Keynote Address by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the 13th Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)

Mr Barry Desker, Board Members of RSIS, Ambassadors,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me to bid all participants, especially those from abroad, a warm welcome to the 13th Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers, or APPSMO in short, today.

A More Complex and Uncertain International Environment

A year ago, if you remember, the participants of the 12th APPSMO discussed the security risks that countries face in an increasingly uncertain environment.

Developments over the past year illustrate that geopolitical uncertainties continue to exist. The aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis is still unfolding. Greece has avoided a sovereign debt default, but unless it and other weak economies in the Eurozone undergo radical fiscal reforms, such defaults are still likely. We remember the public furore and riots in Greece following a parliamentary vote to accept austerity measures including deep budget cuts, tax hikes and privatisation of publicly-owned services and utilities are a foretaste of the political turbulence that will affect these countries.

Beleaguered by economic woes, NATO allies within Europe must also deal with the US' call to "step up to the plate", which itself has to deal with rising debt and austerity measures. In a speech about two months ago, then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned Europe that NATO risked "military irrelevance" if the current trend of decline in European defence capabilities was not halted and reversed. Secretary Gates pointed to NATO's current mission in Libya, where many allies ran short on munitions just weeks into the operation and had to turn to the US to make up the shortfall, as a case in point. With its NATO allies not pulling its weight, the limits of the US' resolve and capabilities - to go it alone or bear the lion's share of responsibility - will be tested again for future international crises and sustaining current ones. This will precipitate a new mindset of the reality of a more multi-polar world.

Seven months after the first outbreak of protests in Tunisia, political tensions continue to brew in the Middle East and North Africa. The outcomes of this "Arab Spring" remain uncertain. Some predict that winter rather than summer would follow. Whatever the outcome, continued turmoil there could put the global economy's nascent recovery at risk, given the world's dependence on Middle East oil and gas reserves, and the risk of financial contagion from Europe.

In our region, we also see flashes of tension. Although there has not been a major altercation on the Korean Peninsula since North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last November, relations between North and South Korea remain tense. For those of you who attended the recently held Shangri-la Dialogue, you remember a pointed question to the South Korean Minister of Defence for his response if North Korea initiated any provocation. His reply was unequivocal. Both sides have continued to conduct separate military exercises as a show of force against the other.

Temperatures rose recently over the competing territorial claims in the South China Sea (SCS). The recent moves by Vietnam, the Philippines and China to assert their claims have triggered concerns that the skirmishes at sea could inadvertently erupt in military conflict. Notwithstanding the positive steps on the sidelines of the recently-concluded ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, where agreement was reached on implementation guidelines of the Declaration of Conduct (DOC), potential flashpoints in this area bear watching.

Against this backdrop, fundamental forces related to economic activity and population demographics persist and will impact geo-political balance. Economic activity was already shifting from the West to the East prior to the 2008 global financial crisis. This trend will be hastened, given that Asian economies have weathered the crisis relatively well compared to Western economies. A recent report by the Asian Development Bank has predicted that Asia's share of global GDP will increase from 27% in 2010 to 51% in 2050. With greater wealth, rising powers such as China and India have also begun to assert their military might. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), both countries, India and China. registered increases of about 13 to 14% in their defence spending from 2008 to 2009 - the largest increases among the Asia-Pacific countries. As China and India enhance their military capabilities, they will also undoubtedly seek to expand their presence at the regional, and even global, levels.

As a rising China brushes up against the US in the Asia-Pacific, the interplay of relations between these two giants will inevitably affect the dynamics of our region. Some have pointed to the recent developments in the SCS as a reflection of the larger power politics between the two. In the diplomatic crossfire arising from the increased tensions between China, Vietnam and the Philippines in the SCS, China issued strong statements warning the US against getting involved in the issue. This drew a quick response from the US, which reiterated its interest in ensuring freedom of navigation and respect for international law in the SCS. The US also reaffirmed its commitment to the Philippines' defence under their Mutual Defence Treaty. The somewhat heated rhetoric has cooled down at the ARF.

While Sino-US relations are currently in a relatively stable phase, both sides will have to adjust to each other. The US has repeatedly asked the Chinese to explain their long-term intentions for their military build-up and to be "more transparent so that all parties can avoid miscalculation". I am not certain that if the Chinese choose to respond accordingly, that their answers will assuage.

