Hi Crusader91,
I am a current student of the RSIS which is Singapore's think tank
on strategic security issues. The so-call defence analyst you are
referring too is an academic. His job is to read and write, and if
he/she is in the defence field, writes about defence stuff. In
order to appear on TV and other media as an academic expert,
normally you would need to have quite a bit of academic credential
so a PhD would be minimum.
Singapore only have one "pure" defence analyst at the moment, his
name is Dr Bernard Loo, incidentally my lecturer. There are other
analysts, but they are normally experts on other fields such as a
certain area like China or they could be experts on International
Relationships or civil-military relationship.
The RSIS churns out about 150+- students every year and although a
good number of them are international students, it is still highly
probable that there will be an increase in the numbers of defence
analysts.
The thesis for MSC in RSIS is 10,000 words. So for those who had
experience in writting 12,000 thesis, it shouldn't be much of a
problem.
Defence-Analyst don't earn a lot more than other
academics.....meaning you will survive well, but you are not going
to get rich if you are just going to depend on your salary. The
exact figures, well depends on which University you are in and how
many of them you are in. But most likely to be above 4000, but
lower than 5 figures per month.
Hope that this will give you a better idea. I don't come to sgforum
so often now, but if you have questions, I welcome you to PM me and
I will respond as quickly as possible.
Best wishes for your studies
