zulkifli mahmood wrote on 03 Feb `13, 11:38AM
“I want the government to cut their defense budget by 50% so there
will be more fund for other purpose that would benefit Singapore
and Singaporeans.”
Tscaaa wrote on 07 Feb `13, 10:02PM
“finally, someone who share my view on the defense budget ..”
This simply because we all those money spend on weapons
Singapore government can do plenty to improve many Singaporean
lives. Take a look at this…
Military spending in South-East Asia
Shopping spree
Countries are buying lots of weapons, but does it count as an
arms race?
Mar 24th 2012 | JAKARTA AND SINGAPORE
THE tiny island-state of Singapore, home
to just over 5m people, has a well-deserved reputation as a quiet,
clean-cut hub for banking, lawyering and golf. Yet beyond the
fairways it bristles with weapons.
According to a report from the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI), Singapore is now the fifth-largest arms
importer in the world, bested only by some obvious behemoths—China,
India and Pakistan—plus South Korea. Singapore accounts for 4% of
the world’s total spending on arms imports. Its defence spending
per head beats every country bar America, Israel and Kuwait. This
year $9.7 billion, or 24% of the national budget, will go on
defence.
These are striking figures, but then Singapore has been one of
the bigger spenders in the region since its rancorous split from
Malaysia in 1965. The difference now is that almost every country
in South-East Asia has embarked on a similar build-up, making it
one of the fastest-growing regions for defence spending in the
world. Military analysts at IHS Jane’s say
that South-East Asian countries together increased defence spending
by 13.5% last year, to $24.5 billion. The figure is projected to
rise to $40 billion by 2016. According to SIPRI, arms deliveries to Malaysia jumped eightfold in
2005-09, compared with the previous five years. Indonesia’s
spending grew by 84% in that period.
It is part of a wider Asian phenomenon. For the first time, in
modern history at least, Asia’s military spending is poised to
overtake Europe’s, according to the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, a think-tank in London. China is doubling its
defence budget every five years and India has just announced a 17%
rise in spending this year, to about $40 billion.
Until recently domestic insurgencies have amply justified some
South-East Asian countries’ defence spending. Yet for decades there
have been no interstate conflicts. An existential angst remains in
Singapore over Malaysia to the north and Indonesia, its big
neighbour to the south. Still, it is hard to imagine any of the
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) locking horns,
apart perhaps from Cambodia and Thailand, who lob the occasional
artillery shell at each other over a disputed temple on the
border.
Mostly, though, countries seem to be exploiting economic success
to update their hardware while the going is good. Defence spending
slowed sharply after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98, when
many planes and ships were already old. Now many countries are
enjoying rapid economic growth, of up to 6% a year, and robust
budgets. This is not, says Bill Edgar of IHS
Jane’s, a “strategic” arms race. Rather, he says, it is all about
modernisation.
Take the regional giant, Indonesia. The Indian Ocean tsunami of
2004 not only devastated communities, it also laid bare the
shortcomings of the armed forces, which proved to be ill-equipped
and demoralised. As American and Australian troops poured off
aircraft carriers and other ships into the ravaged province of Aceh
to bring aid and search for victims, Indonesian troops were reduced
to spectators. The newly elected president, Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, took the humiliation personally. A former general, Mr
Yudhoyono has since made modernising Indonesia’s armed forces a
priority.
Indonesia is spending $8 billion this year on defence—still
rather modest for a country of 240m, but up sharply from $2.6
billion in 2006. Much is going on new hardware and spare parts. The
country has acquired Russian and American warplanes, including F-16
fighters, vessels for its navy, and spare parts for its C-130
transport planes. In January Indonesia signed a $1.1 billion deal
for three German-made diesel-electric submarines, and lawmakers are
debating whether to buy 100 Leopard tanks from the Netherlands. Mr
Yudhoyono also wants to improve the lot of soldiers, with higher
salaries and benefits.
Domestic political calculations are another factor behind the
region’s defence splurge. Terence Lee at the National University of
Singapore argues that in countries where the armed forces have
meddled in politics, civilian politicians use larger defence
budgets to buy political compliance from the military—Thailand is a
case in point. Singapore, on the other hand, has a different
motivation. It is the only country in the region building its own
high-tech arms industry. Singapore has long sold weapons to other
developing countries, but has recently been winning its first large
orders from Western armies too. ST Engineering, the only South-East
Asian firm in SIPRI’s top 100 defence
manufacturers, has sold over 100 Bronco (or Warthog) armoured troop
carriers to the British, for use in Afghanistan.
For all that, strategic concerns do count for something. For
example, the sea lanes leading to the Strait of Malacca are the
lifeblood of Singapore’s prosperity. And over the past decade, some
may have worried that America was distracted by war elsewhere. So
the growth of a Chinese blue-water navy has implications.
Strategic concerns also loom large for any country with a
territorial claim to the disputed South China Sea (see article),
where China’s assertive stance has provoked a surge of spending by,
for instance, Vietnam. The country recently ordered six Kilo-class
submarines from Russia. Vietnam is also buying seven or so new
frigates and corvettes over the next decade. In the Philippines the
government of President Benigno Aquino almost doubled the defence
budget last year, to $2.4 billion.
Even with new submarines and planes, Vietnam and the Philippines
are still no match for Asia’s new superpower, should it come to
war. But it might make China think twice, or even thrice, before
trying anything, and buy time before America—presumably—comes to
the rescue.
http://www.economist.com/node/21551056
