Btw,why does a tiny Island nation need MBTs? Anyone? There are other ways of countering enemy armour.
In any strategy for defending Singapore, we must embrace apparently contradictory notions (at least on the surface) - as we need to engage difficult partners and yet deter difficult partners at the same time.
Let me repeat what Lee Kuan Yew once said. A small country like Singapore seeks a maximum number of friends, while maintaining the freedom to be itself as a sovereign and independent nation. Both parts of the equation –
a maximum number of friends and freedom to be act - are equally important and inter-related. This is why the SAF's mission in furtherance of Singapore's forward defence posture is as follows:-
"To enhance Singapore's peace and security through deterrence and diplomacy, and should these fail, to secure a swift and decisive victory over the aggressor."
We live in a 3rd world region and we do not delude ourselves in thinking that our neighbours will always act in our country's interest. In fact, conflict promoting agents often hope to retain or gain political power in their own countries. If conflict promoting agents gain power, then many of these agents eventually hope to translate such power into wealth. Less questions are asked and debate is often limited in a time of war or a crisis. The promotion of war or the idea of potential conflict by politicians or generals all over the world (to unite a country under the banner of nationalism or some other rhetoric) against an imagined or real enemy is almost as old as politics itself. This sort of idea is not unique to maritime South East Asia. In fact, the regimes in countries like North Korea and Iran like to promote the idea of ongoing conflict to justify the current regime's hold on power.
The ability to gain or stay in power is good enough reason for irresponsible politicians to promote conflict. It is a matter of historical record.
Between 1962–1966, there was a period of Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation over the future of the island of Borneo. It is called Konfrontasi in Indonesian and Malay. As I previously posted, insurgent Indonesian commandos set off bombs at
Orchard Road and various other locations in Singapore during the 'Konfrontasi'. In Singapore alone, there were some 40 bomb attacks over about two years. Most of the targets could by no stretch of the imagination be considered legitimate military objectives. They included schools, hotels, cinemas, bus depots, telephone booths and residences.
While Indonesia-Singapore relations are much improved since that period of the 1960s, it does have its share of problems to be managed. Respected American scholar of Indonesia, the late Dr George McTurnan Kahin, wrote in 1964 while Konfrontasi was still ongoing, that episode of aggression towards its neighbours was the consequence of the "
powerful, self-righteous thrust of Indonesian nationalism" and the widespread belief that "
because of (the) country's size… it has a moral right to leadership". Time may have given a more sophisticated gloss to this attitude but has not essentially changed it.
This attitude lies, for example, behind the outrageous comments by some Indonesian ministers during the haze in June 2013 that Singapore should be grateful for the oxygen Indonesia provides; it is the reason why Indonesians think Singaporeans should take into account their interests and sensitivities without thinking it necessary to reciprocate.
Indonesians, Malaysians and Singaporeans need to understand this -- Singapore (with a population of 5 million and a GDP of US$276.5 billion with a 2012 defence budget of about US$9.7 billion) has no interest in seeing relations with any close neighbour, strained. To give you an idea of the size difference, our immediate neighbours have the following characteristics:-
(i) Indonesia is more a thousand times larger than Singapore in land size (with a population of 242 million and a GDP of US$878.2 billion, with a 2012 defence budget of about US$6.8 billion); and
(ii) Malaysia is more than 470 times larger than Singapore in land size (with a population of 29 million and a GDP of US$303.5 billion, with a 2012 defence budget of about US$4.7 billion).
I tend to think of Singapore's main battle tanks as a tool for persuasion (in the hard power tool kit of a state that is geographically disadvantaged). They help to persuade any ambitious neighbour that it is not in their interest to engage in overtly hostile acts that we will punish. And we believe that just bombing the capital and bases of an aggressor is not sufficient it itself to persuade the aggressor to cease hostilities. Main battle tanks (MBTs), serving as part of the SAF's ABGs in the Singapore Army Divisions provide military options for our leaders, should the need arise. As our defence minster recently noted, more powerful you are, the less enemies you have - that is why we don't need to think of our neighbours as our enemy - and how they think of us is their choice. On occasion we have been called a 'little red dot', by the Indonesians, which was intended as an insult. Instead of being insulted Singapore retailers now have a range of 'little red dot' merchandise for sale to tourists.
This is also why 'decisive' an important word in the SAF's mission - Singapore's MBTs will move out for war supported by a thousand other armoured vehicles in the first wave. IMO, it is very hard to be decisive in ground warfare without MBTs, as an important node, in the SAF's way of war.
