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The Diplomat
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Diplomat
Between War and Peace: Redefining the SAF's Role Beyond 60
For six decades, the Singapore Armed Forces have safeguarded the country's sovereignty and security, but there are new challenges to confront. The military instrument is traditionally seen as a tool of war, used only as an option of last resort after all peaceful and diplomatic avenues have been exhausted. However, as the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) marks six decades of safeguarding Singapore's sovereignty and security this year, there are new challenges on the horizon. In an interview ahead of SAF Day on July 1, Defense Minister Chan Chun Sing highlighted how today, the SAF has to 'deal with a range of threats and challenges' on a daily basis. He further added that while Singapore was not at war, neither was it at peace. While this does not mean a retreat from the SAF's conventional warfighting role, as the recent plans to build up and upgrade Singapore's military capabilities attest, it does suggest a significant redefinition of its raison d'être. Of course, the SAF is no stranger to responding to threats in peacetime. Post 9/11, the widening of the security landscape to include non-conventional threats such as terrorism and piracy saw it evolve to becoming a flexible force capable of a full spectrum of operations from peace to war. However, with Singapore facing the challenges of an increasingly turbulent and disruptive world, a redefinition of what war is, what security is, and what borders are, means that the SAF will have to embrace these new roles as part of a new normal. Redefining War Modern conflict is increasingly defined by a blurring of the lines between war and peace. This has led to concepts like the 'grey zone,' which acknowledge the existence of threats that fall between both ends of this spectrum. However, the term 'grey' is somewhat of a misnomer, and reflects more our binary view of what war and peace are. The reality is that not all actors share this binary perspective. There are those who have a more fluid understanding of war, not seeing it with the same black and white lenses we use. The Russian cyber and information activity that preceded the 2014 annexation of Crimea, for example, was not isolated 'grey' actions – they were deliberately designed to facilitate a territory grab as part of a broader hybrid strategy that included limited military action. The spectrum between war and peace is therefore not 'grey,' but the logical extension of war into previously untapped arenas. When viewed in this light, the case for the SAF's deeper involvement in the ambiguous space between war and peace becomes clear. Furthermore, as the international system frays at its edges, we can expect more of the activity that takes place there to be in bad faith. Redefining Security At the same time, the way in which we conceptualize security is broadening. While in the past security might be viewed primarily from a military lens, security threats today originate just as much from non-military sources such as political, economic, societal, and environmental. This comprehensive understanding of security is encapsulated in Singapore's Total Defense framework, and in his 2019 National Day rally speech, then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong even highlighted how climate change defenses needed to be given the same priority as the SAF. While this might suggest a lesser role for the military instrument in the contemporary security discourse, the converse is true. Although warfighting lies at the heart of the military, was is not pursued for its own sake. Ultimately, the essence of the military's mission is to safeguard the nation and ensure its security. The SAF's own mission statement emphasizes how it is to 'enhance Singapore's peace and security.' This means that the military's role is not just limited to the context of war – it must also help respond to threats from all sources in peacetime. Therefore, with the conceptualization of security broadening to include previously non-military domains, the military instrument must expand its repertoire of proficiencies to continue performing its mission in this wider and more complex security landscape. Indeed, the significant resources typically allocated to the military, and the adaptability that is inherent to the way it operates, already makes it the best, if not the most ideal option, to employ in response to emerging vectors of threat. Redefining Borders Finally, the emergence of new domains such as cyber and information transforms how we should view border security. Traditionally, trespassing across a state's physical borders is seen as a violation of its territorial integrity. Militaries are also typically tasked with securing national borders from potential aggressors. However, trespasses across the virtual terrain of the cyber and information domains do not conform to the traditional mold of cross-border aggression, making it difficult for governments to authorize a conventional military response. Nonetheless, the