COMMENT
Singapore’s national security policies are outdated and in dire
need of revision. These policies are heavily influenced by the
paranoia of the 1960s, when a vulnerability fetish gave rise to a
siege mentality amongst Singaporean leaders that persists till
today.
One archaic assumption is that Singapore should maintain a military
alliance with Israel to protect itself from its main security
threat—potentially hostile Muslim neighbours. This harks back to
the mid 1960s, when Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister,
looked across the world and realised there was one other state that
had faced and repeatedly overcome a similar national security
challenge—being “a tiny minority in an archipelago of 30,000
islands inhabited by more than 100 million Malay or Indonesian
Muslims.”
Lee’s decision to seek help from the Israelis was defensible then,
given that Singapore had just been thrown out of the Federation of
Malaysia in 1965, and that Indonesia under Sukarno was pursuing an
unpredictably hostile policy of Konfrontasi.
But Singapore does not face the same national security challenges
it once did. Though Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbours,
Singapore is not. It is very difficult to imagine a scenario where
modern Indonesia and/or modern Malaysia—or any other state, for
that matter—would attack Singapore.
Why? Simply, Singapore has become too important to the global
economy. Some 80% of the world’s oil flows through Singapore.
Singapore sits at the centre of global aviation and shipping
routes. Multinationals from China, Europe, India and the US have
sizeable operations in Singapore. High-net worth individuals from
every Asian country have second homes in Singapore.
Peace in Singapore is a non-negotiable prerequisite for Asia’s
stability. In other words, the biggest deterrent to would-be
aggressors is not Singapore’s Armed Forces; it is the Armed Forces
of China and the US, hovering around the broader Asia-Pacific
region.
A common argument from Singapore’s security hawks is that Singapore
sits in a volatile, unpredictable region and hence needs to
maintain a strong deterrent force. Yet, aside from the occasional
skirmish between Cambodia and Thailand, all regional fracases are
local insurgencies, not ones that could possibly boil over into an
inter-state conflict. South-east Asian states are getting closer by
the day, as the region prepares for deeper economic integration in
2015.
Singapore’s alliance with Israel may actually undermine the
country’s relations with its own Muslim population and its
neighbours, and make it more susceptible to attacks from Islamic
terrorist groups. This does not mean that Singapore should
immediately align itself with the pro-Palestinian side. Rather, it
is probably wise for Singapore to reconsider its unflinching and
unreserved support for Israel.
What might that mean in practice? First, Singapore should
progressively reduce its military ties with Israel. Second, in
international diplomacy, Singapore should lean less towards Israel.
At last month’s UN referendum on upgrading Palestine’s UN status,
Singapore was the only South-east Asian country not to vote Yes (it
abstained).
Third, Singapore should immediately quash the notion that if the
country ever went to war with a Muslim country, Singapore’s Muslims
might switch sides. This supposed risk is behind the refusal to
allow Muslims to occupy many high-security positions in the Armed
Forces.
Relook national service
On a related note, if Singapore faces different national security
challenges than it did in the 1960s, is there still a need for
mandatory national service?
Singapore is possibly the only modern state that has never been
embroiled in a major military conflict but still insists on
maintaining a conscript army. Yet there are many reasons why
Singapore should immediately shift from a conscript to a
professional army.
Perhaps the most important is motivation. Anybody who has gone
through mandatory national service knows that the typical
Singaporean soldier is about as motivated as a Resorts World
dolphin. Aside from the “regulars” (professional soldiers), it is
unlikely that Singapore is training very dedicated and proficient
soldiers.
On a related and more sombre note, when a person is forced into
rigorous exercise and discipline for an amorphous cause he cannot
fully grasp, there is a chance he can be emotionally and
psychologically affected. This may partly explain the Singaporean
soldiers who commit suicide because they just can’t take it any
more. Just as horrific are the stories of soldiers who die in the
course of their training.
A separate reason is a very pragmatic, rational one—the opportunity
cost of every Singaporean male losing two of the most productive
years of his life. This loss is severe in today’s globalised,
high-technology world, where cutting-edge companies are being
created overnight in garages by dynamic, pubescent teenagers.
Consider that in 2004, when 19-year old Mark Zuckerberg was
founding Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, almost every
Singaporean male his age was busy firing a rifle.
From a fiscal point of view, the money could be better spent
elsewhere. The Ministry of Defence gets more tax dollars—almost a
quarter of total government spending—than any other. IHS, a
research house, forecasts that this will rise from S$12.28bn in
2012 to S$12.32bn by 2015.
If Singapore spent only one-third of the current defence budget,
its per capita spending would fall in line with the likes of
Canada, Monaco and Switzerland. That would free up roughly S$8bn
every year. If the S$8bn were redirected to the bottom 10 per cent
of citizens by household income—about 0.33m people—that would
equate to social spending of S$24,000 a year each. (This is a gross
simplification of a complex economic trade-off. Nevertheless, the
comparison serves to highlight the relative potential of that
money.) It is sobering to note that Singapore, which is trying to
build a knowledge economy, currently spends more on defence than on
education.
Finally, there is the issue of responsibility for security in a
global city. Given that fewer than two out of three people in
Singapore are citizens, and that first-generation citizens do not
have to serve in the military, is it fair to expect male citizens
alone to shoulder the city’s national security burden? Singapore
has essentially been targeting a demographic that comprises less
than a quarter of the country, and insisting that they defend the
rest. Is that fair?
Put another way, the argument here is that in a global city state
with a high proportion of foreigners, foreign capital and foreign
firms, national integration can be improved by levelling the
national security responsibilities of the locals vis-à-vis the
foreigners.
Each of these reasons on their own might warrant the end of
mandatory national service. Together, they make for a compelling
case.
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