Keynote Address by Senior Minister of State for Defence Mr Heng Chee How at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) – Asia Research Workshop

Dear colleagues;

Distinguished guests; 

Friends, Ladies and gentlemen;

Good evening.

Let me start by thanking Dr Huxley and IISS for inviting me and giving me this opportunity and privilege to address this audience. I hope to use the 15 minutes or so that I have to share Singapore's perspective on military modernisation, especially within the Asia-Pacific. There is no better topic to settle everybody in as we get ready for the meaty discussions that you will have in the workshop tomorrow and the day after. On this note, I really want to welcome all delegates to this conference and I really hope that you will have a wonderful and engaging conference. I should also take this opportunity to convey our gratitude to the Australian Department of Defence for supporting this workshop – held for the very first time, and for doing it here in Singapore. 12 countries are participating so again, I warmly welcome everybody.

I think it would be fair to say that militaries, throughout time, have always tried to do well. Today, we are also able to move fast because of the march of technology. So militaries, within the means that they have, will try to advance as quickly as possible. Their means, their resources, their capabilities, especially on technology. And I think everybody wants to be capable, perhaps many would also aspire to be ahead of the others in the game. And we often therefore think in terms of how we can employ technology to make our capabilities better and to deploy those capabilities faster.  But as we do so and, I think here I want to make a relation between the subject or the title that this speech was premised upon, which is responsible modernisation and what that means and one facet of it would be that if we look at ourselves then we want to move quickly. We want to do well and at the same time, I think we all accept and know that we do not live alone and therefore, whatever we do, leads to perception on the part of others in the world. Therefore, how we do it is an important consideration, even though it is completely valid that we all want to do it and that we do it anyway. 

So our militaries, I would say have all strived to and improved, some by leaps and bounds over the past decades. So if you were to look at, for example, missile technology and you think of the Tomahawk. When that one was introduced, the missile was introduced, the speed at which it was able to fly at, I checked it out – it was 550 miles per hour and in that era, it was jaw-dropping. But that was subsonic. But today, if we consider what the fastest missiles are able to fly at, hypersonic speeds, then perhaps 14 times this, is already achievable. And what that means is that those improvements have led militarily to capabilities that are, when deployed, very difficult to overcome, very difficult to detect. And then what countries would need to do in order to prepare themselves, first of all, how they might acquire those kinds of capabilities and then how do they address the same capabilities that others might have.

And this rapid modernisation of our militaries is paralleled by exponential advances in civilian and dual-use technology. Again, thinking back into the 1980s, that was when the first 1G technology was introduced and it cut the wire and things became mobile. We thought that it was great. But in terms of the speed of that, again comparing to what 5G technology might be able to deliver for us, now that is perhaps 10 million times that of 1G. So consider that, and consider what impact that would have in terms of how we all live, work and play, and militarily also.

So it is natural to expect that countries would then want to make sure that they keep up with the times, they keep up with the know-how and have the wherewithal, especially as their resources grow. And with better equipment, capabilities and training, then one can better secure one's country's growing interests, whether be it on land, sea, air, and nowadays it is beyond these three dimensions as well so we would now quite routinely speak also of actions in the cyber space and in deep space, outer space. But at the same time, we also recognise that every country has its own special characteristics, its needs, its resource base is also different so it is also unique. So while we understand what these dimensions and how each country might choose to modernise, what are its priorities, I think very much is circumscribed or it is defined or determined by its own unique circumstances which would also include location and demography.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific have spent significantly more on their militaries as the economies and resources grew. Since the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Asia-Pacific has been in fact the fastest-growing region in the world in terms of relative spending. So according to data, in 1990, the Asia-Pacific accounted for slightly over a quarter of the world's GDP based on purchasing power parity. Fast forward to 2019, this figure has almost doubled. Now, take a look at defence spending. It has followed a roughly similar trajectory. Military spending in the Asia-Pacific accounted for around a tenth of the world's defence spending in the year 1988. Fast forward to 2018, and the Asia-Pacific accounted for almost three tenths of the world's total defence spending.

And certain countries, in deciding how they spend and what they spend on, have certainly also had to factor in very fundamental structural demographic realities and pressures. That has been the case with Singapore.  For these countries where population has been aging, both because of longevity as well as low fertility, then what we need to do in terms of tapping into employing technology, to force multiply, to make up for the numbers that we find increasingly difficult to get in terms of manpower. For other regional countries who remain engaged in long-standing territorial disputes, then the texture of their modernisation will reflect their realities to strengthen their capabilities to protect what they believe is theirs. So different countries would have got to address their respective realities.

