Singapore to continue conscription program
Agence France-Presse
Singapore will keep its mandatory military service because it cannot depend on help from others in a volatile security environment, the city-state’s defense minister said.
Ng Eng Hen said conscription was crucial, especially for smaller countries such as Singapore, and countries that abolished it ended up regretting their decision.
One such country is Lithuania, which scrapped mandatory military service after the end of the Cold War, the minister said.
“But instead of stability came the annexation of Crimea and troubles in the Ukraine barely two decades later,” Ng said in a speech to army recruits on the 50th anniversary of National Service (NS).
Lithuania reinstated its conscription program in March 2015 because it lacked the personnel to maintain a strong military.
Ng also cited Kuwait, which had to depend on U.S.-led coalition forces to push out Iraqi troops, which invaded in 1990.
“Singapore cannot depend on others to rescue it if we are caught in a similar predicament,” he said.
The affluent city-state, surrounded by much bigger neighbors, introduced the draft in 1967, two years after its bitter split with Malaysia.
Able-bodied men are eligible for conscription for two years once they turn 18. The Singapore military, pictured, is among the best-equipped in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, with an arsenal that includes submarines, F-15 and F-16 jet fighters and Apache attack helicopters. (Pictured: A Republic of Singapore Air Force F-15SG fighter aircraft performs a maneuver as it flies past an AH-64D Apache helicopter during the Singapore Airshow in February 2016.)
Ng’s remarks came amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula, including North Korea’s ballistic missile launch in early February 2017, and competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