impact of actions undertaken in these new domains does not remain there. There is a nexus between the virtual and physical realms where the effects of both converge. For example, while information warfare might not directly result in the seizing and holding of physical territory, the minds that it seeks to influence reside within the target nation, occupying a physical space. Thus, the capturing of the target population's 'hearts and minds' through informational means is not that dissimilar in concept to a physical attack to seize territory. Already, concepts such as Fourth-generation Warfare suggest how adversaries will reach increasingly deeper into their target's rear to seek victory, with an emphasis on undermining its internal power, rather than seeking its physical destruction. The redefinition of borders will only open more ways in which this can be achieved. Trespasses across non-traditional borders should therefore be treated just as seriously as those across conventional physical ones. And in line with the redefinition of security discussed earlier, the military's vigilance in safeguarding against external aggression must extend to cover new terrains, whether in peacetime or war. Looking Beyond SAF60 Because of the challenges described above, the military instrument of today cannot afford to remain idle and stick to its old playbook – it needs to constantly reinvent itself to meet the challenges presented by a security landscape that is transforming rapidly and constantly. While conventional warfighting continues to be relevant, as the recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East show, it can no longer be the military instrument's sole purpose. While the SAF has earned the right to look back at its contributions over the past 60 years with pride, it also needs to proactively scan the horizon to prepare for what lies ahead. The SAF of the future cannot afford to merely be an instrument of war – it must be an active contributor to the enhancement of Singapore's security across the entire spectrum from peace to war.
Straits Times
01-07-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Credibility of SAF has given investors confidence in Singapore: Chan Chun Sing
Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing delivering his SAF Day Message during the Singapore Armed Forces Day combined rededication ceremony at Capital Tower on July 1. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI SINGAPORE - The Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF) track record in keeping Singapore safe has enabled the Republic to keep bringing in business and investments, said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing. This is as people know that when Singapore says their investments here will be protected, it is not just empty talk, Mr Chan said at an SAF Day rededication ceremony at Capital Tower on July 1 Rather than a slogan, it is a promise 'of continued hard work to say that we are able to manage the emerging geostrategic challenges, the security challenges'. 'But more importantly, its a commitment by Mindef and SAF to say that we will keep our eyes on the ball and make sure that we are not just dealing with today's challenges or yesterday's challenges, but we are constantly asking ourselves how to anticipate the new how do we rise to the occasion,' he said. At a fireside chat organised by the Singapore Business Federation and CapitaLand Investments, Mr Chan said people have a quiet confidence in the city-state, not just in its security but that it will not change its rules overnight. Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing (centre) together with Mr Kok Ping Soon, (left) CEO of SBF and Mr Ervin Yeo, Capitaland Investment group chief strategy officer and CEO, Commercial Management, during the fireside chat. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI This is a credit to the generations of SAF servicemen and women who have constantly looked over the horizon to anticipate future threats, and to take the necessary steps even before the threats emerge, he added. While the world is fragmenting and there are different forces pulling it in different directions, he said there are also opportunities for Singapore to work with new partners who continue to believe in the need for a global rules based order. As people look for ways to diversify their risks, there will be opportunities for Singapore if it can keep itself as a safe haven and as a peaceful oasis. This requires Singapore to keep its society united, for the people and the Government to stay focused on the key issues of the day, and to be proactive in addressing challenges. Mr Chan said that even if the world is turned upside down, the important thing is to make sure that Singapore is not at the bottom of the heap when things return to normal. 