News

2023-08-09

Singapore’s ‘Total Defence’ Strategy

Singapore launched its Total Defence strategy in 1984. It was one of the first countries in the modern era to enact such a policy based on an expanded interpretation of national security.

Conventionally defence equates to military security, but for Singapore this approach was too limiting. There was a recognition that defence and development were intertwined and accordingly the authorities sought to exploit the synergies from adopting an integrative security approach. Total Defence thus emerged, manifesting itself as a blend of soft ‘social resilience’ elements designed to foster collectivism and national identity, and the harder industrial and technological dynamics of ‘defence capability’.

The resulting civil-military overlay, along with the government’s imperative to push the boundaries of innovational endeavour, has enabled Singapore to achieve a remarkable cultural, economic and military transformation. In the process, it has achieved rapid expansion of both defence ‘and’ development, leaving most other contemporary post-colonial states in its wake. Yet, the uncertain and turbulent global environment over recent years has revealed possible emerging fault lines in the Total Defence model that the Singaporean authorities would be well advised to heed, and, if possible, resolve.

Singapore represents a remarkable case study of defence economic transformation. In less than three decades, it has progressed from strategic dependence on its former colonial power, Great Britain, to Southeast Asia’s most formidable defence player. Singapore’s Total Defence model has been in place since 1984, and appears to have worked well, though with emerging challenges in recent years – as will be discussed later, providing policy-relevant lessons for effective harnessing of resources alongside the cultivation of a broad-based commitment towards collective defence is crucial. Thus, it will be useful from a comparative perspective to understand in what ways Singapore’s Total Defence strategy can similarly act as a benchmark for other states keen to pursue a broader-based interpretation of national security.

In an under-researched field, then, the aim of this paper is to identify, explain and analyse the principal components of Singapore’s Total Defence Strategy, with a view to determining its putative success. The paper begins by identifying and assessing the derived origins of Singapore’s Total Defence paradigm through critical analysis of the concept’s application elsewhere in the world. It then moves on to appraising the specific empirical context of Singapore. This involves a focused examination of the six constituent pillars of Total Defence Strategy, including also critical evaluation of the civil-military, socio-cultural and psychological relationships that underpin the model. The paper will close by offering conclusions derived from the findings of the analysis.

The purpose of this paper has been to evaluate Singapore’s ‘Total Defence’ strategy. The model was launched in 1984 and was framed by reference to the Swiss and Swedish models, and to some extent also the Finnish approach. All refer to the importance of civil and psychological defence and all have recently added digital/cyber security to their respective Total Defence frameworks. The concept of Total Defence resonates with contemporary policy emphasis on broadening the definitional scope of national security by providing a template for the pursuit of national unity, social cohesion, civil resilience, economic strength and military power.

The Singaporean strategy is formulated around six distinct but interrelated ‘defence’ pillars that reflect the island state’s collectivist and consensual civil-military development approach. To this point, the social attributes of the strategy have acted to support and strengthen advances in both traditional defence and the broader economy. Technology has been the common thematic in the development process, and, from the paper’s analysis, it is clear that the policy priority accorded to R&D and technological innovation has proved pivotal in evolving dynamic civil-military comparative advantages. This is important, because knowledge-intensive civil-military development will overcome the lack of critical mass and scale, and leverage global high tech economic and defence partnerships. Government-sponsored investment guided through a long-term strategy is directed towards ensuring continuation of this dynamism into the future, projecting Singapore into next generation higher value technological fields of endeavour.

Yet, the resilience of the Total Defence model is dependent on the sum of its parts. The separate pillars do not operate in isolation and weaknesses emerging in one domain will impact on others. Singapore’s strong economy, which has assumed almost mythical status among foreign observers since the 1960s, is now faltering. Economic growth is slowing, there is a cost of living crisis and asset values are eroding. Economic headwinds have made the other pillars less stable. The social compact is under threat, with trust in government seemingly waning, following contentious decision-making, especially in the demographic and immigration spheres. There is a danger of knock-on impacts affecting the Psychological Pillar through the fracturing of cultural consensus and national unity. The societal ties that bind together the diverse elements of community life, including ethnic minorities, may potentially be starting to unravel.

Singapore’s present turbulent environment begs the policy question as to whether ‘Total Defence’ strategy has worked to this point simply because of conducive politico-economic and cultural conditions. The changing global and national context is creating a broad range of security pressures, and government policymaking is responding with positive responses, but there will need to be a continuum of nimble, reflexive and balanced measures to ensure that the reservoir of trust is maintained and the integrity of the Total Defence Pillars endures.

*Full article originally published in the Defence and Peace Economics journal.

Comments () Views (4847 ) Print

Send To Friend