Indeed, much has happened since a year ago, and as Barry Desker pointed out, today's environment, at least for defence ministries and militaries, seems to be the new norm. Post 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, Libya, piracy in the GOA and the continuing export of WMD, the hard reality is that the security landscape today is marked by threats which are increasingly transnational and complex.

For individual countries, these changes have inevitably caused each of us to re-look our military capabilities to better respond to an expanded spectrum of operations. We all recognise that navigating this change peacefully requires concerted effort and commitment, at very least in sharing information and new ideas for solutions, as well as exchanging best practices. By their very nature, transnational security challenges - spanning from terror networks to pandemics, natural disasters and cybersecurity - thwart attempts by individual states to contain or manage them.

ASEAN member states recognise that the centre of gravity for both economic and strategic weight is shifting towards the Asia-Pacific. China and India are the world's fastest growing economies and our region also houses four of the largest economies in the world. In this evolving landscape, the ASEAN countries have emphasised that our regional architecture must pari passu respond to these changes to maintain the stability that has allowed this region to progress economically.

Regional Security Architecture

ASEAN has sketched for the Asia-Pacific region a regional security architecture that is anchored on a few fundamental principles. First, a commitment to open and inclusive dialogue; second, cooperation based on mutual respect and confidence-building measures; and third, a mutual understanding that differences ought to be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law. These principles provide a sustainable basis for regional trust and cooperation by promoting transparency consistent with established norms, and by allowing countries to move ahead with dialogue and concrete initiatives at a pace they are comfortable at.

Today, the security architecture comprises a web of bilateral and multilateral relationships which fulfil various roles. We have large multilateral fora such as the East Asian Summit, or EAS, the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus or ADMM-Plus and the ARF. We also have informal, Track 1.5 meetings such as the Shangri-La Dialogue, as well as functional groupings such as the Malacca Strait Patrols, which are formed to address specific challenges. Woven together, these layers strengthen the overall architecture and help to move it forward. They also provide multiple opportunities for regional stakeholders to converse and cooperate in substantive ways.

It is also heartening to note that the scope of participants in such fora has broadened over the years. In our recent Shangri-La Dialogue, we had about 31 defence ministers or vice ministers here. This is a positive development that can build confidence and capacity to respond to emerging security challenges where required. As many of you know, during the recent Bali meeting, at the sidelines of the ARF, there was at least consensus to move forward to implementing guidelines of the DOC of the South China Sea.

The Military and Non-Traditional Security Threats

More significantly, our security architecture has also spurred practical outcomes, which surely is what we must be looking for. In April this year, for example, the only recently inaugurated ADMM-Plus established Experts' Working Groups to enhance practical cooperation in five key security areas: disaster relief, peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, maritime security, and military medicine. So what ADMM-plus proposed and activated was for one ASEAN member to partner with the eight dialogue partners to take on these five Expert Working Groups. Just two weeks ago, Indonesia and Singapore co-hosted the first ASEAN table-top exercise on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, or HADR, operations.

Our collaborations in these non-traditional areas mirror how the military profession itself has evolved to meet the non-conventional threats of today. The reality is that there are expectations that the militaries take on more responsibilities, Our armies were not originally conceived for partnership in HADR, vector control, or peacekeeping, to name a few; and yet, traditional army competencies have been adapted successfully for these important non-traditional challenges.

The role of the military must clearly evolve in tandem with the security landscape and for commanders here, the ideal configuration would be a flexible force structure that can both optimally meet conventional threats as well as "operations other than war" scenarios. But life is not ideal and trade-offs are inherent. Difficult decisions and assumptions will have to be made in reality. No single country, no matter how large and well resourced, can shoulder the burden of extreme events. We are therefore exploring new modes of multilateral security cooperation.

Let me give you an example, in terms of maritime threats, something which is very relevant on a real-time basis to Singapore. Maritime threats have become increasingly trans-boundary and multi-dimensional in nature. This necessitates the sharing of information across countries to achieve early warning and comprehensive maritime domain awareness. A good level of inter-operability between agencies and militaries is also required to deter potential threats . Such imperatives led Singapore to establish the Information Fusion Centre, or the IFC, in 2009. The IFC is housed within the Changi Command and Control Centre, the IFC fuses together information shared by partner navies and agencies to generate useful insights and knowledge. In other words, we invite partner agencies and navies to come to the IFC to plug in their own systems and then it produces a common picture shared by all. 10 countries have deployed liaison officers at the IFC to date, where they work together to fuse, analyse and disseminate the sea situation picture. So in some of the recent piracy incidents in the Gulf of Aden, we were able to share a common situational awareness pictures with user countries and those that requested for it.

