Although the Singapore Armed Forces is one of the most technologically advanced militaries in Southeast Asia, it suffers from a number of institutional weaknesses. Singapore's multiethnic but Chinese-dominated society and unique geographical and political characteristics result in challenges in both the recruitment and retention of high-quality personnel into the armed forces as well as in developing the proper role in the military for Singapore's Malay minority (whom the government historically has seen as a security risk but who also have a strong cultural inclination toward military service). This article contends that in meeting these challenges, Singapore has reduced the effectiveness and professionalism of its military significantly by unwisely preventing Malay participation systematically in key areas of the armed forces, by limiting the positions women can hold in the military, and by using a promotion system that is based more on education and scholarships than on proven competence.
Simon Elegant, “Singapore Sleepers,”Time Asia Online, January 21, 2002. Retrieved April 26, 2005, from www.timeasia.com.
2.
COL R.Menon, SAF, To Command: The SAFTI Military Institute (Singapore: Land Mark Books, 1995), 109-109.
3.
Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2000), 94-94.
4.
Author's interview with knowledgeable United States Army officer (source 1), June 2004, Republic of Singapore. Hereafter referred to as source 1 interview.
5.
Author's interview with Overseas Scholar at Harvard University, April 1, 2005, Edinburgh, Scotland. Hereafter referred to as Harvard interview.
6.
Tan Tai Yong, “Singapore: Civil-Military Fusion,” in Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia, ed. Muthiah Alagappa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 289-289.
7.
Chan Kairen, “Change of Command Parades for Army, Navy Chiefs,”Pioneer Online, March 27,] 2003. Retrieved February 6, 2006, from www.mindef.gov.sg/cyberpioneer.
8.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 121-121.
9.
Ibid., 109, 111.
10.
Harvard interview.
11.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 109-109.
12.
It has been pointed out that education at foreign military schools may produce officers substantially different than those without foreign military education. However, all officers still are socialized primarily during their training in the Singaporean military, lessening the influence of foreign military education. In addition, only a handful of officers obtain this type of education, resulting in only a small impact at the institutional level.
13.
Harvard interview.
14.
Ibid.
15.
“MINDEF Scholarship Centre,” from MINDEF Scholarship Center page. Retrieved April 21, 2005, from http://www.scholar.mindef.gov.sg/aboutus_intro.asp. Since 1993, women have been permitted to compete for the Merit Scholarship for Women, the second highest scholarship award. Each year, only five women receive this award. See the section Women in the SAF.
16.
Derek Da Cunha, “Sociological Aspects of the Singaporean Armed Forces,”Armed Forces & Society25, no. 1 (1999): 463-463.
17.
Author's interview with Overseas Scholar at University of California at Berkeley, February 2005, Boston, MA. Hereafter referred to as Berkeley interview.
18.
Harvard interview.
19.
Menon, To Command, 67-67.
20.
Da Cunha, Sociological Aspects, 463-463.
21.
Berkeley interview.
22.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 110–111.
23.
Berkeley and Harvard interviews.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Source 1 interview.
26.
Author's interview with knowledgeable United States Army officer (source 2), June 2004. Hereafter referred to as source 2 interview.
27.
Author's interview with knowledgeable United States Army officer (source 3). June 2004. Hereafter referred to as source 3 interview.
28.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 241-241; Da Cunha, Sociological Aspects, 463.
29.
Menon, To Command, 67-67.
30.
Yong, “Civil-Military Fusion,”289-289.
31.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 8-8.
32.
Da Cunha, Sociological Aspects, 465-465.
33.
S. E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), 28-28, 30-30.
34.
Alon Peled, Soldiers Apart: A study in Ethnic Military Manpower Policies in Singapore, Israel, and South Africa (Ann Arbor. MI: UMI Research Press, 1995), 286–287.
35.
Yong, “Civil-Military Fusion,”283-283.
36.
Ibid., 278.
37.
Morris Janowitz, The Military in the Political Development of New Nations: An Essay in Comparative Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 111-111.
38.
Alon Peled, A Question of Loyalty: Military Manpower Policy in Multiethnic States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 117-117.
39.
These ministers currently hold such important portfolios as defense, foreign affairs, and trade and industry.
40.
Berkeley interview.
41.
Da Cunha, Sociological Aspects, 465-465. This program also serves to reinforce the social linkages between elites.
42.
Many other cases, of course, show the debilitating impact on effective civil-military relations that can arise without a professional officer class. Janowitz writes that “in the absence of a development toward a democratic model (of civil military relations) historical change replaces the aristocratic model with a totalitarian one.” However, this situation is very unlikely in Singapore because for military elites to gain influence in the government via entrance into politics or the civil service, they must leave the armed forces, limiting the possibility of military cronyism. In addition, the systems and traditions of civilian supremacy that have been in place in Singapore since its independence ensure that elite integration results in the military's being firmly under civilian control. As a result, integration reduces rather than increases the power of the military vis-à-vis the civilian government. Civil-military relations theory should be modified to take into account the possibility that the aristocratic model can produce effective long-term civil-military relations with a modern military if a partial civilianization of the military can maintain a social and functional unity of political and military elites. Such a model has the potential to be applied to the formation of new militaries in states that have undergone regime change (either from external or internal means), such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Much as they were in Singapore, civil servants whose loyalty to the state is known (such as expatriates or even vetted bureaucrats of the old regime) could be used to replace former military leaders. The creation of a “civil service in uniform” would assure stable civil-military relations more quickly than the far more difficult task of training professional officers. However, as it did in Singapore, such a program would significantly decrease combat effectiveness. Given the security challenges that occur in post–regime-change states, such a trade-off between military effectiveness and civil-military relations may not be prudent.