Regardless of one's circumstances, the threat that has, one area in which threat has been growing is that of hybrid attacks, hybrid warfare and that is something that has become much more of a reality for all of us responding to terrorist or non-state attacks, informational, cyber threats all requires our regional and international militaries to adapt quickly and outside domains that we have been familiar with, or has been traditional. So I think if we speak of terrorist attacks and so on, there is no longer a difficulty in citing examples. In fact, it is repeated examples, some very recent as well. So for example, in March this year, I think we all remember the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. That one is not only the attack, or how it was planned, but also the fact that the attack was live-streamed on Facebook. So what it meant was that beyond the military part of it, it is also the psychological part of it. So therefore, what is warfare now and how much of it is in terms of throwing things at one another and how much of it is actually trying to work on the morale and so on. So the whole thing is happening concurrently, simultaneously and it is the new reality that we all have to grapple with. In that particular attack, sadly fifty people died, and fifty injured and I think we have to acknowledge the decisiveness of the New Zealand government, in that instance, provided the leadership and I think that really helped to prevent something even worse from happening or having ripple effects that run out of control. So what that also tells us that is that that line between what is purely military and what is law enforcement, for example, that line we also have to reconsider, simply because technology has now changed what is what and how do we then work alongside our law enforcement agencies and plan together, and operate more seamlessly and build joint capabilities. These are areas that we might also have to look at very seriously, especially if we feel in our own countries that threat is real, and I think very few countries, honestly speaking, can say that you are immune from such attacks anymore unless you are sort of cut off from the rest of the world, which we are not.

Modernisation in the Asia-Pacific is happening therefore against the backdrop of also something else, which is that intensifying strategic competition amongst big powers. And here in particular, well we will say US and China, that one is quite obvious and it is technology, it is trade and so on. Even today, we just got the news that the tariffs have just gone up, by both sides, on both sides. So the world is not going to get any simpler.  If not carefully managed, then what happens is that this kind of competition could destabilise the region and the world, and it can worsen tensions in existing flashpoints. And I think in our region, the South China Sea, for example, is one such example. The Korean Peninsula is another one, notwithstanding the meetings that the leaders might have between say US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un and of course beyond Korea, the Korean peninsula and South China Sea, we can also see other areas of tensions also in Northeast Asia and South Asia.

Amidst this increased geopolitical uncertainty, how do we then modernise? So I return to this point that we do consider the needs of our own countries and it has always been that within your resources, you build what you feel you need to. Totally natural, understandable but at the same time, the overall environment is a lot more complicated. It is less stable, technology moves things very quickly, and the risk of misreading, leading to escalation, leading to ripple effects – these are very real so how we then modernise ourselves and take on and build those additional capabilities in a way that would not inadvertently inflame tensions and cause countries to trust each other even less and therefore drift further, make things harder to come together, to work together and then cause a downwards spiral. This is a real challenge and it is something that we would have to all recognise and to see what other ways that we can do to continue to glue things together. So the idea is that you really do not want a race, a competition that leads to those kinds of unintended escalation or just a simple win-lose, zero-sum mentality because if you have that then every action by one country will be viewed negatively by neighbours and so on, and they would in turn respond and the thing just escalates. And I think the Asia-Pacific has suffered the scars of war and division in years past, decades past, in the past century and then the last thing we want is for history like that to repeat itself.  

Therefore, one of the things that we could practically do is to deliberately bear in mind that as we all seek to modernise, to identify areas of common interest, and build a culture, a habit, platforms, channels, networks of working together. There are many shared challenges facing the region, counter-terrorism is one, or rather if you say challenges then terrorism is one. Piracy is another. And the need to help out in humanitarian assistance & disaster relief (HADR) is the third, and how do you do that. So I think that we have to at least make sure, best possible use of existing regional platforms such as the ADMM-Plus to strengthen practical cooperation and then to improve upon and further thicken the trust amongst ourselves. These platforms can help us, but they are only helpful to the extent that we make good use of them. Therefore, if we consistently use them and we are open with one another, frank and yet having a joint problem solving mindset, then we are less likely to miscalculate and therefore less likely to descend into confrontation and conflict.

History has shown us that building a culture of cooperation is indeed therefore essential to preventing conflict. If you look at Europe, they suffered a terrible war. It was so painful that they then came together and said that, “never again”. So there was a shared experience that everybody said, Okay let us not go down that path again and what must we do, what must we not do. And I think, in the main, the structures and the alliances that evolved out of that endured till today.

If we then compare the picture in Asia-Pacific, it is not quite the same. I do not think we have that same experience of together, never again, and because of that, our reality is more diverse and there are disagreements that are simmering beneath the surface and from time to time, it may bubble to the surface as well. So you can see that in South Asia, you can see that in South and East China Seas. So there are lessons that we can learn from other parts of the world and then we can then apply within our own region, but also recognising that we are not exactly the same and what are the differences and we then develop our own means of progressing.

We must continue to work together to ensure that individual country's aspirations and ambitions intertwine with one another wherever possible. Because it is in that joint interest that there is an incentive to seek the win-win. It is not difficult to think of a two-by-two matrix, so win-win and so on. But if you cannot get that then very soon it might become a win-lose, or a lose-win and finally you end up with a lose-lose and nobody really wants that but you could end up in that kind of situation and we have got to deliberately avoid that. Intertwining our interest and looking for these areas of common endeavours to lower the temperature, to make those temperatures manageable, I think it is within our ability so conflict is not inevitable but it can happen and there are things that we can do to help the situation. Frank and open dialogue in platforms such as the ADMM-Plus and the Shangri-La Dialogue, for example, is essential. Such dialogue must be accompanied by practical cooperation between regional militaries to build understanding and trust. So as an example, when Singapore chaired ASEAN last year, the ADMM members adopted the world's first set of multilateral guidelines for unplanned encounters between military jets, commonly referred to as Guidelines for Air Military Encounters (GAME). We are encouraged by progress in talks on an ASEAN-China Code of Conduct (COC) for encounters of vessels in the South China Sea. Beyond ASEAN, the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) continues to provide a useful platform for regional navies to also discuss and cooperate. Twenty-one countries also agreed on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), which is likely to have helped to prevent unintended incidents at sea and this CUES was adopted by all ADMM-Plus states.

