Chinook helicopters crossed the Singaporean skies, flanked by Apache gunships, while German-made Leopard battle tanks paraded on the streets below and US-made F-16 fighter jets put on an air show.
Last week’s exhibition, part of Singapore’s annual National Day celebration, offered a vivid display of the military assets of a country that according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute had the world’s third-highest military spending per capita in 2023. It ranked fifth in 2021.
This year’s parade, the first under new Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, takes place as rising geopolitical tensions and emerging cyber threats are pushing the city state to boost defence spending and rethink its traditional stance of preparation and deterrence.
On National Day, Wong warned that “tensions between the US and China continue to rise. For now, they don’t want to collide. But they are engaged in a strategic rivalry that can undermine peace and stability, especially in this region.” These were, he said, “powerful forces”.
“They are what keep me awake at night,” he said.
“A lot more can be done in hardening civilian systems and getting the population psychologically ready for disruption in case Singapore gets caught up in a power confrontation,” said Ja Ian Chong, associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
Singapore’s military strategy has long been encapsulated by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew’s remark in 1966 that the city state should be a “poisonous shrimp” — small but hazardous for predators.
“Ultimately Singapore is trying to deter coercion directed against the city-state, without really trying to project power very far outwards,” said Scott Harold, associate director of the Rand Center for Asia-Pacific policy.
In a sign of an increased focus on defence, Singapore in February outlined a S$20.25bn (US$15bn) defence budget for the current fiscal year. That is a 13 per cent increase over the previous annual budget, although revisions in last year’s spending means the actual increase is 2.5 per cent. In 2014, the budget was S$12.6bn.
Singapore has long sought to maintain friendly relations with both the US, an important non-treaty ally, and China, its largest trading partner. But that geopolitical balancing act is being tested in an increasingly fractious environment.
One proximate source of concern is the South China Sea, where China has made vast maritime claims that are disputed by countries including Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, and where recent stand-offs have inflamed tensions.
“South China Sea tensions are particularly unwelcome in Singapore because it has no territorial claims of its own there, but would inevitably get drawn into potential conflict,” said Jonah Blank, senior research fellow at the NUS and senior political scientist at Rand. “From Singapore’s perspective, there is no US-China conflict that would be anything but a disaster.”
Singapore has been deepening military ties with the US, as Washington strengthens its security net in the Indo-Pacific region. Under a memorandum of understanding renewed in 2019, US planes and ships can pass through Singapore.
But Singaporean politicians have been careful to avoid outright criticism of China’s increasingly assertive regional posture. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in July, Singapore’s defence minister Ng Eng Hen said Beijing moving deeper into the South China Sea made “perfect military strategic sense . . . from their point of view”.
Much of Singapore’s military hardware and technology has been sourced from the US or Nato, an alignment that would make the city-state “dependent on the US or other western allies” in a US-China conflict, Chong said. In such an event, Singapore would be asked to provide transit for the US military — which China would pressure it not to allow, he added.
Singapore’s defence strategy was still tilted towards conventional land capabilities, analysts said — an outdated focus when the city-state is only linked by land to Malaysia, an ally. “If there is going to be greater instability because of issues in the South China Sea and any potential conflict around Taiwan . . . Singapore is going to need to make sure its sea lanes and air routes are safe,” said Chong.
Singapore has ordered 20 Lockheed Martin F-35s the most advanced fighter aircraft, which are set to begin arriving in 2026, as well as four Type 218SG Invincible-class submarines from Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, which are expected to be operational by 2028.
At the same time, the US and Singapore are expanding their co-operation in emerging technologies.
In July, Ng and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin agreed to co-operate on data, analytics and artificial intelligence. Singapore is seeking to incorporate AI into military thinking: it launched a fourth branch of its armed forces, the Digital and Intelligence Service, in 2022, and has held defence exercises around critical infrastructure and digital attacks.
“AI could also shape decision-making processes in military operations,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, pointing to its potential to identify threats within the “constrained and cluttered maritime domain” near Singapore, which includes crucial lanes for global shipping.
Ultimately “there is recognition that a lot of the potential for conflict in future will involve key infrastructure that may not be physical”, said Chong.
This — rather than the tanks on display in the National Day parade — may represent Singapore’s future military priorities. “The calibration needs to be less land force heavy, more naval and air force,” Chong said.
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