Wayang

some say that one of the key roles of any armed force is to wayang. indeed, posturing is as integral a part of military doctrine as actual combat tactics. because the best way to ensure that you don't lose a battle is if you don't have to go into one in the first place. and what better way to deter someone from picking a fight with you than a convincing display of force?

and so that's why the SAF regularly conducts these open houses, publicly showing off their military capabilities. and for some of these open houses, even non-Singaporeans are allowed to attend. take for example the one that was organised for us graduating trainee teachers. even the non-Singaporeans were allowed into Sungei Gedong camp.

for those of you who aren't familiar, Sungei Gedong camp is a camp where tanks and tank related things can be found. these tanks and tank related things are usualy collectively known as armor. now the Armour formation of the SAF is one of the most highly classified. not least because of Singapore's military doctrine. consequently, for one to be in the Armour formation, one has to have a certain security clearance, i.e. must be deemed that you won't leak out any critical information. this is thus a reason why Malays are excluded. so why are non-Singaporeans allowed into Sungei Gedong camp? and more significantly, this open house thing exhibited our Armour capabilities, showcasing some of our Armour units. it also had some signal equipment (Signals is also another high security formation, again because of our military doctrine, specifically in the context of IKC2 and NCW). why were non-Singaporeans allowed to see all these things then?

simple. wayang. if we can convince these non-Singaporeans that SAF is indeed a force to be reckoned with, somehow this information would be fed back to their home country. that would then go some way to achieving the deterrence effect.

however, is the kind of open houses convincing? a female NIE friend of mine told me that she wasn't at all convinced that SAF could defend Singapore. this is despite having seen the modern equipment, watched the wonderful computer generated animation of 3G SAF (again with IKC2). why?

because she did not see how these forces actually overcome enemies, advance and conqueor , hold ground, etc. in short, she did not see how all these modern systems work together as a seamless whole in an actual military operation. as such, she wasn't convinced that the soldiers could actually execute such military operations under the duress of war.

which is a very good point. for all our posturing, can we actually fight a war? can our NSFs, NSmen and regulars actually make use of the advance technology to lift the fog of war and eliminate the friction of war? will all the money we spent on developing the 3G SAF actually yield dividends? does all the technology really give us an edge?

at this juncture, we must take note of what happened in a certain military exercise that USA conducted called Operation Millenium Challenge. it was a wargame (i.e. computer simulated...)long story short, a smaller force, with far lousier technology, whooped the American forces, sinking the entire American invasion fleet. if it had actually happened, it would have bee the biggest naval disaster since Pearl Harbour. what is more interesting is that USA already has the 3G forces that SAF is trying to go towards. and perhaps what they have is even far more advance than what we can achieve in the next 10 years. and yet they lost.

reason for losing? well... long story. which is besides the point of this post. if you are interested, here's the link. but what is important is the moral of the story. and that is that if we were to be confident that SAF can defend Singapore, it should not be built upon superior technology, but founded on exceptional leaders, courageous, disciplined and capable soldiers.