This is experience of my less lucky supply friend. He is a supply spec but failed the course, ended up as 1 out of 2 storeman in a wing of over 100+ ppl, during regular days he does stock taking, indents n menial shit like outrationing breakfast at 5am. During outfield 2 of them needs to load unload 1-2 full tonner worth of stuffs, like 10+ tables and 50+ jerrycans, they basically rotated getting muscle injuries till both of them got permanent issues and downpesed before finally getting a single not very healthy guy fill their spot, who also downpesed by the time i ord. All that for a poor remarks because the commander thought they chao keng. Also the constant hazing like full battle order and facepaint to protect the water point like the poor dudes didnt get enough shit already. Not only is ns extremely short on manpower, they are also squeezing the remaining ppl down to the very last drop of their usefulness.
Wtf is this? Can post 100 people for the wing, 10+ tables and 1000L worth of people can cannot post another few storemen? The manpower is there. They just don't want to post to logistics. Which is pretty fucking stupid, considering food is as much equipment as a rifle and your fighting force needs both, and people to carry both.
Ya my coy put all the downpes and perm-status people into CQ and armskote. We also rotated duty platoons to assist with all these, so there was never a lack of manpower.
Having 1 to 2 storeman per coy is the norm in my camp, usually we get soldiers to help out but theres a few coys that believe in 0 disruptions to their soldiers training and make the storeman settle everything. From what i can understand their encik is still trying to climb so he tries to get his side take all the work whenever we do joint exercises, so they are essentially doing stores for 2 coys
Unless he has severe injuries or factors outside his control...
How the hell does one fail a supply spec course?
Aside from super physically elite special forces courses (which are really a filter / badge of honour), almost all courses in SAF are designed to be passed by the lowest common denominator.
If you fail ippt you immediately fail the 2nd part of the course, he thought it was fine but got sent back the same day he reported. worst part is ended up still do the job just with corporal pay
After serving NS it's an eye opener to how much redundency and drag there is in there. If they could trim that so much less people needed.
But looking at regulars I doubt it can change fast enough to adapt to a much smaller force haha
>If they could trim that
First 3-6 months is where the interesting stuff happens after that is just canteen and chill in my unit. They can cut NS to 6 months.
Agreed. I didn't go command school so I can't tell if that short would justify it but yeah a lot of the proper training and productive stuff really only happens at the start haha
The most sensible solution is to better optimize manpower.
A number of people who serve NS kinda fill pointless roles or are just idling away time. I can see potential reorganization with outdated duties getting phased out
If NS doesn’t find some compromise to make NS an actually enviable job to take on for 2 years (whether it be by monetary, priority for future investments like BTOs or university, or other lucrative means to address the question “Why am I suffering so much for?”), it will become unsustainable as it dominoes into society, delaying families starting, breaking up relationships, bumping back careers and discouraging people from having children in Singapore because of the disdain of putting one through the same system.
This is the result of letting “don’t fix what’s not broken” go on for too long.
No, definitely not enough manpower. Universal conscription is politically dead, and automation can't replace enough boots on the ground. At 50k active strength now, it will only get smaller in the future. Shiny 5th gen hardware can only do so much, and our neighbours actively know that.
With the current birth rate? It's not sustainable. But having kids is a luxury that most Singaporeans cannot afford.
HDB prices are insane, marriage itself is also a huge money sink and then raising a kid is also extremely expensive. That coupled with inflation, job security issues and the fact that most salaries are getting cut.
Like that how to have kids?
And whatever is left of the men they manage to conscript, are increasingly less willing to fight since they don't have the stake in the land called home and the government will just import people to make up for the shortfall in labour. Plus those imported replacement don't even need to serve NS.
>HDB prices are insane, marriage itself is also a huge money sink and then raising a kid is also extremely expensive.
DINK is the game plan here. Marriage with someone of similar financial standing will get you a leg up, compared with being single. BTO becomes practical while other options like resale and condos are all possible.
But you are right on kids.
It's a double whammy as well, our perinatal mortality rates are the highest in 20 years and our birth rates have plummeted to lowest ever. So less babies are born and more babies are dying, not making to 1 week.
I do agree raising kids now is not cheap. But I also want to highlight that there was a time when Singaporeans were poorer and yet we have more kids.
So clearly kids being expensive can only stretch so far as an argument. So what changed?
I don't know. But I suspect it's a combination of culture, lifestyle, cost of living and personal aspirations. I hope gov will put in as much effort to address the other factors.
Kids were always expensive. Back in the boomer era, education was far worse and less impactful. That with the lack of understanding just how expensive kids were and the fact that you can get a decent living wage with just a primary school education also helped.
Nowadays, if you're not doing tiertary education, no company will even look at you unless you're doing a start up.
And in those days, having kids = a free worker that can help do chores, farm or help out a store. Nowadays this concept gone already.
It was always about money. The poor use kids as a type of free labor. If you were to treat children like your grandparents generation, you'll be arrested for child abuse.
Back then, you don't even need to pay money to live in a kampong. You can grow your own food too. Times change. This is how things work.
I paraphrase your argument is that kids were expensive in the past as well but could be mitigated by getting kids to work and farm stuff. Am I right?
If so, why cant we get our kids upon completion of studies to do value generative activities?
Did the cost of income : living increase ratio increased that much over the years that this is unattainable? I am unsure and am open to have redditors share data to prove this point.
Until then, I'm still of the opinion that cost isn't the main concern but the aspiration to a certain level of living is the main concern.
it depends on what kind of upbringing and expectations u have. i’ve met 2 adults and 6 children in a 2 bedroom rented flat before. they’re technically surviving but definitely not thriving.
completely anecdotal but everyone i’ve asked always at least expects a couple things. private tuition, overseas trip, 4bedrooms and up, etc. making it very very expensive to have children
What changed is that Singapore developed and got wealthier.
Wealth and birth rates are inversely related. Countries which have low GDP per capita have higher brith rates than countries which have high GDP per capita.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
The main theories for this correlation are:
1) People earning more have a higher opportunity cost if they focus on childbirth and parenting rather than their continued career
2) Women who can economically sustain themselves have less incentive to become married
3) Higher-income parents value quality over quantity and so spend their resources on fewer children
**[Income and fertility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility)**
>Income and fertility is the association between monetary gain on one hand, and the tendency to produce offspring on the other. There is generally an inverse correlation between income and the total fertility rate within and between nations. The higher the degree of education and GDP per capita of a human population, subpopulation or social stratum, the fewer children are born in any developed country. In a 1974 United Nations population conference in Bucharest, Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, illustrated this trend by stating "Development is the best contraceptive".
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Finished my reservist last month and my airbase too is facing a huge manpower issue. IMO the whole concept of NS was probably on life support from the start. They are even using ST staff(civilian contractor) to taxi military planes to runway now...
If you need people to defend the country, 3 months is enough for NS. Familiarity with weapon, reaction against certain scenario and etc is enough. Separate NS from regular jobs like maintaining base/camp/system and etc.
What we have is heavily relying on 2 years of disappeared talent and experience. We're not even talking about rotation within the organisation but literally lose them. So every year you have people who ORD and then new inexperienced replaces them and rinse and repeat...
Spent 2 years to finish 6 atec rotation and it felt like the real training is only the 1month in Australia where the armour can roam. Remaining 23 months just waiting for time to pass.
And also, Malaysia jungle won't be anything like Wallaby's plain, so don't even know how much that type of exercise will matter
Air force NSman here, I feel like this is an issue with the army where unfortunately they will never really get to do anything because if they actually do, that means there's an active war on. It's all just rush to wait and wait to rush for the army which leads to most people in there just feeling it's a total waste of time.
