Are you ready for 7 million people on tiny Singapore?
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JannettLee:
In our context, you can only prosecute a strong diplomacy and a foreign affairs policy if you are backed by a strong defence force. Who gives 2 hoots about Brunei or East Timor? We have no natural resources, our survival depends on trade. We all want peace, but peace is not free, it comes at a cost.Iluvmygals:
Keeping defense budget to the minimum means building a stone wall around the circumference of the island and putting a few guns on sentosa! Anyway it is pointless to defense against nuclear weapon.....heck....let's keep the money and forget the wall too....
Sigh! Why everyone keeps on thinking of fighting a war! it should be the last think we want it to be! Enhance our foreign affair policies and get more strong alliance. Work on the principle of 'We will never have a war!'.
Our defence should be just for telling people we have defence and deterring the war should we caught by surprise with embezzling from others. Hopefully, we have sufficient time to help from our alliances.
Do you still think that other countries don't attack us only because we have many foreigners in our country? -
rains:
You might want to remind you male friends that if they leave in time of war, it is cowardice and desertion.
Really? Me thinks the army really has some work to do to educate or convince their own men in believing so.3Boys:
The point of NS is that we are serious about defence and we fight to win. Right now, there is no one in the region that can come in and beat us, NO ONE.
Please quit embarrassing yourself.
I must have been talking to the minority tho. Just about every of these men who has dutifully served his NS and reservist tells me he will be the first to run away if there ever is a war because Singapore army is no fight to anybody, and NS and reservist are a complete waste of his time, and sometimes money if he is a self-employed.
I asked them,\"If even people like you, who are trained and prepared for war, run away? What hope is there for people like us?\"
They are such an embarrassment to the army aren't they?
So much for true blue Singaporeans, eh?
This true blue Singaporean here you detest so much will stay and fight for OUR country. Believe or disbelieve is up to you. Or you might just think me stupid. -
3Boys:
In our context, you can only prosecute a strong diplomacy and a foreign affairs policy if you are backed by a strong defence force. Who gives 2 hoots about Brunei or East Timor? We have no natural resources, our survival depends on trade. We all want peace, but peace is not free, it comes at a cost.JannettLee:
[quote=\"Iluvmygals\"]Keeping defense budget to the minimum means building a stone wall around the circumference of the island and putting a few guns on sentosa! Anyway it is pointless to defense against nuclear weapon.....heck....let's keep the money and forget the wall too....
Sigh! Why everyone keeps on thinking of fighting a war! it should be the last think we want it to be! Enhance our foreign affair policies and get more strong alliance. Work on the principle of 'We will never have a war!'.
Our defence should be just for telling people we have defence and deterring the war should we caught by surprise with embezzling from others. Hopefully, we have sufficient time to help from our alliances.
Do you still think that other countries don't attack us only because we have many foreigners in our country?[/quote]To add to what 3Boys said, every country has it's unique history, geographical positioning and \"background\" of how the country come about, this is one crucial point where the country should decide what's to be their defense strategies, and the budget.
So, it's not appropriate to compare to other countries what our defense do or spend. -
JannettLee:
You still have not answered the question.
Very simple analogy here, If other is using Motorola HP, we are using i-phone 4. Why need to spend money on upgrading to i-phone 5 or Samsung note 2 when i-phone 4 is already way better off than Motorola HP.3Boys:
And my question to you is why even bother with 1 year of NS if we are not willing to spend and invest in enough equipment and infrastructure to put up a credible defence? Tell me, what is your 'minimum'? Is it 0.5% of GDP? 1%, 2%, 3%? G'ment spends 3.6% of GDP on defence in 2012, that too much for you?
What is your 'minimum'? No point making useless analogies.
If I said 3.6% of GDP was minimum, would you agree? -
Aargh!So many people on SG.I still remember when I was a kid the population here was not so HIGH!
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Iluvmygals:
Well, thank you. It's just that I believe in the Singapore story, and I choose to educate myself about it.1. It's not the size of the dog in fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog...so are we defensible....yes if we have a whole country of 3boys....
It's ok to be critical of policies, but one MUST understand what one is criticising.
It's funny to be accused of being in an ivory tower if all I put forth is publicly available stats. -
I think we cannot assume that the money we spend on defense is on weapons and technology that will benefit Singapore in the event of an actual attack. First, Singapore invests a lot in intelligence. Apart from hunting down terrorists, this is also used to monitor us, Singaporeans.
Second, what’s the proportion of the budget that is going into the salaries of the ministries’ directors?
Until we have a rough spending breakdown from the ministries involved in defence and security, I will refrain from assuming that the billions of dollars are being used to upgrade our weapons. -
Mdm Koh:
http://www.questia.com/library/98854885/defending-the-lion-city-the-armed-forces-of-singaporeI think we cannot assume that the money we spend on defense is on weapons and technology that will benefit Singapore in the event of an actual attack. First, Singapore invests a lot in intelligence. Apart from hunting down terrorists, this is also used to monitor us, Singaporeans.
Second, what's the proportion of the budget that is going into the salaries of the ministries' directors?
Until we have a rough spending breakdown from the ministries involved in defence and security, I will refrain from assuming that the billions of dollars are being used to upgrade our weapons.
F-15 and Apache attack helicopter squadrons don't appear by magic, they must be bought and paid for. Landing ship tanks and submarines don't come out of the water by themselves. Docks must be built, crews trained.
I think we can safely assume a huge amount of spend goes into hardware and training. Don't take my word for it, go read the book yourself.
Knowledge is power.
I hope you are not expecting that Mindef provides a breakdown of spend, in the form you desire, or that a failure to do so results removes their right to spend. Why give away proprietary information to our rivals? -
I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record... but some OOT posts were embargoed since my last announcement of moderation action...
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JannettLee:
I believe the doctrine have never been to win war.. but to deter/avoid one.
Sorry hor, I didn't ask to abolish NS completely but asked to cut defense budget to very minimum.
Why spend so much money? we are not going for war, even if we do, you thought we can win the war ?
How to deter enemies from attacking us? By establishing a capable and effective armed forces, by making the enemies-to-be realise that they have to pay a huge price if they were to attempt to invade. And the price would not be worth what they might gain, if any.
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