Q: The political culture is evolving day by day. What do you believe the leaders of the future technology and Singaporeans need to know about defense politics?
What is the risk, in Singapore? In the plant of world commerce, we stand as the canaries. External trade is three times our GDP ( or more ) in terms of GDP.
We should be comparable to an MRT stop store. You’re in problems once the coach halts or slows down in speed. I believe we can make a good life if the carriages keep moving back and forth. You have no control over what people decide when they decide to divert, use other tracks, bypass the place, or are prohibited from stopping at your station, or have their routes reversed somewhere.
How do we understand this kind of earth? Try to avoid it as much as you can.
We’ll accept the recent US-China transition from 145 % to 30 %, in my opinion. Maybe there will be more, but at least it gives us a break. We’ll continue to communicate with other nations so that we can stabilise the world system more effectively.
There are shortcomings. Non-trade taxes will need to be addressed. Uneven procedures will need to be addressed, and non-tariff measures to restrict your markets will need to be addressed, and so on and so forth.
However, I believe that people typically understand where Singapore stands. We declare that maintaining global business is in our best interests. The trick is, however, to generate momentum within our organization, you we encourage people to listen intently and then discuss it with them? If that is possible, I believe we have succeeded. If we didn’t, we must endure the effects. It will be a really challenging sport of catching.
Q. What was the most important decision that contributed to the transformation of the SAF ( Singapore Armed Forces ) and MINDEF in your 14 years in the defense portfolio?
It is actually a combination of decades of research from the previous. The SAF has since begun to develop strong fundamentals, instill goodwill, and elevate management. If there was any input, it would be if the SAF and MINDEF rulers believed they knew what they were doing and could handle the necessary procedures in real time.
For instance, I presented the idea of hybrid war to legislature more than ten years ago, perhaps more than ten years ago. It was viewed as something novel. I explained the Gerasimov theory, which was given the name of a well-known Russian general. You’re more likely to receive ideas at the social degree in that exchange of ideas. Your military officials are also given a chance, but they also have their own activities. However, it is repeating the statement,” I think there’s something to this, and if this is correct, we’re planning ahead, then we really ought to design ourselves to be able to face these risks.” That evolved into better counter-terrorism buildings, response times, tools, and redesigning of specific causes that later became the Digital Intelligence Service, orders, and work causes.
related to Total Defense. I once claimed that our Total Defense was becoming overly militaristic. We need to get people acting immediately because overall defense means total defense. So we made the decision a few years ago to work with other organizations and to simulate water shortages for ( a ) few hours, cyberattacks, phishing, electrical blackouts, and food shortages.
Q. You have witnessed Singapore go through numerous difficulties while serving as a defense secretary. Can you recall a time that may have been specifically difficult?
There were numerous fatalities when I took over in 2011 and after that. There will be a lot of grief ( with ) a loss of life. You don’t have the luxury of wallowing in it because it has an enormous impact on you personally, but you have to change the system to ( restore ) confidence.
So there, I benefited from being Minister of Manpower ( between 2004 and 2008 ), where there were also a number of accidents, including the Fusionopolis ( accident ), and the Nicoll Highway collapse. We conducted a root-and-branch assessment, or structural review at MOM. We visited various nations with higher protection standards, particularly those in Europe, and examined their systems. By saying,” Everybody, let’s be vigilant, you don’t obtain safety, right?” we made it clear that you don’t get safety. That is not how it works. Everyone arrives at labor carrying out a task. It must be that you have to design out threats.
They claimed that even when they built properties, they were concerned about how repair would be carried out. So they constructed immediately properties rather than curvy-wurvy versions because they needed different maintenance, and so on and so forth. You design the risk away. You foster a sense of accountability in terms of security.
So I realised from my experience in MOM that you had to center that in the SAF. Not that SAF had small safety standards back then; it was still one of the best forces in the world and, even in light of commercial standards, we are one of the safest systems.
But a lost life is someone’s sibling or child, right? We also said that we must purpose for a goal. That is a lengthy purchase. So we placed safety before performance in the hands of the CO ( commanding officer ). You hold yourself accountable. If anything occurs and there is a security lapse, it will be marked against you. You must give interest.
However, we established security procedures that require participants to perform the exercises, identify the risk points, and then design the environment accordingly. AI even lends itself to that right now. We’re attempting to see how it can be used.
Therefore, if there was a valuable learning point, it was MOM’s experience that was used before translating it. Although the health history has been good over the past ten years, we are aware that this is a continuous challenge. You must be on the lookout for this, and I hope we may keep doing it.
Q. What is the most important lesson you learned from your 24 years of serving in politics, and what guidance do you offer the next generation of officials?
Don’t become a political thank you. You might be disappointed because it’s setting a very high table. However, I would say that politics can still be used to accomplish great without sacrificing one’s aspirations in Singapore. That might not be the case in another methods, I believe. Politics is one area where you can also do good if you think you should go in the way that Singapore should go and you think it will help it.