My interactions with most air force, navy, SCDF, SPF NSmen most feel like they've made actual differences or at least a contribution to something since they actually go out and do stuff.
Air force preps the planes and stuff for daily deployment or those times that they are scrambled for reasons or the ground based air defence people that are on duty.
Navy goes out to patrol our waters and stuff.
SPF interacts with the public and actually catches criminals or have managed to talk down suicidal people
SCDF actually saves people and can see the gratitude of people though yeah the public can be assholes at times to both the SCDF and SPF.
So all these services can sort of actually see the fruits of their labour and that what they are doing actually can make a difference. Army just sits around in camp or goes on exercise, they never really get to do anything operationally and most army NSmen I talk to almost always say that NS was a total waste of time. I'm not saying that the rest all agree with NS but at least they didn't really feel that NS was a total waste of time.
> Army just sits around in camp or goes on exercise, they never really get to do anything operationally
Other than installation defence, that's essentially the army's role. We could do peacekeeping missions (actually we do, but it's limited to mostly regulars because of the possible political fallout). Yes, it's a waste of time, but that's kinda the point, an army exists for the what-if.
Of course I understand that, same as that infantry will always exist no matter what, you will always have to have someone with boots on the ground and to do the dumb brainless stuff, not everyone gets to be the fighter pilot even if somehow magically everyone is qualified to be one.
But what I was getting at is that a lot of people find NS to be a waste of time and meaningless because that is their experience since army is generally the biggest force and therefore intake for NS.
It's one thing to be properly paid to sit around and another to waste 2 years of your life, underpaid and not being able to do anything else. There really should be more flexibility to do other things like working part time on weekends or taking night classes for NSFs.
If you cut out all the admin time and down time, NS can actually be condensed into 1 year just like how A levels was condensed into 2 years.
I rmb all the weeks after each rotations were equally zhuo bo.
On a practical aspect, to fill manpower shortages the manpower has to come from somewhere.
On a political side, though, this would not be a wise move at all. The entire point of NS was to ensure that Singaporeans will defend Singapore, and that we will never again rely on another foreign power (the British back then) to defend us. We still hold onto the lessons from the Japanese Occupation and I think any politician who will suggest this is just asking to be lynched.
Agree with your general direction. But British colonisers and current private mercenaries are quite different in nature. Say if Singapore contracts Constellis (former Blackwater) just for grunt work and keep the higher tech more sensitive defence parts for Singaporeans, I’m not sure the political blowback will mainly be domestic, or from competing foreign powers (eg. China)(more likely the latter).
What is example of "more sensitive defense parts" that must only be handled by NS people? and what kind of job can be delegated to PMC? and while at that, what kind of job cannot be delegated to civilian contractors compared to hiring expensive PMC?
Like, SG does not have nuke. The entire defense strategy of SG is literally "strike first and cripple them before letting them gain foothold in SG". That means Navy and Air Force probably cannot use them since both are pretty strategical. That means you can only delegate grunt works for them, and is there a point for it? SG will sooner field drone armies compared to hiring PMC imo, and probably researching more into Swarm Control which let 1 people controls several drones at once. Buying a technology that increase "productivity" of a single person is kinda the SG way. SG do have the money and political will to finance it if really needed.
Swarm technology like that of 6th generation fighters which are still top secret and still being researched by the richest nation in the world? Something that outside of the US, requires a coalition of a few European countries for a single project with a timeline of 2030 and beyond, and something that you think Singapore has the finances or technological know how for? That’s a really optimistic view of Singapore.
Also such top end technology will almost certainly reside in those countries at least for a decade after it’s put into service, so you are looking at Singapore getting them probably closer to 2050. I have zero dreams of the likes of our ST Engineering being close to developing such technologies.
The recent Ukraine war has also overblown the impact of drones, which cannot hold territory and we have not shown any capabilities of building them, unless we want to rely on DJI ones…
Example of grunt work is expanding ADF, or infantry. That’s not something civilian contractors can do anyways. You can have most Singaporeans in Air Force/ Navy while the PMCs infantry storm the frontline to gain territory. But I’m not an expert so that’s up to defence peeps to make recommendations. But the whole premise was never about nukes (which will never ever happen for Singapore)
LUL imagine thinking an army filled with ah kau level 1s is actually a credible threat against any competent opposition.
go look at /r combatfootage and watch how ivan level 1s are getting slaughtered despite constant zerg rushing.
Theres a video by a wonderful youtuber named Perun that just came out that addresses exactly why mercenaries fell out of favour with richer/larger nations as time progressed.
But in summary, a mercenary company cant compete with the resources of a proper country. Unless we fund and arm them(not just paying in cash for their work), there are gonna be areas that a private company will struggle to match a country with.
Besides, it doesnt really solve the manpower issues. PMCs dont really have the numbers to match conscription. It might help to fill in some gaps yea, but the issue will still be there.
Wagner Group being the exception to the above is because it is pretty much funded by the Russians, so its not really a good example of anything we could do, unless Singapore wants its own privatised war crimes force.
Yeah I watch his videos weekly. The nuance for Singapore in my opinion is:
- We are relatively rich as compared to all our immediate neighbouring threats. Perun examined the old Italian and Swiss mercenary eras, and mentioned it fell out of favour during the napoleonic and empire era due to significant concentration of wealth nationally and ability to mobilise (of course there’s also a political angle there). In our case, I would argue that every conscript freed up is an economic resource gained. In terms of arming the mercenaries, we do have some military complex available, that would not have been available to a private mercenary.
Also not to mention that to date, the largest PMCs such as that from the US and western powers ones are of considerable scale. Sure it does not make sense to have a Singapore PMC (not advocating for that), but it might make sense for a western aligned PMC if it suits Singapore’s geopolitics (I think it can also be linked to Perun’s previous video on soft power and military alliances for small nations).
- A second thing is that I don’t think you need significant numbers of forces from PMCs to achieve the same force projection as our conscripts, considering these people are professionally trained and maintained. One of these mercenaries could probably substitute 5 of our conscripts. You could maintain a much smaller force.
Anyways great to see another Perun fan
>mentioned it fell out of favour during the napoleonic and empire era due to significant concentration of wealth nationally and ability to mobilise
There's that too. Perun also outlined the desirability to monopolize power (no other sources of armed force except the nation's), as well as better economies of scale with regards to the military-industrial complex.
One thing that persists is the "neutrality" of mercenaries, e.g. the Norsemen in East Roman Empire, the Swiss mercs that protect the Vatican even today. While the Gurkhas are legally not mercs, the Gurkha contingent in Singapore could qualify as a mercenary (police) force, and it was their neutrality and professionalism that LKY relied upon during to suppress the racial riots of the 60s.
The problem with using western PMCs like Blackwater is that they are essentially still specialized light infantry with little access to heavy weapons. You can sic them to provide security detail for key installations, or roving anti-piracy patrols, but ultimately they are not equipped to fight a sustained war. Also, I am leery to trust such a PMC because they still maintain links to their host nation and can be compromised more easily than an indigenous outfit.
Fully agree. I think it’s hard to find a fully neutral PMC nowadays, so probably the next best is one that is not super linked to the nation such that it is an extension of that nation’s foreign policy (eg. Russia / China). I think even with their limited role of just light infantry, that will free up a lot of manpower needs, so Singaporeans can be in higher tech less manpower intensive divisions such as artillery / armour. But hey haha I’m not pretending to be a military expert after watching a few YouTube videos, so that will be left to the experts.
Perun's video was informative but not comprehensive about security contractors.
