Speech by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Defence, at The 3rd Putrajaya Forum, at Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur

First, let me thank Tan Sri Dato' Sri Jawhar for the kind introduction, and thank my gracious host Defence Minister Dato' Seri Hishammuddin Hussein for inviting me. I want to thank the Chairman of ISIS, as well as congratulate the organisers for information on defence and security and for this conference. The topics are very relevant and important. It's a great honour to be able to address you today. I would like to thank my counterparts for inviting me to speak at this Forum.

Bilateral defence ties between Malaysia and Singapore are growing stronger in tandem with our overall state-to-state relationship. Political leaders on both sides recognise that we have many shared interests for a better future together. Our Governments are actively looking for ways to enhance bilateral cooperation, build confidence and trust with each other and provide mutual benefits to our citizens. Many of you would have known the progress made and the many good ideas, including the high speed rail linkage which is currently being under serious study as how to implement and complete it within a certain date.

In defence, our militaries have held exercises for many years between Singapore and Malaysia through which soldiers from both the MAF and SAF bond together. Exercise Malapura between our two navies is now in its 30th year. Our Armies will conduct their 20th annual Exercise Semangat Bersatu later this year. Our senior commanders attend each other's military courses and many know each other on a first-name, personal phone number basis. These deep and long interactions augur well for a stable and shared prosperous future between Malaysia and Singapore.

As Defence Ministers, Minister Hishammuddin and myself share a strong common desire and goal to deepen this bilateral defence relationship. We will step up military-to-military interactions even more, and across all three services.

Before I begin on the topic of today's forum, allow me to also offer my deepest sympathies to the Malaysian Government and families affected over the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Singaporeans join you in prayers and hope that there can soon be closure to this tragic chapter in aviation history. I want to also express Singapore's support for the Malaysian Government's handling of the MH370 incident. At the recent US-ASEAN Defence Ministers' informal meeting in Hawaii, the ASEAN Defence Ministers issued a joint statement to state that "Malaysia has done its level best in its response to this unprecedented predicament given the sheer scale of the Search and Rescue (SAR) operation which is the biggest and most complex we have ever seen."

Non-Traditional Security and the Role of Militaries

Indeed, international response to the MH370 incident is a vivid illustration of the expanded roles of modern militaries today. In all, and at short notice, militaries from 26 countries came together to search for the missing plane - first in the South China Sea, then the Andaman Sea and now in the deep south of the Indian Ocean. The vast inventory of ships, planes and helicopters, submarines, ground based and satellite radars - both manned and unmanned - were all deployed for this mission. For Singapore, we deployed our submarine rescue vessel, a frigate with a naval helicopter, a missile corvette, and C-130 and Fokker-50 aircraft.

Much of this military response to a civilian tragedy of MH370 was spontaneous because the global community empathised with the pain of families of MH370 passengers having to cope with uncertainty and distress. International help was readily forthcoming. Even so, the global military response to MH370 is not a one-off incident and shows the extent in which militaries now actively contribute in non–traditional areas.

For centuries, countries have raised militaries for the primary purpose of protecting their countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity. But today, militaries are increasingly have called upon to deal with transnational security challenges related to terrorism, drug and human trafficking, counter-proliferation, natural disasters, biological pandemics and cyber security. Indeed, for many countries - Singapore included - the population expects the military to step in when these challenges arise. How did this come about? Is this role for non-traditional security challenges for the military justified? Is the military the right organization and suited to respond to these threats? If so, how can militaries improve their effectiveness, including working with civilian agencies? What are the legal and political ramifications of such a role for militaries? Are there limits that should be set or tighter rules of engagement prescribed?

These are all important considerations because militaries everywhere are increasingly engaged in non-traditional security challenges. I hope this forum can shed some insights into this important challenge. At the recent US-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ informal meeting - that was just concluded in Hawaii - the Commander US Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Locklear related how he would point out to his new flag officers in PACOM that while not all would see actual combat during their careers, almost all of them would have to conduct a HADR operation. Indeed, the facts bear out his advice.

In the last decade alone, the Singapore Armed Forces has mounted over 20 HADR operations, deployed five naval task groups and a maritime patrol aircraft to the Gulf of Aden for counter-piracy operations, deployed troops and assets for stabilisation and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan over a six-year period, and have been involved in numerous homeland security and civil contingency operations. . I am sure the MAF has experienced this rising trend, which will increase further. And the reasons are quite obvious.

70 percent of all natural calamities globally occur in our Asia-Pacific region. Scientists believe that extreme weather conditions will continue, if not escalate. In a more inter-connected World, our militaries will also be asked to do more to maintain international peace and stability. The MAF, for example, has played a significant role in the peace efforts in Mindanao, Philippines - that Prime Minister just cited they've been involved since 2001 - including hosting peace talks and leading the 60-strong International Monitoring Team. The MAF has also served in UN missions and deployed to far-away countries such as Sudan, Lebanon, Congo and Liberia for peacekeeping operations.

