Speech by Senior Minister of State for Defence, Mr Heng Chee How at the 16th SAF Senior Military Expert Appointment Ceremony

Chief of Defence Force,
Graduates of the 16th SAF Senior Military Experts Course,
Colleagues,
Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good evening.

INTRODUCTION

It is a great delight and an honour on my part to be here this evening to join you in commemorating the graduation of the 89 Senior Military Experts (MEs), from the 16th SAF Senior Military Experts Course.

In the past weeks of your course, your abilities were tested and resolve challenged. In the process, your skills were honed as you grew both as a leader and as a domain expert. What you experienced in the course offers a glimpse of what you will face in the journey ahead as MEs. It will not be easy but we should give recognition when it is due. And this ceremony therefore recognises your accomplishments as we mark a new chapter in your professional career.

Defending our nation goes beyond just protecting the buildings and roads that we see around us. At its very core, it is a mission to ensure a safe and secure home for our families, friends, loved ones as well as for our future generations. I am therefore glad that the loved ones of our graduates are able to join us today. And it reminds us that in addition to the steadfast support you unconditionally provide on a daily basis, you are also the source of strength and courage for our servicemen and women. The success of our MEs here are yours as much as theirs. You are the key ingredient for the SAF to be always operationally ready to uphold our sovereignty. If and when the SAF is called upon, we will do so with an ironclad resolve. May I ask that we put our hands together to express our heartfelt gratitude to the families and loved ones of our MEs?

COMPLEX SECURITY LANDSCAPE

In the face of increasingly complex security challenges, the depth of knowledge in various fields including intelligence, engineering and cyber defence is a need, no longer a good-to-have. The Military Domain Experts Scheme was introduced in the year 2010 for that very purpose, namely to train and groom domain experts in the SAF. The scheme has been very successful and till date, more than 1000 Senior MEs have graduated, each continually sharpening their craft to serve and protect our nation.

One area, which has garnered many headlines around the globe, including on our shores, is in the domain of cyber defence. Physical distances and national borders are irrelevant concepts in the cyber world, as a capable perpetrator can easily cause disruptions to our lives from the comfort of wherever he or she may be. Now most of you would have heard about the cyber attacks on Singapore, Singapore organisations – SingHealth being the one that we are still most familiar with, because it was the most recent. MINDEF was also not immune from attack. Last year, the personal details of 850 personnel from MINDEF/SAF were stolen in a targeted and carefully planned cyber-attack. During the Kim-Trump Summit held in June this year, Singapore was a top target according to an analyst company, receiving 4.5 times more attacks than that typically received by the US.

Being a networked force with advanced warfighting systems, the SAF must have the means to defend ourselves against such perpetrators. To bolster cyber defence for the SAF, we inaugurated the SAF C4 Command and the Cyber Defence Group last year. We have groomed MEs in cyber defence, through recruiting those with relevant qualifications as well as expertise from the cyber defence industry. The demands on our MEs are high as they are constantly on the frontline in the cyber world. That said, we each play a role in cyber defence and must remain vigilant.

The threat of terrorism is at its highest in recent years and indeed continues to intensify and to grow in sophistication. We hear about attacks not only in faraway places, but indeed in our neighbourhood, in the region that we are in. The attacks in Marawi and Surabaya in the Philippines and Indonesia respectively would be some examples that come to mind. And if you look at one particular terrorist organisation that has been causing havoc around the world – ISIS – then obviously, that would mean military actions are taking place in the Middle East. And ISIS is losing ground there, and weakening within the Middle East. However, what happens to the fighters? These fighters then return to their home countries, and some of those home countries are in our region, in Southeast Asia. So therefore, it is not hard to imagine that Singapore would be within the sights of terrorists, from anywhere, including those that would come into the region. High-key events such as the Kim-Trump Summit and ASEAN Summit recently put us in the limelight and bolstered our international standing but at the same time, I think also made us a target. The SAF has built up its counter-terrorism capabilities. Among which, intelligence plays a vital role and functions as a first line of defence against such terrorist threats. The SAF's Military Intelligence Experts use new technologies in data analytics and artificial intelligence to enhance intelligence assessments and updates. And we will continue to do more to safeguard our way of life from such acts of violence.

IMPORTANT ROLE OF MEs

Our MEs continue to carry a bold spirit of innovation in order to enhance the SAF's capabilities. And amongst them would be ME4 Koh Yee Sin from 6th Army Maintenance Base. The unit handles the Army's mini unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. And ME4 Koh and her team found that a certain electronic component tended to overheat during pre-flight checks on the ground – because the UAV is not in flight and therefore there is no flowing air to cool it. So what they did, when they saw such a problem, was to apply their expertise and devised a cost-effective cooling kit to overcome the overheating issue, and as a result, to reduce the downtime for the UAV and enhance its capability.

In the Air Force's engineering community are ME2 Aaron Chew and ME3 Chua Chin Heng from the F-15SG squadron. For them, the issue that they encountered is one of damaged missile buffers, typically bent pins, which, when it happens, prevent the aircraft from firing the missile. And a missile buffer connects the missile to the aircraft system. So what the team did was they leveraged 3D printing to develop cost-effective threaded caps, which stayed securely in place in order to protect those pins. And again, as a result, they enhanced the capabilities because you would then have fewer mission cancellations and fewer defective missile buffers to replace. And that innovation or that invention was so good that counterparts in the US saw it, used it, and have now widely adopted it as well. And that speaks to the quality of our servicemen.

In the Navy, ME4 Michael Ong and ME5 Terrence Siah have led their team to ensure that our ships and headquarters ashore can continue to communicate well. A key component within that system, it is a "modem" that enables such communications, but had become obsolete. And in order to replace the modem with a new one, you can do that, but it would be very costly, as other existing equipment had also to be replaced for compatibility reasons. So what they did was they found a way around it, and invented a device, a cost-effective modem out of commercially-ready parts. So that solved the problem in a cheaper, better, faster way.

And I am proud to note that for the first time in this course's history, we have, amongst us, NSmen who are professional psychologists. This is part of the Expertise Conversion Scheme, which allows those with relevant specialised professional qualifications to serve voluntarily, after completing their National Service commitments. And in this case, ME4 Adrian Toh, Tey Beng Huan and Jeremy Oliveiro have found it fulfilling to volunteer and serve in their new capacity as Senior MEs. It allows them to contribute their repository of knowledge in the SAF as their appointments build on the deep expertise from their civilian jobs.

CONCLUSION

With the Military Domain Experts Scheme, our MEs are well placed to be trailblazers within their own domains. All of you this evening are here because of your unwavering dedication, deep professionalism, and drive to innovate and to always do better. Therefore, be that strong pillar in moving the SAF forward and the strong foundation for future ME generations to look up to and build upon and emulate.

So on this very happy note, once again, my heartiest congratulations to all. Thank you.

More Resources

89 Appointed as Senior Military Experts