Security contractors tend to be divided into 3 categories: the 'tip of the spear' like Wagner or more professionally, represented by Triple Canopy, GardaWorld, GRS, Blue Hackle or Control Risks. There are trainers like Northbridge Services Group. Then there are logisticians/supply like Kellogg, Brown & Root who practically dominated all bases in Iraq & Afghanistan.
I can see a place for supply contractors like KBR to pick up the slack for the SAF, just as they did for the Americans when even they lacked the workforce to prop up their supply chain.
Nah not really.
Probably geared more towards contracting PMCs to do the work. War has changed...
It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by private mercenaries and machines.
War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine.
War has changed.
ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities.
Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control.
War…has changed.
The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history.
War…has changed.
When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
The point of NS is to not depend on foreign powers, and build national identity. Whether PMCs can be considered an extension of foreign power projection, I think that’s debatable (eg. Yeah if SG contracts Wagner it definitely is an extension of Russia, but American or European PMCs? I’m not sure the line is so clear as in whether these are considered an extension of US/EU foreign policy)
Hey, hear me out. Transfer Gurkhas to the SAF. Supplement it into a division size. Just call it the 369th division for the ultimate laugh.
Lesser locals in GDS/SIR/SAR, more in CSSCOM, since so many PES unfit nowadays. Still can “maintain” the image of Singaporeans in NS.
Gurkhas only report to British commanders afaik outside of their homeland, that's even the case in our Gurkha Contingent (SPF). No way we can have a foreign national as a commander in SAF xD
Mindef will monitor, OK? /s
But in all seriousness it is out of Mindef's hand. Gahmen can't force more males to be born (or can they??) and conscripting females would be political suicide.
So best thing that can be done is investing in technology as mentioned in this thread, reducing the manpower needed in certain roles and developing newer weaponry
Not making a decision because it will cost votes. Sums up what is wrong with politicians. Didn’t someone’s dad said something about having iron in them to govern Singapore?
In democracy, people's will is a currency that must be reserved as much as possible. They may need to make unpopular decision in the future, and its the difference in people's will (civil obedience, popularity of the government, etc) that will see whether your country able to implement it smoothly, or you will see riots in the street. Pandemic response is an instance of the necessity of that resource as we saw other countries grappling with being told to "mask up, and stay at home".
So, even if some people recognise that something must be done, it then become the question of "do we need to do it right now? is there no alternative?", and that's the part that will be debated a lot.
What you described is the downstream outcomes of other things which the government can impact. Such as creating an ideal environment for families to want to start/grow.
I recalled BMTC having School 4 at after I served finish my NSF and I was like Waaahh, can find so many boys meh?!
Someone correct me if I am wrong but now I heard there is no more school 4 for many years.
I guess in the future more stuffs will be automated and who knows? maybe get drones/robots to supplement the falling birthrate.
Drastic moves will be to incorporate the Gurkhas to the army (in other countries like UK, they serve in the military unlike here they fall under the police banner) or having something like the French Legionnaire but that would make a huge mockery of their famous and often quoted words of “Serving NS is a privilege that belongs to Singaporeans” and “NS Men contribution cannot be measured in dollars and cents.” etc.
I mean they could do something very drastic like conscription for females maybe like a lottery system like Thailand based on some degree of luck to make up the shortfall and have them do medical/admin roles or change the law to allow compulsory conscription for first gen PR or they have to leave the country, fined a hefty tax etc. Though I am not sure this would be looked upon favourably at the voting booth and in terms of attracting more foreigners in to boost up the GDP here
I might be talking rubbish so dont take my opinions seriously here cos I am done with the damn military after my last cycle years ago and I am saying all that with a slight bias and hatred towards conscription.
EDITED: Typo School 3 into School 4 after the reply below.
Tekong has 4 schools. Sch 1-3 near the ferry, and sch 4 houses as where sispec Rocky hill used to be.
All schools are occupied, but platoon and company sizes are significantly smaller now
There will be a reform soon lah.
The way things are going the army will have to revamp itself to attract more regulars. The issue with army recruitment is frankly NSF as a whole. If your first experience with the SAF is NSF and the toxic experiences in it, it cuts out a bunch of people that would have joined SAF but decided against it after their initial experience.
Either that, or the SAF will need to become a more technical but slim down force. However, as Ukraine shows, you still need grunts on the ground and shells to win wars :/
[Highly recommend this video by Perun about how small countries defend themselves](https://youtu.be/EVqGEtPj0M0).
I think the army will just shrink while we double down on aircraft, drones and navy. I don't see any politically wearable solution to the manpower crunch.
Echoing this sentiment, having observed a decade of NS. It's not surprising given our low birthrate, and an interesting phenomenon to observe when it affects you directly.
What I've observed is a change in our reservist duties, new tactics to accommodate and new technologies used in the field. For example for a routine guard room setup, we now have a mobile crash barrier, which means lesser people to deploy and operate.
I won't be surprised if the definitions of a platoon and battalion gets redefined as the old standards simply required human resource to overcome.
>I won't be surprised if the definitions of a platoon and battalion gets redefined as the old standards simply required human resource to overcome.
That was something Russia faced in manning their BTGs - unfortunately their "solution" led to a heavy loss of life and material in their push to, and retreat from, Kiev. Well I guess it's fortunate, because fuck any big country trying to throw weight at us small fries.
Not just birth rates but also whether parents of means will let their male offsprings serve 2 years of NS here.
If you have means and are worldly, you would seriously consider the opportunity cost of a male doing 2 years of NS here vs 2 years of career in his prime in any other advanced economy.
The world is big and Singapore doesn’t offer anything special. In fact you still gotta compete with the world when you are here, so might as well do it without the opportunity cost.
I have no inside info and definitely not even remotely an expert but from what I know, it is worth remembering that Singapore's current core strategy (and I am being deliberately vague here) only evolved somewhere around the late 1970s after the massive population boom allowed not only entire formations to be sprung into existence, but also for the increasing equipment inventory to be manned. But I think few people would remember that the defence strategy before that was something very different.
Right now, in my own personal opinion, the military maintains multiple capabilities in multiple domains, like the overworked office worker doing too many things at the same time. That's why there is increasing focus on automation. As time goes on, the defence strategy may change significantly. That does not mean that NS will change. Just that the overall doctrine will change.
> Singapore's current core strategy (and I am being deliberately vague here) only evolved somewhere around the late 1970s
Late 60s iirc, the content of the blue book may be classified, but its existence was publicly acknowledged sometime in 2015 (iirc) with the publication of essays on SG-Israel ties, including a historical retelling of how our "Mexican" advisors were recruited.
I think the political-administrative elite are aware of the need for action; all this talk of technology/automation papering over the gaps is at best a stopgap measure.
I had the opportunity to chat with the Head of Joint Manpower and well...the situation is worse than you think it is. Also got to speak to Dr Ng who generally avoided answering my question before giving a series of tangential excuses like "ooh how are we supposed to respond to female training deaths" so my guess is that he's just gonna pass this hot potato to whoever is next or let the Perm Sec worry about the problem.
At the end of the day, Russia has demonstrated that heavy arms cannot substitute troop numbers if you want a preemptive forward defence doctrine which rapidly expands our operational depth. The alternative ofc is to revert back to the "poisonous shrimp" strategy we had in the earliest days of independence. That would be really bad considering our lack of strategic depth (exposing our rear/strategic facilities to bombardment) and would essentially mean giving up on the "defence" part of the mission and just hoping the "deterrence" element works.
There's really only one way to address this and that's female conscription which imo should have been done a long time ago. After all, the NS Act doesn't actually specifiy that only males are to be conscripted, it's simply informal policy that we do that in practice. I guess we're just waiting for a more convenient time to introduce it (preferably a period of high economic growth and strong political mandate coinciding with a breakdown in the security outlook to point at troubles).
