According to Defense News on Singapore’s defense budget, we are increasing our defense budget this year by a hefty 6%. We generally spent approximately 30% or 4% of our GDP on defense, and this is a whooping 11 billion dollars or so(USD 7.66 billion). Seems like compared to other countries think again. Malaysia spends USD 4.5 billion, even with the overflow of 10% it’s 4.95 billion. Indonesia spends USD 3.9 billion on defense. And guess what both these countries are bigger and thus rightfully should need more to defend themselves right? Well not so.
Personally I never believe in the need for armies. I personally believe we should create a boxing ring and throw the various leaders of different groups into this ring to fight it out amongst themselves and not throw innocents bystanders into the picture to sacrifice themselves for the ideals of another man who at times they might not even fully comprehend. (Trying asking a terrorist what he is fighting for)
But of course I do agree that Singapore should have a slightly bigger budget than her neighbours for we attempt to maximise our manpower by allowing expensive machines to replace some menial labour which can be unnecessary. However I feel that we are just not maximising our defense budget making every buck worth it. Why so?
Taking US’s lead in defense matters in view of the bullish economy, we should review where our money is being poured into. Do we really need what we buy? I don’t know the big picture but do we really need those Gulfstreams and F15s? Have we fully utilise our current fleets of planes yet? And for expensive frigates, are they really that worth for money or are they far too expensive to risk losing it in war?
The Allies, Great Britain, USSR and USA, did not win the war by having the most advance or expensive piece of equipment out in the field. US aside, the Allies won out in their stamina in producing war equipments with USSR winning by sheer numbers. So are the tanks, ships and planes we buy easily replaceable? With those price tags unlikely.
Another sad thing is how our government wage policies does not reflect in SAF’s. We have variable wages which theoretically should be paid out in such times helping our government reduce spending and these savings to be put in better use helping those in need. (Though average wages increased from 2007 to 2008, real wages have actually decrease.) In addition we are inflating the pay checks of our regulars. The extreme lack of competiveness for our 55,000 strong regular forces means more people sign on just for a ‘iron’ rice bowl for you canot be sack just not promoted and not recontract but never release from service. In short you can suck away precious taxpayers’ money doing nothing and get away with it.
In this economic crisis, our government tells coporations to reduce retrenchments by asking the big bosses to take home less money. Yet sadly we are paying our civil servants that are high up more. Should they lead buy example by taking a cut in their pay and commit these cuts to help out families in critical need? Sadly that seems not to be the case for our generals, colonels, warrants, majors and captains are still having their full salary. If our generals, colonels, MWOs and SWOs take a 10% cut in their pay, I’m sure we can help at least a few hundreds of families who are barely making it through.
Our government tells our elites to not be exclusive but inclusive, ot rule from the ivory tower but these concepts seems to not permeate into our of the country’s biggest organisation other than PSC and the ministries. How sad for to see such behaviour in the organisation which claims to create Man out of Boys. I really wonder what values and morals are our Armed Forces teaching to highly imprintable minds of the youths who spent 2 years immerse in its culture. Perhaps that is why we can never be a truly cultured society for the males will be assholes with bad values save those few enlightened ones and those few in units where the COs shield them from the great ‘evils’ of SAF.
Hopefully I stay enlightened. Though I attempt to convince people on how good is Singapore and why we should stay one factor always make me question myself – the SAF.
-wonght
Instead of collecting badges, do spent more time attempting to reform the breeding place of assholes who wastes taxpayers money
“the Allies won out in their stamina in producing war equipments with USSR winning by sheer numbers”
1. Singapore buy expensive weaponry to deal the most damage per hit, because one hit is probably all it has before it falls.
2. Our manufacturing capacity wouldn’t be able to replace or repair damaged equipment fast enough, which would be exacerbated if we had a large fleet of low armor [aka easily damaged] equipment.
3. We don’t have the space to maintain a large fleet.
4. Having many many many fleets of ships seems more aggressive than having a few top-end ships, despite it being the case.
5. The higher the cost, the less manpower needed, since we don’t have a lot of the latter.
6. Having the latest cool stuff increases conscription rate of regulars. =D
By: Parallax on March 12, 2009
at 10:42 am
Dear Parallax,
Firstly yes i fully agree with most of your points but let us look beyond te reasons our government gives to support its policies.
I don’t actually disagree with the defense policy or rather well we do have unique requirements thus the need to have such policies. If you look carefully my stand is fully justified and supported by history.
Yes US has used her high tech equipment to win the Afgan and Iraq war rapidly, but it remains a good hit and run tactic. In actual fact if you consider the possibility of us entering war, we cannot substain a long war.
For a huge amount we pay, we get only a slight edge in technology which can be at times easily overwhelm by very primitive means. In war machines quantity still trumps quality, else the Tiger would have gave the Hitler’s Germany her victory already. Thus i still think getting such expensive equipment cannot save us in war actually.
As for fleet maybe having a bigger fleet might just be only as demanding as the highly priced big ships. Still not a good enough economist to judge, but i guess eos should set in for the basic infrastructure is certainly scalable.
Also higher cost does not always means less manpower. Such a spurious correlation. Please justify that with proper arguments.
On the last, that would be a sad reason why people choose to sign on. So are civil servants attracted by gimmicks or by the want to serve a greater cause. If the earlier only, they will no put in their all, which i may say happens now in SAF. It is sad how we attempt to entice people to do an altruistic act.
Hopefully you can review your statements and think about whether the armed forces is really necessary, and does it really need that big a spending. We promote peace yet we stockpile weapon. The biggest irony of the mordern world.
By: wonght12 on March 15, 2009
at 9:00 am