You'd be mad to test the Singapore fortress
By Anthony Paul
SINGAPORE has a poorly kept military secret, if the city's taxi
drivers, who often double as driving-seat generals, are to be
believed. A visitor taking a taxi from Changi Airport will
sometimes be told the inside story.
About three minutes past the 'Welcome to Singapore' sign and tree
cover, the road suddenly becomes a perfectly straight stretch of
several kilometres. In the median strip to your right, low shrubs
in large pots have replaced the trees.
If war threatens, you're told, Singapore Armed Forces (SAF)
personnel will descend and drag those pots clear.
The squads will simultaneously topple palm trees lining the road
and dismantle a parallel line of lamp-posts. Within minutes, Changi
will have an additional runway for SAF jets.
Foreign Policy magazine's annual globalisation index recently named
Singapore Asia's most globalised country - the most open to
visitors, trade and capital flow. But this openness obscures
another of the city-state's distinctions - Singapore is one of the
world's best-prepared fortresses.
Defence spending per capita compares with such places as Israel and
Kuwait. Sudden mobilisations periodically prove Singapore's claim
that at the press of a button, the SAF can field more than a
quarter of a million men within hours. As British defence
specialist Tim Huxley has written in Defending The Lion City,
Singapore is 'probably the most densely defended state in the
world'.
Why so much defence for such a small state?
One obvious response is the island's strategic position, on the
main route for vast East Asia-Europe sea traffic.
But another compelling reason is this unusual state's
ambition.
Within 10 years, says Asian Demographics, a marketing consultancy,
the republic can expect to be Asia's second-richest nation, with a
gross domestic product per capita of US$35,020 (S$58,900). (Other
forecasts for year 2013: Japan, US$38,987; Hong Kong, US$29,902;
Australia, US$22,961; Malaysia, US$5,394.)
To sustain the growth rate needed, Singapore must continue
attracting investment and skilled immigrants. Unfortunately,
Singapore is 'a fine place in a lousy neighbourhood', said a former
DBS Bank economist. 'Though there are no immediate threats, being
seen to be able to defend ourselves against any bully is important
to investors.'
Threat perceptions in Singapore include Malaysia, Indonesia and,
lately, terrorists. Further complicating defence issues are those
two larger neighbours' Chinese minorities. They tend to look upon
predominantly Chinese Singapore as an ultimate refuge.
When mobs began rampaging through Indonesia's Chinese communities
in 1998, Singapore feared it might become the destination for
literally hundreds of thousands of Sino-Indonesians. The threat
failed to materialise, but not before the SAF began extensive
preparations to ward off any unacceptably large influx.
Meantime, Singapore continues its up-and-down relationship with
Malaysia, which supplies close to half the island's water.
Singapore's resultant sensitivity about water security is evident
in a passage in From Third World To First, Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew's memoirs.
In a blunt conversation with then Malaysian prime minister Mahathir
Mohamad, Mr Lee noted that Malaysia had guaranteed Singapore's
water supply. But if that guarantee were ever breached in 'a random
act of madness', he told Dr Mahathir, 'we would have to go in,
forcibly if need be, to restore the water flow'.
Prospects of such an armed conflict are extremely remote. But this
past weekend, war caught my attention - dramatic TV reports from
Iraq and a Sunday Times article on Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean's
concept of 'the new type of soldier needed by the 'third-generation
SAF' '.
Later in the morning, I visited the Fort Canning bunker. In the
fort commander's conference room, I watched wax images of British
generals re-enacting Singapore's 1942 surrender to the Japanese as
the island ran out of water and fuel.
I asked myself: For all Singapore's chutzpah, what really would be
the SAF's chances if war came?
Though clearly impressed by the SAF, author Huxley judges it to be
largely a citizen force, 'dependent for its personnel on
essentially acquiescent rather than enthusiastic conscripts and
reservists'. The fact that they have never been battle-tested, says
Mr Huxley, leaves us with the question: Are SAF personnel really
warriors - or just bureaucrats in uniform?
We won't really know until there really is a war.
But as a former war correspondent (Indochina, the Soviet-Afghan
war), I take note of what may already be observed:
# Motivation in combat: The slogan of the US Military Academy at
West Point is 'Duty, Honour, Country'. The word sequence, with
'duty' first, wasn't chosen idly. Surveys during the Vietnam war
showed the main source of battlefield courage was not so much the
official propaganda ('save the world from communism') or even
patriotism. It was duty to closest comrades, beginning with the
squad and platoon.
SAF reserve units are more tightly bonded than any I have seen. I
know of one Beach Road IT company whose ethnically mixed staff were
in the same university sports team and are today the core of their
reserve unit.
What I saw in Vietnam leaves me with no doubt that duty to comrades
who are also their close friends will make their unit more than
formidable under fire.
# Combat history: Happily brief. But it may be worth noting in the
SAF's only combat to date - the storming of a hijacked airliner at
Changi in 1991 - its well-trained commandos shot dead all four
Pakistani terrorists within 30 seconds of entering the passenger
cabin.
If I were someone looking for a serious fight with Singapore, I'd
ponder the two points above. The SAF gives the impression that it
would indeed be madness to test its preparedness.
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