Speech by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen, at the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College Command and Staff Course 2020 Graduation Ceremony

Friends and Colleagues,

All of us would have rather had a physical ceremony but since that is not possible, let us make the best of it. And the fact that we are we are able to hold a ceremony for the GKS CSC course graduation ceremony is itself a high point because this year has been a very disruptive and challenging year. And the fact that we in Singapore are able to hold this ceremony in a relatively peaceful and calm atmosphere, I think, speaks a lot about how we have responded. So, let me first offer my congratulations to both staff and graduands for your resilience and determination to not let this virus rob you of your personal progress and achievements. So well done.

 And despite the outbreak, we have roughly the same number of graduands as previous years - 226 in total, this includes 49 National Service (NS) commanders, one Singapore Police Force officer and 20 international officers from 13 countries. The participation of these international officers reflects the mutual trust and closeness of ties between us and their host countries. And I am very glad that they have soldiered on together with us and thank you for going through this difficult period with us with your Singaporean counterparts. I am also glad that your spouses, families and employers are able to join us this evening and I think they certainly deserve recognition and gratitude for the support and encouragement given to you during this course.

50TH ANNIVERSARY FOR COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE

As it happens, you are graduating in a special year - the Golden Jubilee of GKSCSC. The Singapore Command and Staff College (SCSC), as the GKSCSC was known then, was opened by then-Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, in February 1970 at its original location in Fort Canning. Some icons that we are very familiar with in SAF history were among the participants in that inaugural batch. But the first batch had only 26 students - among them a LTC Winston Choo and COL Kirpa Ram Vij. This may interest you that COL Vij was both a participant as well as the Director of the College! I suppose that is the closest you can get in terms of first-hand experience and feedback of the program, to be both head of the institution and participant all at once.

A MORE DANGEROUS AND DIVIDED WORLD

50 years is a relatively long period for a college and both, I think, GKSCSC and the world we live in have radically transformed. And on top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic that we are now undergoing is more than just a public health crisis. It has not yet ended, and is already touted as the event that will define this generation. I think that assessment is justified. Because if you think about it, if you ask yourself, what global events have there been in the last 50 years, or the last 100 years that have had the kind of reach and impact. Very few events are able to do that. Certainly World War I and World War II. But beyond that, I think only COVID-19 has had that reach and impact. Analysts and experts now speak of the "post-COVID World" which we must all adjust to, including in the realms of security and defence.

COVID-19 is a black swan and a major disruptive force, but it arrived at a time when structural trends were already afoot. For some trends, it served as a powerful spotlight that gave clarity to changes already taking place and in others, COVID-19 accelerated the trends. No one thinks that we will ever return completely to that pre-COVID World, even if a vaccine or cure is found. Let me touch on a few implications on defence and the military.

I think many of you would have heard of stress tests to the banking and financial systems. This is what happened in the last global financial crisis where it stress-tested the banking and financial systems and central banks all over the world were very careful, scrutinising whether their banking and financial systems withstood the stresses. And from time to time, these central banks simulate, or even call on certain stresses to see how sound their banking and financial systems are. In parallel, I think COVID-19 exerted enormous pressure on the resilience of multilateralism and globalisation. Not only the processes, but more fundamentally, the principles upon which these two cardinal concepts, multilateralism and globalisation, had built our 20^th Century World, after the two World Wars. What did COVID-19 show up? I think for globalisation and multilateralism, COVID-19 showed that we had a lack of reserves and we are already seeing signs of the strain. There were supply line disruptions in the early phase of COVID-19, panic buying and hoarding both by individuals and even countries against countries. If you remember in April, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, was moved to apologise to Italy for not doing enough to help them at the height of their outbreak. Indeed, EU countries including Germany, France and the Czech Republic had decided then to block exports of vital medical equipment and protective gear to avoid shortages at home. They were not the only ones, many countries were doing it. When it affects hygiene and household items, substitutes can possibly be found but what happens when there is hoarding of essentials like food, water or even vaccines? Which security and economic alliances will breakdown or reshape based on these new considerations to secure supply lines for essentials for your own country? Governments and nations alike will re-examine their dependencies as revealed by COVID-19 and adjust their ties with other countries accordingly for self-preservation. Even a country as large as China is re-examining its supply lines for self-sufficiency.

