Our bloated defence budget: To be a Porcupine or a Poisoned Shrimp?

Our bloated defence budget: To be a Porcupine or a Poisoned Shrimp?

In an marine ecosystem, the big fish eats the small fish, which eats the shrimp. The original defence strategy of Singapore, taking into account its size was to be a poisonous shrimp. A predator would be contemplating suicide unless it was sufficiently large, in which case, it would be weakened and could be eaten by another otherwise benign fish. Yet, the then BG Lee Hsien Loong remarked in 1982 in an interview that one cannot threaten a shrimp, but one can threaten a nation with destruction and when given a choice, the nation would choose to capitulate over suicide.

This is however contrary to many examples in history. It is difficult to imagine that the Swiss could survive the German war machine during WW2 but they managed to keep themselves out of the conflict. The Americans could also have threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear destruction prior to the latter’s successes in developing sufficient arms but this was not done, and the Cold War raged for half a century.

BG Lee had already perhaps envisaged the future lack of will among Singpaoreans to defend the nation and thus needed to compensate with a more offensive “porcupine” strategy, which according to certain scholars have already been in place for many years.

This new strategy however ran into difficulties over the next few decades. While Singapore armed herself with arguably one of the most potent western oriented air force in the region, Malaysia possibly responded by acquiring Russian jets with more advanced weaponry than the Americans were willing to sell.

While the Singapore government lobbied for more advanced American weapons, the Malaysian army bought highly advanced Brazilian multiple rocket launcher systems that can threaten airfields and military installations to neutralize the Singaporean superiority in the air. More recent purchases were highlighted in the previous article. SAF acquisitions appears to be countered by asymmetrical acquisitions requiring extraordinary effort by the SAF to counter.

Can the “porcupine” strategy de disassociated from the regional arms race? In fact, Singapore’s leaders recognized in 2000 that the “porcupine” strategy has ruffled a few regional feathers. Yet, it seems that this strategy has continued and not ceased even during times of recession. Can Singapore’s GDP and defence budget grow adequately at the required pace to continue this approach indefinitely?

To delve into this topic, we must explore first and foremost the grand strategy, as coined by Liddell Hart, that Singapore needs to take. Unlike military strategy, grand strategy must consider the interplay of political and military action.

Military strategy cannot be divorced with national or grand strategy. To defend itself, a nation must rely equally on both strategies. It is also said that during the winter wars against the Soviet Union, the Finnish rejected German demands to attack Leningrad although the former were only tens of kilometres away because they saw the political ramifications of attacking the prized city of their bitter enemy.

In the end, their calculations were proven right as the Soviets eventually overran eastern Germany to end WW2. It can be thus argued that employing the right grand strategy is as important or perhaps even more important than the right military strategy. Just imagine the world today without Nokia had the Soviets decided to punish Finland as well for attacking Leningrad.

The grand strategy that Singapore should adopt consist of several principles: make Singapore economically and politically too costly to attack; assure great power intervention in the event of armed conflict; avoid a regional arms race which she cannot keep up indefinitely; and maintain legitimacy in action.

Singapore’s current grand strategy is a result of cross breeding Swiss complicity and Israeli hostility. So it is perhaps by no accident that Singapore is a regional financial hub, and often the subject to accusations of being a money laundering centre, a tax evasion haven, as well as the place for regional personalities to park ill gotten gains. More recently she was on OECD’s blacklist (subsequently “greylist”) of non cooperative countries that aided tax evasion.

The presence of CISCO guardhouses in uber safe Singapore for certain unofficial VIPs in certain areas also supports the illicit funds theory. Regardless of the real reasons, Singapore’s tax friendly environment and her continued ability to maintain strict banking secrecy laws outside Europe must also have featured strongly in a certain Swiss bank’s decision to move its headquarters here.

If true, there is very little incentive for rational leaders of neighbouring countries to attack. Even if the allegations are untrue, the value of a functional financial centre is much greater than a bombed out skyscraper. Thus the Singapore’s government has done well in developing the financial services rendering an armed attack economically costly.