43.
Elegant, “Singapore Sleepers.”
44.
Peled, Soldiers Apart, 55-55.
45.
Harvard interview.
46.
Simon Elegant, “Not a Question of Loyalty,”Time Asia Online, February 18, 2002. Retrieved April 26, 2005, from www.timeasia.com.
47.
Harvard interview.
48.
Source 2 interview.
49.
Peled, Soldiers Apart, 58-58.
50.
Sadanand Dhume, “Singapore's Security Complex,”Contemporary Southeast Asia23, no. 1 (2001): 86-86, available from www.JSTOR.org (accessed April 26, 2005).
51.
Elegant, “Not a Question of Loyalty.”
52.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 31–33.
53.
Michael Richardson, “Indonesian President's Remark Touches a Nerve: Singapore Quickly Denies an Assertion of ‘Racism,’?”International Herald Tribune, February 12, 1999, available from www.iht.com.
54.
Peled, Soldiers Apart,7-7.
55.
Ibid., 66.
56.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 102-102, 103-103.
57.
Peled, Soldiers Apart, 67-67.
58.
Tim Huxley, “Singapore in 2000: Continuing Stability and Renewed Prosperity amid Regional Disarray,”Asian Survey41, no. 1 (2001): 204-204.
59.
Peled, Soldiers Apart, 65-65, 176-176.
60.
Elegant, “Not a Question of Loyalty.”
61.
Huxley, “Singapore in 2000,”204-204.
62.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 102-102, 103-103.
63.
Elegant, “Not a Question of Loyalty.”
64.
Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in South East Asia (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 221-221.
65.
Huxley, “Singapore in 2000,”204-204.
66.
Richardson, “Indonesian President's Remark.”
67.
Singapore 1971 Yearbook, as quoted in Peled, Soldiers Apart, 56–57.
68.
For instance, see David L. Leal, “The Multicultural Military: Military Service and the Acculturation of Latinos and Anglos,”Armed Forces & Society29, no. 2 (2003): 219-219.
69.
Menon, To Command, 20-20.
70.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 119-119.
71.
Menon, To Command, 120-120.
72.
“Navy Careers,” from Republic of Singapore Navy page. Retrieved April 21, 2005, from http://www.mindef.gov.sg/navy/careers/.
73.
Source 2 interview.
74.
“SAF Merit Scholarship for Women,” from MINDEF Scholarship Centre page. Retrieved April 21, 2005, from http://www.scholar.mindef.gov.sg/. Only about five women a year receive this award.
75.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 119-119.
76.
Source 2 interview.
77.
Author's interview with anonymous female SAF officer (source 4), June 2004, SAFTI Military Institute, Republic of Singapore.
78.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 120-120.
79.
Source 4 interview.
80.
See R. Claire Snyder, “The Citizen-Soldier Tradition and Gender Integration of the U.S. Military,”Armed Forces & Society29, no. 2 (2003) for an analysis of gender integration in the United States military.
81.
Minister for Defense Teo Chee, lunch talk, “Defending Singapore: Strategies for a Small State,” April 21, 2005, Singapore.
82.
MAJ Fred Tan, “Recruitment Strategies for SAF in the 21st Century: Is There Still Hope for Military Recruitment in Singapore?” from Canadian Forces College Web site, available from http://198.231.69.12/,17.
83.
Rachel Woodward and Patricia Winter, “Discourses of Gender in the Contemporary British Army,”Armed Forces & Society30, no. 2 (2004): 284-284.
84.
Yechezkel Dar and Shaul Kimhi, “Youth in the Military: Gendered Experiences in the Conscript Service in the Israeli Army,”Armed Forces & Society30, no. 3 (2004): 451-451.
85.
Ibid. Dar and Kimhi report that “the perception of service significance had a noteworthy effect of perception of service benefits for both genders, as expected, but its weight was greater among women. Adding perceptions of significance... doubles the explained variance in women's perception of benefits.”
86.
Vincent Phang, “Pushing the Envelopes with Zero Accident,”Focus Magazine, June 2004, p. 14-14.
87.
Huxley, Defending the Lion City, 98-98.
88.
Shoulder to Shoulder: Our National Service Journal (Singapore: Ministry of Defense, 2002), 22-22.
89.
“The Parents’ Lounge,” Army Recruitment Center page. Retrieved April 21, 2005, from http://www.mindef.gov.sg/arc/parents/index.html.
90.
Source 1 interview.
91.
Source 2 interview.
92.
Menon, To Command, 90-90. Emphasis is the author's.