Some may ask if militaries ought not to focus exclusively or predominantly on their primary role to defend their nation's territorial integrity. After all, these secondary roles of the military consume public resources and can put our men and women in uniform in harm’s way. I believe this secondary role for militaries in non-traditional security challenges is justified for three reasons.

First, the scale of natural disasters and transnational threats encompass many countries, and even if confined to a single country, can overwhelm its resources. No affected country by itself, has the wherewithal to withstand such threats and it is simply economically unsustainable for any one country to prepare for such contingencies based on its own resources. In the last two years alone, natural disasters have cost the world roughly US$300 billion and 30,000 lives, posing significant challenges to the stability and development of nation-states. The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 took the lives of over 230,000 people in fourteen countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Maldives. Up to five million people lost their homes or access to food and water. Typhoon Haiyan last year wreaked havoc in the Philippines and Vietnam, and even Southern China - affecting about 11 million people and displacing more than 600,000 people according to UN estimates. When natural disasters strike, existing infrastructure is often wiped out and normal function disabled. In these conditions, militaries are often the only organization remaining to respond at such short notice and will often need the assistance of the international community and regional militaries in the immediate aftermath.

Second, regional militaries and their countries build mutual trust when they help each other, or work together to help another country. I have mentioned the positive effects on militaries through working together in the ongoing search effort for MH370. Despite territorial disputes in some of the search areas, regional militaries and the international community were able to put aside their differences and work together.

Another example is the multinational naval effort to counter piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Navies from various multinational task forces - Combined Task Force 151 currently commanded by Pakistan and which the Singapore Navy is part of, the EU’s Operation Atalanta, and NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield - together with independent deployers including Malaysia, are operating in a cooperative manner to deter and disrupt piracy. These efforts are important and are in our common interests, as threats to key shipping lanes like the Gulf of Aden impact the global economy and impact us, and affect all our interests.

Through these valuable interactions, our militaries can help protect the global commons, enhance cooperation and build common understanding with each other. These confidence building measures can reduce the risk of miscalculation even over traditional challenges such as territorial disputes.

The third reason is that security threats today no longer fit neatly into traditional and non-traditional threats, and neither do they conform to clear divides between civilian and military arenas. Terrorism is one stark example. All of us here remember 9/11 where commercial aircrafts were used to attack the Twin Towers in Manhattan. In the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008, a few gunmen caused tremendous devastation and the military had to be called in to assist their police forces. Any civilian vessel on air, land or sea filled with explosives can be a military threat.

As a maritime nation, with approximately 1,000 ships calling at our ports or crossing our waters every day, Singapore has had to dramatically change our organizational structures and processes to improve the combined responses of civilian enforcement agencies and navies. Artificial barriers that impeded coordination were broken down through the set-up of the National Maritime Security System, this is led by the Navy which includes all other agencies such as our Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, Maritime and Port Authority, Police Coast Guard and Customs.

Counter-proliferation is another example where civilian and military agencies must work together to interdict the illegal, illicit transfer of Weapons of Mass Destruction, their delivery systems and related materials, of course in a manner consistent with national and international legal frameworks.

Cyber threats represent another non-traditional security domain that is growing exponentially and which our military establishments will have to address because attacks on civilian critical infrastructure through cyber-space can affect severely the physical security within any country. We have already witnessed the disruptive nature of cyber-attacks through previous examples of Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia, where the attackers make no distinction between military and civilian targets.

On the horizon, rapid changes in demography, urbanisation, population mobility and migration will also bring new security challenges. Food and water security, civil strife and biologic pandemics may need military assistance, in times of mass crises. As Germany's former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt noted in a speech a few years ago: "Within the next 40 years, there will be nine billion human beings on this planet - more than five times as many as at the beginning of the 20th century. As the available space per capita will further decrease, particularly in Asia, Africa and in Latin America, the tendency for migration, for local and regional wars, for rebellion and civil strife already prevailing in some of those countries, will probably continue. Far bigger crowds will no longer live in villages, but huddle together in mega-cities." At the recent Munich Security Conference, I heard Mr Schmidt reiterate this point that our present civilian security capabilities are not configured to deal with a surge from incidents of densely packed populations in urban cities. And I think he's right.

The Way Forward

If militaries are to be involved in non-traditional security challenges, how can they improve their effectiveness? Let me cite a few examples that Singapore and other ASEAN member states have employed.