'In truth, it's always like that. It's not just what we do absolutely, but it's also what we do relatively that's important for us to earn our keep and maintain our relevance,' he added. This year's SAF day rededication ceremonies were, for the first time, held concurrently at five locations. They had traditionally been organised by civilian partner organisations across four places. Military Expert (ME) 3 Muthukumaran, capability development engineer from HQ 9 Division/Infantry, sharing about the Light Machine Gun to Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing during the Singapore Armed Forces Day combined rededication ceremony at Capital Tower on July 1. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI At a ceremony organised by the Singapore Manufacturing Federation at Suntec City, Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng noted that peace and stability is foundational to what Singapore is able to accomplish. This is as the economy can only thrive because the nation is secure, he said as he thanked businesses who have supported their NSmen, such as through flexible work arrangements. 'I thank those of you who have led by example, and I urge more to follow,' said Dr Tan, who is also Minister-in-charge of Energy and Science & Technology. 'Pro-NS policies are not just patriotic - they are good business ethics. They reflect leadership, resilience, and responsibility.' Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
Straits Times
01-07-2025
- Health
- Straits Times
Death of NSman: Passer-by called ambulance after he collapsed outside Maju Camp on eve of SAF Day
Death of NSman: Passer-by called ambulance after he collapsed outside Maju Camp on eve of SAF Day A 30-year-old operationally ready national servicemen collapsed outside Maju Camp and died in hospital on June 30, a day before SAF Day. The Ministry of Defence said he had earlier completed a National Service Fitness Improvement Training (NS FIT) session conducted between 6.50pm and 8pm Fitness Conditioning Centre in the camp. He was cleared to leave after reporting to the fitness instructors that he felt well and booked out at 8.11pm. Outside the camp, a passer-by witnessed his collapse and called for an ambulance. The Singapore Civil Defence Force was alerted at 8.16pm and the ambulance arrived at 8.25pm. Resuscitation efforts were administered on-site and continued en route to National University Hospital. He arrived at the hospital at around 9pm. Despite emergency medical intervention, he was pronounced dead at 9.54pm. Mindef added: "As a precaution, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) has implemented a safety pause on NS FIT training until July 4 to review safety procedures and protocols, and to remind our soldiers on the importance of safety. "The SAF is rendering support to the family in their time of grief. We extend our deepest condolences to the family." Further investigations will be convened to ascertain the cause of death, said the ministry. Click here to contribute a story or submit it to our WhatsApp Get more of Stomp's latest updates by following us on:
Straits Times
29-06-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Safra Bayshore targeted to open in 2030 next to TEL's Bedok South station: Zaqy
Senior Minister of State for Defence Zaqy Mohamad said the new clubhouse will replace the existing Tampines clubhouse. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO Safra Bayshore targeted to open in 2030 next to TEL's Bedok South station: Zaqy SINGAPORE - Come 2030, national servicemen (NSmen), regulars from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and full-time national servicemen (NSFs) can look forward to participating in activities at the largest Safra clubhouse in Bayshore. The new Safra Bayshore clubhouse, which is targeted for completion in 2030, will replace the existing Tampines clubhouse, said Senior Minister of State for Defence Zaqy Mohamad on June 29. Safra Bayshore will be located next to the Thomson-East Coast Line's (TEL) Bedok South MRT station, which is slated to open in 2026. The new clubhouse will also be Safra's largest, with a gross floor area of at least 30,000 sq m – the equivalent of about four football fields. ' That is double the size of the current Safra Tampines... It will offer a wider range of modern and affordable facilities ,' said Mr Zaqy at Safra Toa Payoh, where he launched initiatives to appreciate NSmen as Singapore celebrates its 60th year of independence. The Tampines clubhouse, built in 1988, is Safra's oldest. Safra Bayshore , to be built behind Temasek Secondary School, will be the eighth clubhouse providing activities for servicemen and their families. Plans to build the clubhouse were first announced in March. Mr Zaqy, who is also Safra president, said the social and recreational organisation has been engaging NSmen living in the east to determine the mix of facilities and activities at Safra Bayshore, and a committee has been formed to develop the club. 