By Tan Kwoh Jack, Ho Shu Huang and Koh Swee Lean Collin
Singapore’s security approach has been a success. It’s policies now need to focus on sustaining it.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s address at the National Day Rally in August has been seen by many observers to be a landmark speech. Singapore is at a turning point, and the major policy shifts in housing, healthcare and education all aim to facilitate the country’s entry into a new phase of development and nation-building.
While the rally was ostensibly domestic in nature, external forces were also behind the changes Lee unveiled. These include increased regional and global competition, technological advances, fluid international finance and talent flows. It is a reminder of how the international environment directly impacts Singapore’s domestic politics, and how Singapore’s internal transformations will determine the country’s ability to succeed in the global arena.
There is also one other important shift to note. Small states like Singapore can, indeed, survive and thrive. As Lee acknowledges, Singapore is “stable and strong”; it is charting a bold, new way forward from a position of excellence and strength. This reinforces Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam’s recent remark that in becoming economically and politically successful, “Singapore has overcome its small geographical size.” Likewise, the recent 90th birthday celebrations of Lee Kuan Yew have sparked numerous reflections on Singapore’s achievements.
This shift in rhetoric suggests that Singapore’s longstanding narrative of vulnerability – a narrative that has galvanized its strategic policies for the last four decades in areas from education to defense to foreign relations – is evolving into one that is more about sustaining its success.
Given that the domestic and the external are intertwined within Singapore’s framework of Total Defense – which connects socio-economic factors and security matter – how might these domestic shifts influence Singapore’s foreign policy, its armed forces and the institution of National Service?
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