In 2017, the US designated China as a strategic competitor. They put this out in their National Security Strategy. They called China a "revisionist power", along with Russia, that sought to, "erode American security and prosperity". The actions of the Trump Administration that ensued have been consistent across various domains to address this strategic assessment. That includes restraining trade, preventing transfer of technology and know-how, declaring Chinese claims to the South China Sea as unlawful, and putting the blame and responsibility for COVID-19 on the Chinese Communist Party leadership. Events related to COVID-19 continue to unfold, but few, if any, believe that co-operation is on the cards between the US and China on this score. Indeed, the strategic rivalry is expected to heighten. But In the near term, what we call, "strategic corporal", in this rivalry is the health of each of their military forces. An uncontrolled outbreak among military troops is a sign of weakness. Which is why both the US and China, as with militaries around the World, are making great efforts to ensure that their defence forces maintain a high Readiness Condition, or REDCON1, especially for critical missions. It was recently reported that an experimental COVID-19 vaccine has been approved by the Chinese government for use in the PLA. These moves create a dynamic of its own and bear watching.

COVID-19 has shown us that despite multilateral ties and globalisation, we are actually ill-prepared for such biological threats. But neither have existing transnational security threats diminished, let alone disappeared because of the pandemic. Climate change, cross-border terrorism, cybercrime, maritime disputes and malpractices continue around the world. With every government's attention and resources consumed with tackling COVID-19, the worry is that these existing threats can escalate. With multilateralism on the wane, and without global consensus and leadership, it will be that much harder to deal with these transnational security challenges.

For Singapore, MINDEF and the SAF are clear that we have to deal with the pandemic but we cannot neglect or let down our guard against these other security threats. We continue to strengthen bilateral ties with like-minded partners, as well as forge consensus and co-operation at multilateral fora, like the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus. We have committed ourselves to the initiatives stated in the ADMM-Plus Joint Statements on Practical Confidence-Building Measures, and Preventing and Countering the Threat of Terrorism, among others. Bilaterally we have strengthened co-operation with other partners, near and far. MINDEF and the SAF continue to work closely with our Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai and Bruneian counterparts. For the US, we renewed our 1990 Memorandum of Understanding on the United States' use of facilities in Singapore last year. We have also expanded our defence ties with Australia, India, China and other European countries.

MINDEF is determined to step up our efforts in defence diplomacy and to ensure that we and other countries do not take our eyes off the ball from existing security challenges despite COVID-19. We will strongly support Vietnam as the host of the upcoming ADMM-plus and I intend to be personally present in Hanoi in December for that meeting. We are also making concrete plans to host the Shangri-La Dialogue. Unfortunately that had to be cancelled this year. The Sherpa Meeting, the preamble to the Shangri-La Dialogue, is usually scheduled in the early part of each year, before Shangri-La Dialogue and we are making earnest plans to ensure that the Sherpa Meeting can resume while keeping participants and the public safe with adequate preventive measures. That is our way of stepping out in confidence to reclaim lost territory which COVID-19 has pushed us back.

CONCLUSION

These small but discreet steps - the completion of this course by yourselves; the resumption of bilateral and multilateral engagements - signal our determination to deal with COVID-19 and other security challenges decisively and deliberately. We march on, individually and collectively to make our region and the world, a better and safer place.

Let me end by congratulating all of you again. And I look forward to further contributions from each of you, as you assume your new appointments. To our international officers, my best wishes to you and your families as you return home.

Thank you all and have an enjoyable evening.

More Resources

226 Leaders Graduate from Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College