'Special attention will also be given to the club design in achieving high sustainability standards, as well as providing sheltered communal spaces for national servicemen and their families to gather for various arts, sports, music events and fairs,' he added. Mr Zaqy said the new clubhouse's location will allow those living in the east of Singapore to access its facilities more conveniently through public transport. Bedok South MRT station had initially been targeted to open by 2025, but construction challenges, including tunnelling near existing critical infrastructure, had delayed works. The station will be part of an integrated transport hub, which will also house a bus interchange. Some 10,000 homes, including about 7,000 Housing Board flats, will be built in Bayshore as an extension of Bedok town in the coming years. Appreciating servicemen Mr Zaqy also announced the launch of a host of new initiatives aimed at appreciating NSmen in the lead-up to SAF Day on July 1 and National Day on Aug 9. These include a variety of deals and discounts for NSmen and Safra members come July 1, including discounts on booking fees for some Safra club facilities and membership fees for selected interest groups. More than 4,000 burgers will also be given away islandwide by fast-food chain Burger King to NSmen on July 1 to celebrate SAF Day. Between July 2 and July 6, the Burger King at Safra Choa Chu Kung will also give away 300 burgers to servicemen and members. Safra also organised a video competition, collaborated with Temasek Polytechnic on a short film, and organised an art jam with more than 35,000 pre-school children, to reflect its appreciation for servicemen in Singapore. Said Mr Zaqy: 'Given how our national servicemen have contributed to Singapore's defence and security over the years, it is right for us to express our appreciation for their sacrifices and commitment. ' 'It does not always take grand gestures. Even the smallest interactions in our daily lives can affirm their sacrifices.' Mr Zaqy, who has served as Safra president since 2020, will hand over the reins of the organisation to Minister of State for Defence Desmond Choo in July. ' I am confident that under his leadership, Safra will continue to make inroads to further strengthen efforts to appreciate national servicemen, and to meet their evolving family lifestyle needs and life stage needs ,' he said. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘We are not at war, but neither are we at peace': Chan Chun Sing
SINGAPORE – Singapore has to raise its vigilance in various places given the conflicts around the world, as it is unclear if it could become 'collateral in other people's fight', said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing. He noted that the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is dealing with a range of threats and challenges daily across all four of its services. 'Today, we are not at war in the conventional sense, neither are we at peace in the conventional sense,' he told reporters in an interview on June 25. 'We are always operating somewhere in between, with different gradations. And that's what keeps us on our toes.' Mr Chan cited how the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) and other government agencies deal with thousands of attempts to penetrate Singapore's cyber systems every day, without naming those behind these attacks. 'Sometimes it could be just people fooling around, but often, I think people are doing this very intentionally and probably with malicious intent,' he said. It is a round-the-clock operation to protect Singapore's cyber domain, he added, noting that a breach could mean not just a hit to the country's reputation or the loss of some classified information, but real consequences for its power grid and financial and water systems. There are also constant efforts to secure Singapore's airspace and territorial waters. Mr Chan said the air force responds to hundreds of cases every year, some requiring air defence assets to be scrambled to verify unknown threats. 'For the navy, it is the same thing,' said Mr Chan, who was chief of army before entering politics. 'The number of ships that sail through the narrow Singapore Strait, the number of boardings that we have to (do to) check and verify to make sure that the strait remains safe from threat actors, that goes into the hundreds as well and, in fact, sometimes the thousands.' In the information sphere, people are constantly trying to shape how Singaporeans think – another threat the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) counters daily, he said. 'The type of information operations that people conduct, perhaps directly on us and sometimes indirectly on us, where we are the collateral, is also not something that we will take lightly.' Mr Chan spoke to the media at Mindef's headquarters in Bukit Gombak ahead of SAF Day on July 1, amid rising global tensions fuelled by escalating conflict in the Middle East. Addressing the conflict between Iran and Israel, which also involved the US bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, he said retaliation from Iran may not be limited to targets in America or Israel. 