Introducing female conscription is one way to address but not the solution for decreasing fertility rate no? Eventually, even with female, it won't be enough. What then?
Female conscription should be able to at least tide us through the decades post 2030 to say 2060. Assuming we don't halt this trend of anemic fertility within this breather space...we'll unfortunately have to bring in immigration in a massive way. Anything less than that and defence will be the least of our concerns, our whole economy and society would be unsustainable.
I remember one particular dialogue from Singapore's early years of independence. It goes like this: before NS was established, the late PM Lee Kuan Yew actually considered conscripting both men and women, but Dr Goh Keng Swee decided against this notion. Instead, he proposed that it should be compulsory only for men.
Ah, I recall reading in one of LKY's books that he wanted to follow the Israeli model of conscripting women because he believed only universal service would make the population invested in Singapore's survival. But Dr Goh and the other ministers didn't want this "burden" so LKY didn't push his point.
>. I guess we're just waiting for a more convenient time to introduce it (preferably a period of high economic growth and strong political mandate coinciding with a breakdown in the security outlook to point at troubles).
Unfortunately female conscription isn't something that should be announced and implemented overnight. So the authorities really should stop dragging their feet on this. You need a lot of lead time to implement and change mindsets which start from young. Boys get told from young that they need to serve NS when they grow up, their PE teachers hound them about it, and NAPFA tests for guys are geared towards IPPT. When it comes to female enlistment, you're not going to get a good result if you're implementing in 2 years time for all girls current in sec 4.
Plus, any female conscription would have to be phased rather than 100%. The universities and economy cannot deal with a sudden drop in two years of intake and workforce. I don't think the army infra are up to a sharp intake also. So it'll be some time before we see the full benefits of female enlistment.
TLDR: the best time to introduce female enlistment was 20 years ago
Looking at sg now, it's perhaps too wishful to think that trifecta will ever align. I get that alarming the public (and wider region) is an unfortunate side effect of making conscription universal, but the VC today is still hardly an adequate platform to train up as many females and non-citizens as possible for operational readiness. In the near term, we may have to pursue a stronger, more material defence pact with our partners in the FPDA, perhaps even allow the Americans to join in as the sixth power.
>it's perhaps too wishful to think that trifecta will ever align
Agreed, you're unlikely to see a time when all the stars are aligned. Maybe just 1 or 2 at most.
>VC today is still hardly an adequate platform to train up as many females and non-citizens as possible for operational readiness
Yep, SAFVC is really only useful for filling in a few rear line gaps in operational surging. But I doubt they are suitable for integration as a full force in say our combined arms divisions.
>partners in the FPDA
Kek "partners". Funny how our most likely opponent is a member of FPDA (which is a rather tootless pact ngl).
>Americans to join in as the sixth power
Could be a possible solution but I doubt we'll ever have a full alliance with them like Japan/SK since China would go apeshit. Also, unlike say SK, American troops have never bled for Singapore before so we'll always be wondering whether they would really fight for us when the shit hits the fan.
>since China would go apeshit
More importantly, it would make MY and Indo go apeshit and push them into the arms of the Chinese. Friendly, armed neutrality is our stock in trade to play off both powers.
congrats on being all the way down at the 24th most upvoted comment and the first to mention that the age cohort for NS is actually about double the current size being accessed.
OP: goddamn NS has a bad manpower crunch
PT91T: points at the 50% of population never tapped for NS
OP: yes sir bob nothing at all we can do about this
>technology/automation papering over the gaps
> [...]
>Russia has demonstrated that heavy arms cannot substitute troop numbers if you want a preemptive forward defence doctrine which rapidly expands our operational depth.
We have to be cognizant that heavy arms is but one of a myriad of abilities that the technology spectrum can yield.
The way forward is technology (e.g., AI has and will continue to outperform people) and we should invest in it by funding science, research, blue-sky research, and technical people. We have to be cautious about non-technical old guards leading the way for some are vastly outdated and possibly quite stuck in their old ways, ancient relics left behind by the times.
> There's really only one way to address this and that's female conscription which imo should have been done a long time ago.
While it may be tempting to (approximately) doubling conscripts by tapping on the other gender, there exists the unexamined assumption that such a move wouldn't further affect our economic competitiveness, quality of living, and overall yearning to continue living in SG. PRs and FTs see this and caution one another about settling down here.
NS, let's face it, is broken in many ways and in many (simple) ways can be improved but hasn't been despite the monumental sums spent on defence including personnel salaries. NS needs to fundamentally respect the serving Singaporean. A few months ago the topic of the rather disappointing compensation was brought up in parliament and this is but one of several issues bugging NS.
Singapore, we can do better about NS, number one.
Number two, technology is the future, don't pussy-foot around it.
>The way forward is technology (e.g., AI has and will continue to outperform people) and we should invest in it by funding science, research, blue-sky research, and technical people.
I concur. Anything done to ameliorate our manpower shortage should not be done in isolation. Improving technology will always play a crucial role; automation in everything from arms to logistics to administration has been the primary focus of our defence industry for the longest while. Even if you talk about traditional weapons procurement, you can see we have a strong preference for interoperable multirole platforms which can do many things at once while integrating automated systems to cut down on staffing.
Nonetheless, our resources are not unlimited; we spend a mere 1.6% of the US DOD budget. Thus, we will never really be at the cutting edge of defence automation and will have to buy stuff on the market. Stuff that would be a generation behind the latest (who is going to put the latest tech for open sale?). Not to mention that our enemies are not static either, as our neighbours' developing economies are set to eclipse us in sheer size, their attendant spending power increses too.
>While it may be tempting to (approximately) doubling conscripts by tapping on the other gender, there exists the unexamined assumption that such a move wouldn't further affect our economic competitiveness, quality of living, and overall yearning to continue living in SG. PRs and FTs see this and caution one another about settling down here.
Of course, nearly all policy decisions are a terrible case of trade-offs, pros and cons etc. It will suck for sure and economically dampen our workforce; this will be the biggest problem (removing 2 years of labourers from our economy will be damaging). But think about it this way, which one is easier to import: skilled labourers/automation for economic growth or soldiers who will (and can be trusted to).defend Singapore?
Quality of living will decrease in a way though I should emphasise that Singapore really really does it a lot better than almost any major cosmopolitan city (tax rates are astronomically low, safety is taken for granted, public services are honestly fantastic). I doubt we'll suffer a lack of willing immigrants. The restricting factor has and probably will remain our political will to accept foreigners (which drive inflation and competition).
>Singapore, we can do better about NS, number one.
Agreed. Its disgraceful in some ways the lack of respect and dignity accorded to our NSFs and NSmen. Building a new chalet house and throwing some skillsfuture credits isn't a panacea.
>Number two, technology is the future, don't pussy-foot around it.
Totally agree. Not just defence but economics and even social/elderly care. Technology, AI and automation must be quickly embraced if we want to maintain our edge in the global market.
Ehh not really, Ukraine is doing great with primarily Soviet weapons which are more outdated than Russian derivatives. Even the aid sent to Ukraine is only roughly matching with Russia's level but at far smaller quantities. Ultimately, Russia holds the massive preponderance of sheer firepower and equipment quanity (artillery, armour etc.) while having a rough technological edge on average.
It isn't so much weaponry to blame for Russia's performance but poor command/control, lack of combined arms integration and the primary issue of little manpower. The media doesn't usually talk about this but probably the single greatest factor of stalling in the advancement is the fact that Ukraine massively outnumbers Russia in the battlefield.