But this strategy is being threatened by the lack of legitimacy as seen from OECD action and it does not win favours with the peoples of the neighbouring countries. Singapore’s policies need to be seen to be fair and just. Arrogance and controversies involving Temasek Holdings in Thaksin’s Thailand and Indonesia should be avoided.

Temasek and GIC are sovereign wealth funds, and profit cannot be the only guiding principle as they represent Singapore. If Singapore is generally in the good books of her neighbours, it becomes extremely difficult for their leaders to create the necessary political conditions and support to sustain an attack without losing political ground, even if they are military despots.

Global trade patterns, Singapore’s strategic position, and current vested interest by the US already assures prompt action by the international community in the event of an armed conflict. To assure that the intervention benefits Singapore, legitimacy of action is primordial.

The globalized nature of Singapore’s economy and her dependency on trade for survival makes her extremely vulnerable to sanctions of any kind. Achieving a military victory without legitimacy could well spell the end of this Asian Tiger and pave the way for overall defeat and loss of sovereignty.

The accompanying military strategy must support the overall grand strategy and should focus on developing an extremely hard shell aimed at preventing a land invasion, securing Singapore’s lifeline - the sea lane of communications -, and preventing incursions or attacks from the air, while being able to perform stand off retaliation and some surgical long range attacks at centres of power.

For this, the RSN should provide the geographical depth that the island lacks. The current RSN should focus on controlling the sea lanes, and if necessary, to covertly block the sea lanes in order to speed up international intervention.

Some amphibious capability is desired to add complexity to the aggressors plans and these crafts are often also useful for humanitarian operations, which raises the prestige of the SAF and is great for building goodwill regionally. Some strategic attack capability should also be added.

The RSAF should focus on gaining control of the air with a small fleet of multirole fighters and replace her antiquated HAWK surface to air missile batteries with modern variants. Like the Swedish concept of operations, RSAF’s fighters should not depend on airfields like crutches.

The Swedish modus operandi was so successful during the Cold War that the Soviets drew up a plan to assassinate the pilots in their homes. Another important role for the RSAF would be of surveillance, a role that she presumably already excels in.

The army should be made up of mostly conscripts but specialising in coastal island defence, urban, anti tank and anti aircraft operations mostly on foot or highly mobile platforms. Heavy tank and artillery units and could be professional forces or a mix but again they should focus on operations from the homeland.

Using the Taiwanese and Swiss army as a guide, a 1 year NS period with regular local ICTs should be sufficient to train a army for essentially defensive duties. Current 2 year training plans are probably designed to train complex brigade and occasionally divisional level combined arms, inter army competencies, which is not required for most defensive duties.

Instead of deploying so regularly for training exercises, the SAF should increase her international commitment of volunteer forces (professional forces who personally volunteer) to peacekeeping and peace support operations. The objectives are two fold.

Firstly, to increase operational experience to debunk the non-combat tested hypothesis that is always floating around defence circles, and secondly to support the purported deterrence and defence diplomacy policies. Other regional armed forces have the dubious benefit of regular conflicts as well as regular operational stints, including Malaysian soldiers in Mogadishu where they heroically rescued US Marines.

Without the necessary data and expertise, it is impossible to gauge the exact cost of equipping and maintaining such a SAF. However, with a reduction in heavy offensive weaponry, amphibious capabilities, and conscription training durations, an overall reduction in defence expenditure is not unimaginable.

Today, Singapore should have enough water to last a short conflict with reserve to spare. Furthermore, the geopolitical realities of the region will not permit a prolonged armed conflict. Despite the widespread destruction in the Gaza, the Israelis did not damage any water infrastructure. Any action otherwise would cause an immediate loss of legitimacy, international condemnation and its repercussions.

Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the threat to cut water supply is anything more than rhetoric. However, Singapore’s lack of water is a strategic vulnerability that must be addressed and is already currently being addressed.

What is proposed is extremely brief and cannot and will not attempt to pretend that it covers all areas. However, it proposes a departure from the “porcupine” strategy by reducing the SAF’s offensive posture, by avoiding a arms race, and by accepting the realities of armed conflict in the 21st century. It also highlights the importance of other non military factors to secure Singapore’s sovereignty.

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