Leveraging Technology

First, we need to better leverage technology and information, again a point cited by Prime Minister just now. Cross-boundary issues and transnational threats are too big to be effectively tackled using physical means and as always we need better information sharing and intelligence to target specific threats. This was the reason that Singapore set up, what we called the Information Fusion Centre or IFC by the Singapore Navy. Some of you may have visited it, some countries have liaison officers there - this is located at our Changi C2 Centre. The Information Fusion Centre or IFC relies on its network, both military and civilian agencies - from more than 30 countries to input their data. Different countries, civilian agencies, put in what information they have. Using advanced software, the IFC fuses all these inputs to generate a common maritime picture that identify anomalies and potential threats at sea.

Practical benefits have been demonstrated from this crowd sourcing cooperative approach. When a Malaysian ship was hijacked in the South China Sea in 2012, the IFC obtained information from our partners, and provided them to the Vietnamese authorities, who subsequently arrested the perpetrators. The IFC was also recently activated to assist in the MH370 search efforts when the area of operations moved too far to the south for our assets to physically deploy there. Officers from the 13 navies stationed at the IFC were able to collate and disseminate information shared by partner navies and agencies, and the Centre also activated its network of more than 300 civilian shipping companies to report any unusual sightings in the designated search areas.

Enhancing Civil-Military Cooperation

Second, we need to build up networks across government agencies, civilian NGOs and between the public, private and people sectors, and do so before the disaster strikes. The Five Power Defence Arrangements exercises - which Malaysia and Singapore are of course a part of - have already incorporated civilian agencies in our exercises. At the recent informal dialogue with the US and ASEAN Defence Ministers in Hawaii, the Deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Dr Kyung proposed more interactions between civilian and military agencies. In parallel with Singapore’s proposal to host a regional crisis coordination centre, Singapore will do more to increase interactions between civilian agencies and militaries for HADR.

The expanded role of militaries in non-traditional challenges will also require parallel changes to national and international laws that govern the mandate, the accountability, the rules of engagement and relationships between militaries and civilian authorities. In Singapore, for instance, we revised the Singapore Armed Forces Act some years ago to allow the military to conduct security operations in support of civilian authorities, such as the protection of key civilian installations, providing security for major events, and counter-terrorism. The changes in legislation served to protect the interests of both civilians as well as our SAF soldiers who were tasked to perform these roles.

Strengthening Regional Military Cooperation and Coordination

Third, militaries can exercise together to build capabilities and improve effectiveness in the area of non-traditional security. The ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus has already embarked on this. In June last year, the ADMM-Plus conducted its first joint exercise. All ten member states and eight "Plus" countries - Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US - came together to conduct a large-scale HADR/Military-Medicine exercise which Brunei hosted as Chair of ASEAN. It was a very substantive exercise, involved 3,000 personnel, six ships, and 15 helicopters. Military, medical, engineering, and search and rescue teams from all the 18 militaries participated in the exercise.

The second cycle of the ADMM-Plus Experts' Working Groups starts this month. Singapore and Australia are co-chairing the Experts' Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, and we are working closely with the co-chairs on Maritime Security, as well as with Malaysia who will be the 2015 ASEAN Chair, to conduct a joint ADMM-Plus Counter-Terrorism and Maritime Security exercise in conjunction with our 3rd ADMM-Plus next year.

Exercises between militaries are important but we must also build an architecture that can better respond to natural disasters, especially in the immediate aftermath where coordination of efforts is critical. This is why at the recent US-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ informal meeting two weeks ago, I offered Singapore’s Changi C2 Centre which I just showed you just now, which houses our Information Fusion Centre, to host a regional HADR coordination centre. Because in the first 24, 48 hours, of the early stages after disaster strikes, coordination efforts are down and you need to set up such a centre before the disaster strikes. And the crisis centre needs to be 24/7 to be effective. The Changi C2 Centre with its Information Fusion Centre is configured as a 24/7 operations. It was set up in 2007 to promote maritime security in the region by enabling international cooperation and interoperability in maritime operations. There was support for this regional crisis co-ordination centre from other ASEAN ministers, and our officials work together to operationalise this proposal.

Conclusion

Distinguished guests and friends, our region has enjoyed substantial growth and prosperity for the last two decades, and it continues to hold tremendous potential and promise. However, this region is witnessing substantial changes in the global order and the new security challenges that come with it. We must prepare our militaries for an uncertain future, one where the threats are more demanding and amorphous, and break down the borders between civilian and military realms.

As a region, we will need to build more resilient institutions and constructive partnerships at both bilateral and multilateral levels. The future will no doubt be challenging, and no country has the resources or ability to provide all the solutions. But I am confident that we will be able to meet the challenges before us as long as we pool resources and synergise efforts; as long as we continue to work together based on shared interests, aspirations and principles.

Thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward to hearing your views.