I am an NSman now. I'm not exactly an advocate for NS, but for
Singapore, we really got no choice.
Defence is always very important. I'm very sure every knows the
boardgame "Risk"; No matter how friendly you are with other
nations, if there is a moment of weakness, other nations will just
eat you up.
Big fish eats small fish. Its a cruel fact.
I'm not saying that our neighbouring countries will invade us
now, but being a Chili Padi, it makes them think twice before they
do anything.
You might ask, what's the reason for any country to
attack us? What I say, if there's any single benefit, I will
attack, but depends on how costly.
SAF invest so much, yet many people complaint if the forces are
effective at all.
Yet we never thought of that one thing, "Its the man, not the
machine."
"Machine" provided by the SAF gave us confidence that at least
we got something decent to fight with against out enemy (although I
am not supportive of all weaponries in the SAF).
"Man" on the other hand, requires training. Yes, our training
may be long. But when you are fighting against really professional
armies, which trained 5-10 full years dedicating to military; you
better think twice of what we are really against.
With 2 years NSF, and 10 years part-time (amounting less than a
year of training!) NSmen training, its nothing at all. And
remember, sometimes you slack most of the NS times.
Most countries have conscription, although not always
active. Any nation can just drown us with their quantities of
men in their armies. But training of men and technology makes a
difference.
We are in a strategic point between India and China, when trade
passes.
From history during Temasek, we know that, even if they
can't have us, they would simply destroy us.
That's how "vunerable" we are.