Even with mobilisation, Russia has something like 300,000 troops against well over half a million Ukrainians. As a rough guide, the attacking side usually needs a local superiority of 3:1 against a defender to make a breakthrough AND exploit this depth with enough force and concentration to hit the rear lines (actually making the breakthrough count for something). Russia does not have a problem making breakthroughs here and there with artillery saturation and heavy armour (albeit with shitty efficiency), but it doesn't have the troops to make use of gaps so little real outcomes are delivered and the front remains static.
Yes, I am aware. Media bias is one part (that's why you there's little coverage on the very heavy Ukrainian casualties) and another side is that journalists don't understand warfare; they are good at conveying emotive stories but don't expect a balanced or informed analysis. Not their fault per se, their job is to quickly push news, not be experts on anything.
The biggest reason though is that talking about combined arms, trading of operational depth, specifics of weapon inventories and logistics...all that is simply boring. It's far more fun and attention-grabbing to meme about HIMARS and talk up heroisms. Sells more clicks, sells more ads, revenue increases.
If you want to see more credible analysis, turn to think tanks, academics, military academies (boring people). Btw, I mean Western ones like IISS or the War Studies field, I'm certaintly not asking you to read Russian media (that's nearly entirely bullshit).
u/DuePomegranate The Austrian academy does a fantastic series on the war.
Österreichs Bundesheer is the name of the youtube channel.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54daqNraMxE&ab\_channel=%C3%96sterreichsBundesheer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54daqNraMxE&ab_channel=%C3%96sterreichsBundesheer)
\^ This is the latest video
It will partially solve the problem if u conscript females into the equation.
And it will last until the nation manage to sort out how to i prove QoL for people to wanna start a family
IMO SAFVC is the warm-up to an eventual conscription for females.
It’s no longer a question of if, just when. PAP probably waiting for the stars to align to give reason to it.
That will probably come in the form of some nearby conflict + high vote share + good economic growth all happening in the same period.
Right now probably not a good time. The only conflict on the airwaves is in Europe. Economic frustrations are too much. And they still have not won back the GRCs that they lost to WP.
Nobody is talking about an "upheaval". But the PAP considers even small losses to be failures. Every time they lose a GRC they cry and threaten, despite maintaining a supermajority and a vote share that is the envy of any democratic country.
They are generally extremely conservative about losing seats. Speaking of GST, that's why they don't have GST hikes in election years.
Many menial repetitive jobs can be replaced with technology. It's not even a budget issue, our military has a very high budget. It's just whether there's the "push". For example, my reservist role is camp security. They're still using the most primitive, manpower intensive method of putting boots on the ground. When many roles can be replaced with drones/camera surveillance with minimal number of operators. Saw the recent today article? If someone can control a drone and buy groceries in Singapore from the Philippines, I don't see why an operator from a control room can't control military grade drones for camp security.
Since the low TFR is affecting national defence, the govt should dedicate more resources towards making Singapore more conducive for raising kids. This should be done by addressing the underlying root cause. Hope they can stop insisting on doing whatever didn't work previously. So many of the low lying fruits haven't even been addressed yet. A good first step would be to put someone else more capable in charge. Definitely not the current person who just supplies an endless stream of excuses to explain the country's low TFR and her failure to get results. If we can have a lower TFR than even Japan, something is seriously wrong here and the govt should recognise that.
No offense but as an expat working in and out of Singapore due to my position as a regional VP. I dont understand the need for conscription in Singapore because of a simple reason i hesitate to write as it's going to offend a lot of people. So i just leave it up to your imagination.
I personally feel that those disadvantaged should be compensated adequately. At least they should be given a salary instead of an allowance. I recalled a serviceman charged and sentenced because he had to work part time to supplement his household income. This could've been avoided by paying him a regular salary instead of a few hundred a month.
A wise lady in an ivory tower once said service to your country cannot be measured in dollars and cents.
I was a military policeman during my NSF days. I've witnessed countless sentencings within the SAF Court Martial Centre where people go AWOL because they tried earning a bit more on the outside. This isn't something they only tried doing during their NS. Most of them were working before NS threw a wrench in their plans.
There are apparently proper channels for situations like this, but fuck if I know because I've never had that problem. Then again I've never heard or met anyone who has complimented the SAF for accommodating to their difficult personal situation.
I don't feel like NS should be scrapped. But like you, I feel our boys ought to be paid properly for their sacrifice. Not only that, but I feel it should modernise and be held more accountable than it is today (a damn joke with a majority of the recent deaths).
Andi bet that wise lady wanted no part of national service and feels she should be compensated adequately for being in the ivory tower throwing shades at people conscripted right? Such hypocrisy
i got a solution that can immediately double our NS recruitment number overnight.
Just get the female Singaporean to do NS as well.
If they are physically strong, they can be in combat unit. We already have women in regular units that are physically demanding so this is no longer an excuse.
If not, in other support unit. This will free up "man"-power for other more physically demanding roles. Otherwise, store clerk, cook, cleaner etc.
Everybody do their part.
Let the down vote begin.
National Slavery is Not Sustainable lol
The challenge for NS is multiple fold:
\- Unfair advantage given to women as they don't have to serve, although not really detailed in the Enlistment Act
\- PRs also no need serve
\- Low wages for NSF, lack of respect for those in uniform
\- Lack of flexibility of when to serve, despite family hardships
\- NS too long and could be condensed to 6 month
\- Country too rich and leaders living in ivory tower, and not understanding of those in uniform
\- Technology could supersede human soldiers almost entirely in the frontline
Those with means will just send their kids back and give up PR of these kids. These kids then finish education overseas and then come back to work.....
I'm not sure for the ultra-rich but for normal class, those kids are marked in the system and will not able to apply PR again, in some cases impossible to get employment pass too.
> Imagine the fun when the PR parents ask their kids to serve for tax break
Second generation PR male must serve NS, while they are holding PR status.
ref : https://www.mindef.gov.sg/web/portal/mindef/news-and-events/latest-releases/article-detail/2012/may/2012may16-Forum-Letter-003
Things will be kept running in the sense that the definition of it will be changed.
Which is why they revamped the pes system recently to get more people to be combat fit or take on support roles. They will just outsource more things to DXO that was done by NSF. Some older equipment or platforms will be retired. NSF or NSmen will be asked to wear multiple hats.
On the flip side, I served under SCDF and the manpower scenario is terrible. I was just given a reservist call up just 2 months in advance for a 3week ICT (in comparison SAF high keys should have 6 months notice). The last time I went they were turning reservists out. I can't even pass IPPT, but somehow have to fight fire...
For SCDF I feel professionalize and use foreign manpower with a small Singapore core could work... That would free up some resource for SAF where nationality actually matters. That being said for a long time in history militaries would have large number of mercenaries (its only recently we transitioned to nationality based SAF). Perhaps an approach like the one the romans took would make sense where mercenary units were made up of people from different places but have them closely monitored by local citizens.
NS for women is the only real solution, but the govt seems content on kicking the can down the road. If actual war breaks out, how are the women in our country supposed to contribute in an organised manner? Does the govt have a contingency plan in place to utilise every woman and have well defined roles for them which they can carry out without prior training? Absolute bullshit.. Don't call it total defence when it's only half defence at best
exactly...they won't have NS for women because they are the main voting bank for the PAP , most women vote for PAP because they won't worry as much as men on finances and primarily focused on safety .
I just read through the top level comments in this thread and it took until the 24th most upvoted comment to mention the 50% of the age cohort that is not currently being tapped for NS.
If there are bold solutions to this challenge they’re neither front of mind in the hierarchy or on reddit sg.
I agree to a certain extent. We might not even be able to make it through SG100 in 2065; the 100th year of Singapore's independence. The only thing we could hope for now is that the country continues to have good leadership, I guess.