Countries must also continue to step up bilateral military-to-military (M2M) cooperation in shared areas of concern. Such issues affect all of us, and joint responses are required to deal with them effectively. Singapore, for example, we are happy to cooperate with our neighbours Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand on the Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP) to combat piracy and armed robbery on ships. Does it work? I am glad that on that count, if you look at the numbers for piracy in the Malacca Strait, that has fallen by 92% between 2015 to 2018. By all measures, it is helpful, very helpful. We also welcome the expansion of the Trilateral Cooperative Agreement (TCA) in the Sulu Seas between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to include patrols not only at sea and in the air, and also on land. Most recently, ADMM members adopted the ASEAN Our Eyes (AOE) initiative at the 13th ADMM in July this year. With this AOE, it would be easier for ASEAN Member States to share leads on possible terrorist attacks or in any case, intelligence concerning terrorist organisations and terrorists.

It is also in periods of tension that bilateral dialogue and communication are particularly essential, and if you could keep these channels open, these communications channels open, then obviously chances of jaw-jaw better than war-war would be better. Therefore, we could nudge the trajectory toward stability rather than conflict. Just as an example, if you look back even at the height of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, communications remained open between the United States and the Soviet Union and because of those kinds of communications, and because I think each side understood the strategic interest that are at risk if things unravel, then you could then build on it, whether into strategic arms limitations treaties of various sorts, to make sure that the world is actually a more stable place for everybody. I think this really speaks to the importance of dialogue and cannot be overemphasised.

Looking ahead, I think there is another theme which is beyond the geopolitics of it, it is also the economics of it, which is that: how do countries derive the resources in order to take steps in this necessary modernisation accordingly to their own needs. And the trade-offs that have got to be made intra-country vis-à-vis other priorities, social for example.

And we say that also in recognition that new technology delivers a lot of enhanced capabilities but new technology also does not come cheap. And resources are not necessarily easy to come by and then returning to this question of what is happening to the world economy and where do we go from there and how do we then secure those resources to enable us to do the necessary in a way that is responsible and in a way that is stabilising. So these are not easy questions to answer, there is no fixed formula that you can plug numbers in and it comes up with a magic formula but these are exactly the sort of things that we all have got to put our heads together and crack our heads in order to find what is a viable balance in a win-win-win-win-win manner.

Military modernisation has been expensive and getting more so and military hardware is getting pricier and one way to sustain these kinds of things is to ask for more money, that is ask the government, our respective governments to vote more money for us but as I pointed out, they have got to be traded off as against other priorities of government as well. So this remains a challenge for all of us, beyond the technical military aspects and therefore all of us, I think, share this onus to demonstrate how defence dollars are properly applied. The more we can do so, the more we can maintain two things – one, public trust within our own countries and secondly, strategic trust that we have with our partners and countries everywhere in the world. That will then allow us to undertake the modernisation which we actually, each of us would need in our respective circumstances without leading to unintended consequences like an arms race for example.

At the same time, I think it is also useful to bear in mind that there are many upsides that come with military modernisation in the past and there is no reason to think why it would not continue to happen now into the future. For example, if you were to think about map positioning services, Google Maps for example, we use it every day. But if you think about it, where did that come from and that one came from the US Department of Defence and the US Air Force. Each country can have your own example. In Singapore, we also have our own example. So our SAF and defence technology ecosystem had also helped to adapt infrared cameras, which we originally had intended for use to identify adversary targets but we switched them to help conduct mass temperature screenings, when we were hit by something else –  Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. It came in handy and we could then adapt it for us and that created a lot of social value and again, coming back to population morale, if you think about it on a Total Defence spectrum, population morale is actually very key and it has to be sustained by different means and it can be undermined by different means. This also becomes another dimension in which we have to apply our minds.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, colleagues, as our countries prosper, I think we will all prosper or as we build more resources, I think we can understand that we will all seek to modernise our respective militaries in order to protect and advance our national interests. How each one will view as priority would depend on its own circumstances but at the same time, I think we are all part of a growing geopolitical uncertainty, not only regionally but I think globally and it beholds us really to think – how do we do this in a way that is, as I said, stable and responsible, both to our own population as well as to our partners and all countries around the globe. One of the key things that we really must do is to look for shared missions, or shared areas of interest, shared areas of common endeavours and cooperation, intertwine those interests, build that strategic trust, work together, understand one another even down to knowing one another personally – all those kinds of things I think would help directly or indirectly. Therefore, if we could do that then as we modernise, we could be a force for stability rather the reverse. Thank you very much.