On the same day that the ‘Invincible’ was launched in north Germany, Singapore’s Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat opened his Budget 2019 speech with a focus on defence and national security. He would go on to reveal that around 30% of the government’s total expenditure for the year would be allocated to supporting defence, security and diplomacy efforts.

The Singaporean Finance Minister stressed the importance of effective diplomacy and deterrence, the twin pillars of Singapore’s national security strategy, earmarking S$15.5 billion (US$11.4 billion) of the annual budget for the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), a modest increase on the previous year’s defence budget of S$14.8 billion (US$10.9 billion).

… Dr Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told ASEAN Today that a general sense of uncertainty over the evolving security landscape has been a major driver behind the modernisation process.

Dr Collin Koh attributed Singapore’s procurement plans to what it “perceives as a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) security environment that’s constantly evolving, considering the confluence of many developments in the region these days.”

Dr Collin Koh elaborated that these developments included “the Great Power rivalries”, including that playing out between China and the United States, “the geopolitical disputes in the region (not least, the South China Sea), a myriad of non-traditional security concerns (transnational terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation), natural calamities and military modernisation efforts undertaken by other countries in the region.”