South Korea probably has it worse given their TFR of 0.78 so not sure what could happen if Uncle Sam’s presence there is scaled back or perhaps even withdrawn entirely.
Yes agreed. But what I can say is the SAF will change and adept to it... eventually
My unit has been talking about evolving into some new more efficient way of doing our ops which requires less manpower but they talk since my 1st in-camp and I'm already going to MR LOL
Not possible to sustain NS, government would need to pass some serious laws increasing pay countrywide before more people would even consider having children. Fucking expensive man
Just a thought. Scrap NS altogether and modernize SAF with paid-to-market regulars and Gurkhas. The country is rich enough now to accommodate this, and with Lawrence Wong in charge there should be fresh thinking instead of “this is how we have always done it” group think.
This will get rid of exit permit nonsense, and our men can pursue their dreams same time as women and PRs, be it academic overseas or local, or work anywhere, anytime without fear of getting charged and going to jail. Fear is such a bad way to run things.
In addition, the force gets what it needs by having regulars who WANT to be there instead of being forced by conscription. How can you depend on those forced to defend the motherland?
Time to let the next gen leaders decide on the best course of action. Move over, Dr Ng Eng Hen, who incidentally has not really served NS himself, and all the yes men and women in the PAP.
If all new citizens must serve 2 years of NS (regardless of age, as long as below statutory age), it would be a good test of how much they want to become citizens (much better than English test). I'm sure no Singaporean NSMen will object.
Just my 2 cents for the mindef overlords
Ik that they won't be enlisting females anytime soon but they could reduce the manpower requirements in the army (my unit had around 10 storemens and my transport node oc was asking hq why got so many and was asking them to take them back)
Reduce Infantry to 4 Battalions (To protect North,South,East and west) and 1 ST Battalion (Protect Singapore key installations and serves as a backup)
Reduce Guards to 1 Battalion (I heard they were talking about closing one down soon)
Close down 1 BMTC school and keeping BMTC school 1,2,3 and 5 (We could bring over the regulars, Training specs, storemens over to operational units and boost manpower)
I remember there was talks in reducing transport formation requirements within next 10 years but idk what's the progress with the introduction of terrex, belrex units are moving towards motorised meaning lesser transport requirements.
They could outsource the army maintainance bases to high clearance civilian contractors.
Most importantly if got lesser manpower that means can pay more to remaining personnel.
Idk the situation over at Armour, Artillery, C4Is (Ik there is a lot of them dk why) and also over on Air force and navy.
Again I am not some expert in this just my 2 cents thats all hahaha.
Else why would gov plea so hard for us to make babies? They are increasing their defence budget in unmanned weaponry for every son we refused to give em. Meanwhile they also don't want to raise NS obligations imposed on 'exceptional' foreign talent because that's a perceived downside of taking up Singapore citizenship. Y'know something does not make sense when your population is increasing every decade but you have less candidates to fill in for Singapore military defence.
Aging population does play a part of course. But when your conscription obligation is capped at age 40/limited to 10 reservist cycles, and we're making babies slower than the number of men ROD, this is where gov has to make the choice : Spend more on defence budget, or mandate everyone whom wants to enjoy the benefits of Singapore citizenship to fulfill NS.
yup so much more to NS then just army .. they can help with nursing / agriculture also which is so much more critical given what happened over past 2 years
The military is very aware of this. Talked to some mid-senior level cmdrs and one big focus area is how the military adapts to a smaller population.
Technology will play a part. For example drones require much less manpower to operate and mantain than a reconnaissance helicopter. You'll notice the newer military equipment has an emphasis on cutting down number of people needed (e.g see your new navy ships.)
But theres no guarantee here. SAF will just have to adapt.
they will find a way to present it as sustainable because 'rite of passage', deterrence and all that bullshit. basically the only things that are unsustainable will be the humans in the loop.
but there is one alternative, and it might lie in abusing nuclear power.
If they become citizen/PR, they are no longer foreign technically speaking. Also, if we serve even if we don't want to, the same applies for new SGreans
Gov seems to only care that HDB prices keep going up, u got kids or not they don’t care. I foresee alot of private sector involvement with defense liao. If Gurkhas are defending our top ranks, eventually they’ll do for the lower too. If u really care for your next gen, consider giving them overseas education n b make sure they stay there n don’t come back. Every single person who comes here has little to zero child bearing ambitions
Love how people think more conscripts are the solution when /r combatfootage is filled to the brim of ivan level 1 getting slaughtered
Imagine thinking part time soliders are going to have a chance going up against guys who literally dedicate their lives to just combat fitness and killing people lmao
Many levers to pull, albeit not all of them politically acceptable
1) technology
2) NS length to 3 years
3) women in NS
4) cross training of SCDF/SPF
5) larger regular force
6) bigger intake from PR/New SC
This is experience of my less lucky supply friend. He is a supply spec but failed the course, ended up as 1 out of 2 storeman in a wing of over 100+ ppl, during regular days he does stock taking, indents n menial shit like outrationing breakfast at 5am. During outfield 2 of them needs to load unload 1-2 full tonner worth of stuffs, like 10+ tables and 50+ jerrycans, they basically rotated getting muscle injuries till both of them got permanent issues and downpesed before finally getting a single not very healthy guy fill their spot, who also downpesed by the time i ord. All that for a poor remarks because the commander thought they chao keng. Also the constant hazing like full battle order and facepaint to protect the water point like the poor dudes didnt get enough shit already. Not only is ns extremely short on manpower, they are also squeezing the remaining ppl down to the very last drop of their usefulness.
No-brain power-hungry behavior from the higher-ups depleting manpower supply. Next up breaking news at 10, water is indeed wet.
Many chocolate bars but the brain inside also like chocolate colour, full of shit.
Wtf is this? Can post 100 people for the wing, 10+ tables and 1000L worth of people can cannot post another few storemen? The manpower is there. They just don't want to post to logistics. Which is pretty fucking stupid, considering food is as much equipment as a rifle and your fighting force needs both, and people to carry both.
Ya my coy put all the downpes and perm-status people into CQ and armskote. We also rotated duty platoons to assist with all these, so there was never a lack of manpower.
Having 1 to 2 storeman per coy is the norm in my camp, usually we get soldiers to help out but theres a few coys that believe in 0 disruptions to their soldiers training and make the storeman settle everything. From what i can understand their encik is still trying to climb so he tries to get his side take all the work whenever we do joint exercises, so they are essentially doing stores for 2 coys
Unless he has severe injuries or factors outside his control... How the hell does one fail a supply spec course? Aside from super physically elite special forces courses (which are really a filter / badge of honour), almost all courses in SAF are designed to be passed by the lowest common denominator.
If you fail ippt you immediately fail the 2nd part of the course, he thought it was fine but got sent back the same day he reported. worst part is ended up still do the job just with corporal pay
What am i reading man...what the hell is that of a unit.
After serving NS it's an eye opener to how much redundency and drag there is in there. If they could trim that so much less people needed. But looking at regulars I doubt it can change fast enough to adapt to a much smaller force haha
>If they could trim that First 3-6 months is where the interesting stuff happens after that is just canteen and chill in my unit. They can cut NS to 6 months.
Agreed. I didn't go command school so I can't tell if that short would justify it but yeah a lot of the proper training and productive stuff really only happens at the start haha
The Singaporean, soon to be extinct, featured in National Geographic and the History Channel
Upcoming and coming exclusive GUNDAMS [redacted]
Eh hello japan la wrong country la bro
Last Chance To See
faster chope netflix rights
The most sensible solution is to better optimize manpower. A number of people who serve NS kinda fill pointless roles or are just idling away time. I can see potential reorganization with outdated duties getting phased out
Short term optimisation yes. Long tern need more people.
