Total Defence Day 2014

I was reminded that today is Total Defence Day by the Prime Minister's Facebook post:

With the choice of MacDonald House as the focus of the photo, I guess the PM wanted to use the recent diplomatic spat with Indonesia to remind Singaporeans of the importance of national defence.

What the PM appears to have ignored is the fact that due to the government's bad economic policies of the last 2 decades, Singaporeans' economic position have been weakened considerably.  The reckless importation of middle-class foreigners have pushed up asset prices while the unmitigated reliance on low-end foreign workers have suppressed the wages of lower-income Singaporeans.  As such, due to these policies, the economic resilience of Singaporeans have been very much weakened.

Related to the above is the negative psychological impact on Singaporeans of feeling that we are 2nd class in our own country.  As a foreign friend of mine who had recently left Singapore told me - "I came to Singapore because your government treated me better than citizens".  So here, the psychological defence of Singaporeans has been seriously undermined by the government's single-minded pursuit of GDP growth.

With so many foreigners in our midst, and many of them carrying the 'I am here because I am a talent and better than you locals" attitude, our social fabric has been damaged by the increasing conflict between natives and aliens.  As such, on the social defence front, we have also regressed.

In conclusion, if the government wants to move beyond rhetoric in the area of total defence, the first thing to do is to change its economic policies and take measures to heal the damage done to the aforementioned 3 pillars of total defence.

Hopefully, Total Defence Day 2015 can be a happier one for Singaporeans.  希望新加坡人不用再面對外人喧賓奪主的情況。

Naming a Ship After Criminals

As we learnt today, the Singapore government has protested against Indonesia's decision to name a navy ship in honour of 2 soldiers who carried out the bombing of MacDonald House in 1965.  While that's the right thing for the government to do, and many Singaporeans are understandably unhappy about the incident, the fact of the matter is that we can do nothing about it.  We are a tiny red dot and Indonesia is a very big country.

Immediately after reading this piece of news, I was reminded of how some liberal-minded Singaporeans were calling for the removal of compulsory national service many years ago when I was still in university.  The premise of that call was that we have excellent relations with our neighbouring countries, and thus we don't need a large standing army to defend ourselves against them.  Unfortunately, over the years, more Singaporeans have come to subscribe to this flawed understanding of reality, including some opposition politicians hoping to score points against the PAP.

To me, this episode is just another reminder of a fundamental geopolitical fact: When you are a small country, you WILL be bullied.  This means not only that we have to have a strong military as a means of deterrence, but also that we just have to be street-smart enough to deal with this reality, and at times, even to turn this weakness into an advantage.  Protesting verbally is only 'for show', to maintain our 'face' and a modicum of respectability.  If we want to get back at Indonesia, we have to think of something else.  All is fair in foreign policy.

All I hope for now is that there are enough cunning and savvy people running our national strategy and foreign policy.  At present, I'm not too hopeful.