory and practice seem to be
quite different things here.
Anyway, back to the topic of war. I agree with Altrex that
Singaporeans might not have the will to fight and win. If a war
started, i expect that the most crucial factor on the singapore
side would not be military capability, but rather will and
morale.
In the war in western asia, the average Iraqi NS man was not
convinced of the justice of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and being
further demoralised by American bombardments and PsyOps, they
surrendered en masse when the coalition forces began their
offensive. In Vietnam, it wasn't the military might of the North
Vietnamese that won them victory so much as their dogged
determination to rid themselves of foreign domination, and in spite
of the American's technological superiority the USA lost because
the American public was against the war and the average GI didn't
see the point of dying in somebody elses' war.
So, in order for Singapore to win a war, both the pink IC holders
and the green IC holders need to be convinced of the justice of the
cause and to be determined to win come what may.
If Singapore is faced with a genuine military attack from another
country, the SAF will very probably win a decisive victory, but if
Singapore is the one who fires the first shot and invades another
country, there will be doubt in the minds of many Singaporeans as
to the moral rightness of their side.
Furthermore the international community will probably side the side
that is defending and oppose the side that is attacking, and
Singapore may then end up facing UN economic sanctions or even
military action. As Lee Kuan Yew has recently noted, current norms
of international behaviour do not allow one country to invade
another to expand its territory. Even if, for the sake of argument,
Singapore captures a piece of land, it will have to give it back
and not be able to hold onto it. I sincerely hope that all
Singaporeans take note of this, especially the older generation of
SAF officers.
As such, if the decision makers in Singapore ever decide to start a
war for whatever reason, i expect that they will try to provoke the
other country to take menacing actions such as mobilising its
troops and massing them near Singapore, and then use this to
justify a pre-emptive strike in apparent self-defence. They might
even follow Hitler's example and fake an initial military attack on
Singapore from the country they wish to invade.
However i hope that if the political leaders in Singapore and other
countries are ever tempted to start a war for their own political
ends, they will remember the example of people like Sukarno and
Milosevic. During the war they were able to impose martial law and
rule their country, but once they lost it their population threw
them out of office.
At the end of the day, war itself is the enemy, it causes
immeasurable suffering and death to human beings, and we must
strive to avoid it at all costs. Military action should only be
carried out as an absolute last resort, and only for the most dire
and necessary reasons. The costs will be very heavy and we stand to
lose much more than we gain if we have a war.
Let us pray that it doesn't happen here.