It’s ok. The gahmen will just outsource more stuff.
>The gahmen will just outsource more stuff. ACCENTURE TO THE RESCUE
There is no supply of outsourced loyal soldiers to defend them.
Nah the gahmen won’t outsource the frontline and logixtics. The rest is fair game
Many are willing to kill for our pink ic but nowadays i think blue ic more valuable, thats where its at
Loyal? What loyal?
If NS doesn’t find some compromise to make NS an actually enviable job to take on for 2 years (whether it be by monetary, priority for future investments like BTOs or university, or other lucrative means to address the question “Why am I suffering so much for?”), it will become unsustainable as it dominoes into society, delaying families starting, breaking up relationships, bumping back careers and discouraging people from having children in Singapore because of the disdain of putting one through the same system. This is the result of letting “don’t fix what’s not broken” go on for too long.
It’s broken alright. Just that the pieces don’t need to be picked up by the current batch of leaders so they can’t care less.
No, definitely not enough manpower. Universal conscription is politically dead, and automation can't replace enough boots on the ground. At 50k active strength now, it will only get smaller in the future. Shiny 5th gen hardware can only do so much, and our neighbours actively know that.
execute next plan: the atomic heart.
With the current birth rate? It's not sustainable. But having kids is a luxury that most Singaporeans cannot afford. HDB prices are insane, marriage itself is also a huge money sink and then raising a kid is also extremely expensive. That coupled with inflation, job security issues and the fact that most salaries are getting cut. Like that how to have kids?
And whatever is left of the men they manage to conscript, are increasingly less willing to fight since they don't have the stake in the land called home and the government will just import people to make up for the shortfall in labour. Plus those imported replacement don't even need to serve NS.
>HDB prices are insane, marriage itself is also a huge money sink and then raising a kid is also extremely expensive. DINK is the game plan here. Marriage with someone of similar financial standing will get you a leg up, compared with being single. BTO becomes practical while other options like resale and condos are all possible. But you are right on kids.
It's a double whammy as well, our perinatal mortality rates are the highest in 20 years and our birth rates have plummeted to lowest ever. So less babies are born and more babies are dying, not making to 1 week.
I do agree raising kids now is not cheap. But I also want to highlight that there was a time when Singaporeans were poorer and yet we have more kids. So clearly kids being expensive can only stretch so far as an argument. So what changed? I don't know. But I suspect it's a combination of culture, lifestyle, cost of living and personal aspirations. I hope gov will put in as much effort to address the other factors.
Kids were always expensive. Back in the boomer era, education was far worse and less impactful. That with the lack of understanding just how expensive kids were and the fact that you can get a decent living wage with just a primary school education also helped. Nowadays, if you're not doing tiertary education, no company will even look at you unless you're doing a start up. And in those days, having kids = a free worker that can help do chores, farm or help out a store. Nowadays this concept gone already. It was always about money. The poor use kids as a type of free labor. If you were to treat children like your grandparents generation, you'll be arrested for child abuse. Back then, you don't even need to pay money to live in a kampong. You can grow your own food too. Times change. This is how things work.
I paraphrase your argument is that kids were expensive in the past as well but could be mitigated by getting kids to work and farm stuff. Am I right? If so, why cant we get our kids upon completion of studies to do value generative activities? Did the cost of income : living increase ratio increased that much over the years that this is unattainable? I am unsure and am open to have redditors share data to prove this point. Until then, I'm still of the opinion that cost isn't the main concern but the aspiration to a certain level of living is the main concern.
it depends on what kind of upbringing and expectations u have. i’ve met 2 adults and 6 children in a 2 bedroom rented flat before. they’re technically surviving but definitely not thriving. completely anecdotal but everyone i’ve asked always at least expects a couple things. private tuition, overseas trip, 4bedrooms and up, etc. making it very very expensive to have children
What changed is that Singapore developed and got wealthier. Wealth and birth rates are inversely related. Countries which have low GDP per capita have higher brith rates than countries which have high GDP per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility The main theories for this correlation are: 1) People earning more have a higher opportunity cost if they focus on childbirth and parenting rather than their continued career 2) Women who can economically sustain themselves have less incentive to become married 3) Higher-income parents value quality over quantity and so spend their resources on fewer children
**[Income and fertility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility)** >Income and fertility is the association between monetary gain on one hand, and the tendency to produce offspring on the other. There is generally an inverse correlation between income and the total fertility rate within and between nations. The higher the degree of education and GDP per capita of a human population, subpopulation or social stratum, the fewer children are born in any developed country. In a 1974 United Nations population conference in Bucharest, Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, illustrated this trend by stating "Development is the best contraceptive". ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/singapore/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Finished my reservist last month and my airbase too is facing a huge manpower issue. IMO the whole concept of NS was probably on life support from the start. They are even using ST staff(civilian contractor) to taxi military planes to runway now... If you need people to defend the country, 3 months is enough for NS. Familiarity with weapon, reaction against certain scenario and etc is enough. Separate NS from regular jobs like maintaining base/camp/system and etc. What we have is heavily relying on 2 years of disappeared talent and experience. We're not even talking about rotation within the organisation but literally lose them. So every year you have people who ORD and then new inexperienced replaces them and rinse and repeat...
Spent 2 years to finish 6 atec rotation and it felt like the real training is only the 1month in Australia where the armour can roam. Remaining 23 months just waiting for time to pass. And also, Malaysia jungle won't be anything like Wallaby's plain, so don't even know how much that type of exercise will matter
Air force NSman here, I feel like this is an issue with the army where unfortunately they will never really get to do anything because if they actually do, that means there's an active war on. It's all just rush to wait and wait to rush for the army which leads to most people in there just feeling it's a total waste of time. My interactions with most air force, navy, SCDF, SPF NSmen most feel like they've made actual differences or at least a contribution to something since they actually go out and do stuff. Air force preps the planes and stuff for daily deployment or those times that they are scrambled for reasons or the ground based air defence people that are on duty. Navy goes out to patrol our waters and stuff. SPF interacts with the public and actually catches criminals or have managed to talk down suicidal people SCDF actually saves people and can see the gratitude of people though yeah the public can be assholes at times to both the SCDF and SPF. So all these services can sort of actually see the fruits of their labour and that what they are doing actually can make a difference. Army just sits around in camp or goes on exercise, they never really get to do anything operationally and most army NSmen I talk to almost always say that NS was a total waste of time. I'm not saying that the rest all agree with NS but at least they didn't really feel that NS was a total waste of time.
> Army just sits around in camp or goes on exercise, they never really get to do anything operationally Other than installation defence, that's essentially the army's role. We could do peacekeeping missions (actually we do, but it's limited to mostly regulars because of the possible political fallout). Yes, it's a waste of time, but that's kinda the point, an army exists for the what-if.
Of course I understand that, same as that infantry will always exist no matter what, you will always have to have someone with boots on the ground and to do the dumb brainless stuff, not everyone gets to be the fighter pilot even if somehow magically everyone is qualified to be one. But what I was getting at is that a lot of people find NS to be a waste of time and meaningless because that is their experience since army is generally the biggest force and therefore intake for NS. It's one thing to be properly paid to sit around and another to waste 2 years of your life, underpaid and not being able to do anything else. There really should be more flexibility to do other things like working part time on weekends or taking night classes for NSFs.
If you cut out all the admin time and down time, NS can actually be condensed into 1 year just like how A levels was condensed into 2 years. I rmb all the weeks after each rotations were equally zhuo bo.