In the same year, we had also restructured our Navy's Coastal Command into the Maritime Security Task Force or MSTF. The MSTF brings together the Singapore Armed Forces and other national maritime agencies such as Police Coast Guard, Maritime Port Authority, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and Singapore Customs . We are also establishing a new National Maritime Security System, or the NMSS, to be led by the MSTF. The NMSS will contribute to stronger information-sharing, situational awareness, decision-making and operational coordination among our maritime security agencies.

I'd like to talk about one more challenge that confronts us all, for your subsequent deliberations. This is slightly away from what we traditionally view as a security challenge. I'm referring to the new social milieu that our soldiers grow up in today.

The social network has transformed communication and connectivity between individuals and how they receive and process information. Any single issue from disparate sources can bring groups together to achieve mass collaboration. Through multiple voices that contribute fresh perspectives and ideas on the same platform, a new consensus for social action can be precipitated as we have seen in recent events. This is the environment in which our young learn, make friends, form opinions and shape their views and values.

This new milieu is anathema to many existing traditional organisations based on hierarchical structures, including and especially military organisations. Military practitioners eschew sharing information openly, and for good reason, so that operational security is not compromised. So you have a new environment that our young people grow up in, which is very networked and multi-sourced. You have a traditional hierarchical organisation.

We have to grapple with this dilemma in order to better engage a younger, tech-savvy generation of servicemen, who are used to it as a way of life. Some armed forces have taken the plunge in loosening restrictions on social media participation. The Australian Defence Force, for instance, has moved from barring its servicemen from posting online to educating them on setting their privacy settings. The US Army has established a Blog called Army Strong Stories, where videos and written stories submitted by soldiers as well as their family and friends are published unedited.

On our part, Singapore has also ventured forward. Sometimes with a little trepidation. We have established a presence on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, and responses to these attempts have been encouraging. Some of you may have seen Every Singaporean Son, a series of YouTube videos on basic military training in Singapore. The aim of the series was to help Singaporean youth, who have yet to enlist for their National Service, we have a conscript system, to better understand and prepare for basic military training. It was like reality TV, we had embedded media crew following our basic military servicemen throughout their BMT for a number of weeks. It made for quite compelling watching. The series proved to be a surprising hit, with more than 1.4 million cumulative views on YouTube thus far. Just for reference, Singapore has only five million people. This generated thousands of comments and conversations by its viewers about National Service. The series was picked up by the National Geographic channel and re-broadcasted to 39 other countries in Asia and the Middle-East. Somehow National Geographic found it interesting and asked us whether we could pick it up. We have also increasingly turned to social media in our efforts to strengthen our engagement of Singaporeans on defence issues. This open, inclusive and bottom-up approach has proved to be extremely useful in helping us build stronger commitment to the defence of Singapore, and has helped to make Singapore a more resilient nation.

I think that this social media space for modern militaries has scope to grow beyond reaching out to our servicemen. For instance, networks could be set up to instil resilience within the population and to counter extremist ideologies in the cyber domain. Singapore itself had a number of cases which were self-radicalised.This may involve strengthening collaboration with other stakeholders including NGOs and individual groups. This brave new virtual world has great impact in real life and we need to build our tool box to manage, if not master, this environment.

I hope that this brief scan and sketch of what pre-occupies governments and militaries in this region will help you in your deliberations.

Conclusion

Finally, let me congratulate the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies for putting together a comprehensive programme where you will hear from many leading thinkers, and have the opportunity to have candid discussions on the new challenges we face. The fact that this is already the 13th APPSMO gathering, and well-attended by so many outstanding military officers from around the world, and experts bear testament to the relevance and usefulness of APPSMO.

The APPSMO plays a useful role in fostering friendship and cooperation among military officers from around the region.

It leaves me now to wish all of you a fruitful and engaging week ahead. Thank you very much for inviting me and for your attention.