Speech by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Second Plenary session of the 20th Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on 7 Dec 2024

Let me thank Dr. Bastian Giegerich for moderating this session and putting on record Singapore’s thanks to the Kingdom of Bahrain, His Majesty and the Crown Prince for hosting this 20th Manama Dialogue, especially to Crown Prince Salman for gracing us with his presence and hosting dinner last night. Excellencies, colleagues and friends. Let me first begin by congratulating the organisers – IISS, as well as the Bahrain Government, on the 20th edition of the Manama Dialogue (MND).

In the inaugural speech at Manama Dialogue 20 years ago, then-Foreign Minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud bin Faisal Al Saud laid out 4 conditions for a stable Gulf: a unified Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a stable Iraq, a friendly Iran and an integrated Yemen. The optimists amongst us today would say, we are getting there.

The last time I spoke at the MND was in 2016, and less than a decade later, how the world has changed on all of us. The charm of powerful trouble is being concocted – “Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble”.

Covid, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wars in Gaza and Lebanon, increasing rivalry between the US and China are all high impact events that continue to shake our world. As a result, the risks for instability for all countries have risen. How did we get here?

In addressing this question, I would like to provide some reflections by describing seminal events in the Middle East and that of mine, centered on the South China Sea (SCS) and Asia. The hope is that retracing these developments may provide us future avenues to untangle the worsening predicaments we find ourselves in.

The 21st century did not start well. The 9/11 attacks on the US set off a cascade of US and international actions that would occupy our efforts for the next two decades. In this war on terror, Singapore, through its armed forces, joined many of your troops here in this region because terrorism was a global threat to innocent citizens of all countries. We deployed assets and personnel to Iraq as part of the multinational reconstruction and coalition efforts from 2003 to 2008, and then to support the Defeat-ISIS coalition in 2014. We deployed our Landing Ship Tank (LSTs), KC-135 refuelling tanker aircraft, C-130 transport aircraft, counter-terrorism trainers, Imagery Analysts as well as medical teams. We also deployed close to 500 personnel to Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013 as part of our contributions to the multinational stabilisation and reconstruction efforts under the International Security Assistance Force.

The war on terror was won, that culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The Defeat-ISIS coalition also managed to break the Islamic State’s territorial control over large parts of Iraq and Syria. But some would argue that the price that war exacted, the collateral damage as it were, was enormous. Much of which we continue to pay for today. Directly or otherwise, it resulted in a series of failed or troubled states – Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen included. The US involvement in that war on terror ended with the precipitous withdrawal of their troops in Afghanistan, but with the Taliban back in charge.

I think history will trace the mass migration of fleeing refugees from these events into Europe to have set off other events. Starting from 2015, Europe now hosts about 13 million refugees, of which 1.3 million are estimated to have flowed into Europe in just 2015 alone. That furious pace of migrants provoked reactions from local populations and in part facilitated the rise of extreme political parties that campaigned against immigration and nationalist policies.

With the US and Europe’s attention focused on the Middle East, China on the other hand was growing steadily for an astonishingly sustained period of 40 years beginning around 1980, with an average economic growth of 8.9% annually. China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 which US President Bill Clinton supported in 2000, helped sustain this growth. This kind of trajectory of a colossus was bound to have disruptive effects on the world order.

And it did. From 1980 to 2020, China’s economy grew from 2% of global GDP to ~18%. That economic muscle parlayed into security strength particularly of the People’s Liberation Army. Concomitantly, we witnessed a rapid buildup of military installations within the SCS. By 2015, it was estimated that 3,000 acres of artificial islands housing warehouses, runways, and seaports had been built by China in the SCS. 11. We should note that the PLA’s plan to move forward their defence line in the SCS was not a new concept. It was begun in response to US’s island chain concept, and dates back to Jiang Zemin in the 1990s, when China acquired land features in the Spratlys. Under Hu Jintao, China built more installations in the SCS. But from 2013, the pace and scale grew exponentially.

The PLA might have achieved their security objectives of a forward defence line at sea, but at a price, particularly of their relationships with other claimant states – Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam, as China not only claimed the features but all the waters within the nine-dash line. Their claims were weakened at least legally and internationally with the tribunal ruling in 2016 in favour of the Philippines that elements of China’s claims including some land reclamation activities and activities in the SCS were deemed unlawful.

There was another consequence to the military buildup within the SCS. The presence of more foreign militaries in the SCS has increased, not seen since the Pacific Wars in the Second World War, including navies from European countries and the United Kingdom. Regional countries such as Australia, Japan, and New Zealand have also stepped up joint expeditions with the Philippines. In 2023, the US alone had conducted 107 large-scale exercises and drills in the SCS.

The end of the War on Terror with the pull out of troops from Afghanistan was supposed to mark a milestone of peace returning to the Middle East. But fate is capricious, and all of us know the sequence of events thereafter. There was a brief interlude of renewed hope – Saudi Arabia’s restructuring of their economy, the progress of the GCC and the Abraham Accords held much promise for this region. But events on October 7 scuttled dreams for at least a generation. In its wake, wanton destruction and dire humanitarian crises in Gaza and Lebanon and the raising of yet another generation or two of future inductees into terrorist organisations.

There is a third set of events that joined the two regions of the Middle East and Asia together. Fate is not only capricious, but has a wicked sense of destiny. Iran and North Korea now supply Russia with armaments, drones and even soldiers for their war on Ukraine. As a result, Europe and the wider Asia are once again, interconnected in their conflict zones.

I have simplified the events that got us here. I am certain that there are many among you, more accomplished political scientists and experts that can provide more insightful analyses. But my summary suffices to move to the next and more important question – how do we get out of this jam? What common motivations and goals can help improve our plight?

I look forward to hearing from you and your questions but let me offer some broad directions. As always, de-escalation and pre-emption are vital first steps. For Asia and the Indo-Pacific, we must do all we can to prevent a physical conflict there. If conflict happens there, to add a third theatre, then all bets on peace and progress for this generation are off. I am thankful that the US and China have both shifted their postures to avoid conflict, whether it’s over Taiwan or the SCS.

The situation in Gaza is in dire need of a ceasefire, and the return of all Israeli hostages. The recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah gives us some hope. The two-state solution which Singapore supports is a goal that we must work towards, as the only viable path that leads to lasting peace. But for now, we should work towards a ceasefire too in Gaza so that the humanitarian tragedies can be alleviated.

For Russia’s unlawful invasion into Ukraine, we have now crossed the thousand-day mark. Moral and political justifications notwithstanding, peace there is in my view better than the continued war, especially when military objectives on both sides cannot be met, and when the destruction on the lives of citizens exact a toll too heavy to bear. The details and the security guarantees for Ukraine must be undertaken, but increasingly among many parties, the feeling is, that it is now time to seek diplomatic solutions in the earnest.

I believe all of us here, and security leaders elsewhere know that we need to alter the dangerous trajectory our World is taking. No region is spared, and in our interconnected World, the risks of conflation into a global conflagration is real and rising.

Thank you.

Dr Ng: De-Escalation and Pre-Emption are Vital First Steps