'It could be anywhere else,' Mr Chan said, adding: 'It could also stoke up emotions in the region, and we must be careful that these do not spill into terrorist activities.' There are greater security concerns because of these conflicts, he said, noting that the threats now go beyond conventional terrorism and extend into new areas such as cyberspace. Similarly, the nature of threats that Singapore faces has changed, Mr Chan said. While some technologies, such as computer viruses and drones, are not new, the way and intensity in which they are applied have evolved, he said. The lines between military and civilian use of these technologies have also blurred, he added. Moving forward, security operations will be more decentralised, with troops operating in smaller units, he noted. This plays into the SAF's strengths, Mr Chan said. The SAF has never relied on the size of its troops since 1965, but on technology as a force multiplier, he noted. 'If anything, going forward, the new generations of technology that is coming in across the world will allow the SAF to multiply its manpower capabilities even more.' Another strength is the quality of manpower and leadership it has, he said. Mr Chan said some believe that having full-time national servicemen (NSFs) or national servicemen (NSmen) is a disadvantage for the SAF. 'We never think so, because by having NSF and NSmen, we are able to have the best across society operating our systems, participating in the design of our systems.' This is why the SAF can operate with more decentralisation, he added. There will be more leadership opportunities for these groups going forward, he said, noting that this does not just refer to an increase in the number of soldiers attending SAF leadership schools, he said. It also means more leadership at different levels and more of such opportunities for many NSFs, he said. Mr Chan gave an example from the DIS, the SAF's newest service, where soldiers operate in groups as small as three or five, compared with traditional army companies that can have around 100 men. 'Each and every one of them must be able to take (on) leadership because of the technology that they are using and applying.' Going forward, the SAF will continue to spend prudently and in areas that will 'give us bang for (our) buck', Mr Chan said. It will not simply target a certain amount of expenditure but ensure that spending is sustainable because building new capacities takes many years, he said. 'What we don't want is what we call the 'feast and famine' kind of spending, where you buy a lot of things when you have money, and then you find that you can't maintain it,' he added. 'That's not how we stretch the defence dollar.' Over the last few years, defence spending has hovered around 3 per cent of Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP), Mr Chan noted. This does not include security spending outside Mindef, such as on the Home Team and cyber security. The minister was answering a question on whether Singapore's current spending is sufficient given the global security situation. There have been calls in the region for an increase in defence spending. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in May, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth asked American allies in the Indo-Pacific to raise their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Mr Chan said the SAF has been fortunate to have the public and political support to spend up to 6 per cent of GDP. There will be areas that will require more spending because of the new nature of warfare, he added. 'Today there are also new opportunities for us to look at other low-cost options to complement what we have and what we need,' he said. 'We will continue on that trajectory.' On adopting new technology, Mr Chan said the SAF is constantly looking at emerging tech such as artificial intelligence, but does not want to be caught up in fads. 'We've been looking at many of these technologies for many years. We want to be able to apply them to what we call 'tangible use cases',' he said. 'So, it's not applying things in general, but very specifically how it helps us.' While the SAF constantly tracks changes to warfare, such as the increased use of drones and cyber attacks, its challenge is to predict what new threats will emerge in the future, Mr Chan said. This is so that the SAF can put in place programmes to develop capabilities to counter these threats even before they emerge and be able to deal with them by the time they do. He made the point that the SAF does not build new capabilities just because there is a new defence minister. After a recent Cabinet reshuffle, Mr Chan took over the portfolio from Dr Ng Eng Hen, who was defence minister from 2011 to 2025 and retired ahead of the 2025 General Election. 'Many of the capabilities that the SAF has today are built up through the generations,' he said, including those that were mooted during or before his stint as chief of army from 2010 to 2011. That is why many SAF projects are classified, so the force remains ahead of the curve, he said. 'We don't always publicise all that we do, but at the appropriate time, we will reveal those capabilities to let Singaporeans have the confidence that we are ready,' he said. 'And there'll be many capabilities in the SAF which we will never reveal. The fact that we don't have to reveal them, we don't have to use them by the time they get retired – to us, that is success.' Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction Discover how to enjoy other premium articles here
