those lazy ah mats cannot make it lah...They are just buying for
the sake of buying and showing off...It is not about having nice
looking equipment alone? Obviously they don't know that.Can you
imagine the logistics nightmare they will face with Russian,British
and American military hardware? I rest my case...
"From 1985 to 1993, Malaysia and Singapore spent roughly the same
amount of money on their respective militaries (Singapore spent $12
billion; and Malaysia, $12.5 billion).Yet in all respects,
Singapore's military is far more capable than Malaysia's armed
forces. Singapore's equipment, personnel, training, and overall
readiness are considered the best in Southeast Asia. The MAF, on
the other hand, still has shortfalls in operational efficiency,
readiness, and sustainability. Furthermore, the educational
standards of Malaysia's military personnel are inadequate to
operate and maintain modern, high-tech equipment.
Malaysia and Indonesia instituted force modernization plans in 1979
that were subsumed by politics; the military's desires were
overridden by political decisions for many major
purchases.According to a former Defense and Army Attache at the
American Embassy in Malaysia, these problems can be traced to two
sources.
The first is a manpower problem, related directly to Malaysia's
consistent and adamant policy that Malays form the bulk of their
armed forces. The MAF remains an all-volunteer military, despite
the fact that even among Malays, military service is no longer as
attractive as employment in the civilian sector. The MAF has taken
some measures to make a military career more attractive, but the
obvious solution of increasing the recruit pool by accessing more
non-Malays is ignored. The only disqualification of these non-Malay
recruits is their race and consequent perceived political
unreliability.
The second problem is the process of weapon acquisition. In most
competent military organizations, weapon purchases are made based
on the recommendations of the military services, predicated on an
evaluation of the national defense mission and available resources.
In Malaysia, however, weapon purchases are made after consultations
between the finance minister and the prime minister. Although the
opinions of the military are voiced through the minister of
defense, they are frequently overridden by the political players.
Consequently, expensive high-tech weapons are purchased according
to political criteria instead of the needs of soldiers, sailors,
and airmen expected to operate and maintain them.
Consider, for example, Malaysia's aircraft purchases. To replace
one aircraft, the A-4, Kuala Lumpur has purchased three: the
MiG-29, the F/A-18, and the Hawk-200. As variety is added to any
fleet of equipment, training and logistical problems expand. This
situation is aggravated in Malaysia's case because these aircraft
come from three different countries, with different standards of
logistics, training, and language. Further exacerbating the problem
is the low number of each aircraft purchased, which makes buying
spare parts and services relatively more expensive and retention of
an adequate number of qualified crews considerably more difficult.
The consequence of these problems will be low availability of
combat aircraft well into the future