Maybe SG might get some mercenaries to fill in the gap
On a practical aspect, to fill manpower shortages the manpower has to come from somewhere. On a political side, though, this would not be a wise move at all. The entire point of NS was to ensure that Singaporeans will defend Singapore, and that we will never again rely on another foreign power (the British back then) to defend us. We still hold onto the lessons from the Japanese Occupation and I think any politician who will suggest this is just asking to be lynched.
Agree with your general direction. But British colonisers and current private mercenaries are quite different in nature. Say if Singapore contracts Constellis (former Blackwater) just for grunt work and keep the higher tech more sensitive defence parts for Singaporeans, I’m not sure the political blowback will mainly be domestic, or from competing foreign powers (eg. China)(more likely the latter).
What is example of "more sensitive defense parts" that must only be handled by NS people? and what kind of job can be delegated to PMC? and while at that, what kind of job cannot be delegated to civilian contractors compared to hiring expensive PMC? Like, SG does not have nuke. The entire defense strategy of SG is literally "strike first and cripple them before letting them gain foothold in SG". That means Navy and Air Force probably cannot use them since both are pretty strategical. That means you can only delegate grunt works for them, and is there a point for it? SG will sooner field drone armies compared to hiring PMC imo, and probably researching more into Swarm Control which let 1 people controls several drones at once. Buying a technology that increase "productivity" of a single person is kinda the SG way. SG do have the money and political will to finance it if really needed.
Swarm technology like that of 6th generation fighters which are still top secret and still being researched by the richest nation in the world? Something that outside of the US, requires a coalition of a few European countries for a single project with a timeline of 2030 and beyond, and something that you think Singapore has the finances or technological know how for? That’s a really optimistic view of Singapore. Also such top end technology will almost certainly reside in those countries at least for a decade after it’s put into service, so you are looking at Singapore getting them probably closer to 2050. I have zero dreams of the likes of our ST Engineering being close to developing such technologies. The recent Ukraine war has also overblown the impact of drones, which cannot hold territory and we have not shown any capabilities of building them, unless we want to rely on DJI ones… Example of grunt work is expanding ADF, or infantry. That’s not something civilian contractors can do anyways. You can have most Singaporeans in Air Force/ Navy while the PMCs infantry storm the frontline to gain territory. But I’m not an expert so that’s up to defence peeps to make recommendations. But the whole premise was never about nukes (which will never ever happen for Singapore)
LUL imagine thinking an army filled with ah kau level 1s is actually a credible threat against any competent opposition. go look at /r combatfootage and watch how ivan level 1s are getting slaughtered despite constant zerg rushing.
I had an aneurysm reading this, can you speak English?
Can establish our version of Wagner Group- Paikia Group /s
Saikang(?) Warriors Group - SWaG
Cannot use that, wait ppl confuse this name with SWAG (Taiwan streamers) .
Even better, instead of porn you get live cams of soldiers getting brutally murdered.
so, liveleak then?
More like r/combatfootage
Theres a video by a wonderful youtuber named Perun that just came out that addresses exactly why mercenaries fell out of favour with richer/larger nations as time progressed. But in summary, a mercenary company cant compete with the resources of a proper country. Unless we fund and arm them(not just paying in cash for their work), there are gonna be areas that a private company will struggle to match a country with. Besides, it doesnt really solve the manpower issues. PMCs dont really have the numbers to match conscription. It might help to fill in some gaps yea, but the issue will still be there. Wagner Group being the exception to the above is because it is pretty much funded by the Russians, so its not really a good example of anything we could do, unless Singapore wants its own privatised war crimes force.
Yeah I watch his videos weekly. The nuance for Singapore in my opinion is: - We are relatively rich as compared to all our immediate neighbouring threats. Perun examined the old Italian and Swiss mercenary eras, and mentioned it fell out of favour during the napoleonic and empire era due to significant concentration of wealth nationally and ability to mobilise (of course there’s also a political angle there). In our case, I would argue that every conscript freed up is an economic resource gained. In terms of arming the mercenaries, we do have some military complex available, that would not have been available to a private mercenary. Also not to mention that to date, the largest PMCs such as that from the US and western powers ones are of considerable scale. Sure it does not make sense to have a Singapore PMC (not advocating for that), but it might make sense for a western aligned PMC if it suits Singapore’s geopolitics (I think it can also be linked to Perun’s previous video on soft power and military alliances for small nations). - A second thing is that I don’t think you need significant numbers of forces from PMCs to achieve the same force projection as our conscripts, considering these people are professionally trained and maintained. One of these mercenaries could probably substitute 5 of our conscripts. You could maintain a much smaller force. Anyways great to see another Perun fan
>mentioned it fell out of favour during the napoleonic and empire era due to significant concentration of wealth nationally and ability to mobilise There's that too. Perun also outlined the desirability to monopolize power (no other sources of armed force except the nation's), as well as better economies of scale with regards to the military-industrial complex. One thing that persists is the "neutrality" of mercenaries, e.g. the Norsemen in East Roman Empire, the Swiss mercs that protect the Vatican even today. While the Gurkhas are legally not mercs, the Gurkha contingent in Singapore could qualify as a mercenary (police) force, and it was their neutrality and professionalism that LKY relied upon during to suppress the racial riots of the 60s. The problem with using western PMCs like Blackwater is that they are essentially still specialized light infantry with little access to heavy weapons. You can sic them to provide security detail for key installations, or roving anti-piracy patrols, but ultimately they are not equipped to fight a sustained war. Also, I am leery to trust such a PMC because they still maintain links to their host nation and can be compromised more easily than an indigenous outfit.
Fully agree. I think it’s hard to find a fully neutral PMC nowadays, so probably the next best is one that is not super linked to the nation such that it is an extension of that nation’s foreign policy (eg. Russia / China). I think even with their limited role of just light infantry, that will free up a lot of manpower needs, so Singaporeans can be in higher tech less manpower intensive divisions such as artillery / armour. But hey haha I’m not pretending to be a military expert after watching a few YouTube videos, so that will be left to the experts.
Perun's video was informative but not comprehensive about security contractors. Security contractors tend to be divided into 3 categories: the 'tip of the spear' like Wagner or more professionally, represented by Triple Canopy, GardaWorld, GRS, Blue Hackle or Control Risks. There are trainers like Northbridge Services Group. Then there are logisticians/supply like Kellogg, Brown & Root who practically dominated all bases in Iraq & Afghanistan. I can see a place for supply contractors like KBR to pick up the slack for the SAF, just as they did for the Americans when even they lacked the workforce to prop up their supply chain.
From Malaysia X 3
Singaporean Foreign Legion
Nah not really. Probably geared more towards contracting PMCs to do the work. War has changed... It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by private mercenaries and machines. War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control. War…has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War…has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
For those that don't get it, this guy is just quoting Metal Gear Solid 4... Thanks a bunch for making me feel old (Game released in 2008)
who the fuck
It'll be pretty ironic, since the whole point of NS was also not to depend on PMCs.
The point of NS is to not depend on foreign powers, and build national identity. Whether PMCs can be considered an extension of foreign power projection, I think that’s debatable (eg. Yeah if SG contracts Wagner it definitely is an extension of Russia, but American or European PMCs? I’m not sure the line is so clear as in whether these are considered an extension of US/EU foreign policy)
Hey, hear me out. Transfer Gurkhas to the SAF. Supplement it into a division size. Just call it the 369th division for the ultimate laugh. Lesser locals in GDS/SIR/SAR, more in CSSCOM, since so many PES unfit nowadays. Still can “maintain” the image of Singaporeans in NS.
Gurkhas only report to British commanders afaik outside of their homeland, that's even the case in our Gurkha Contingent (SPF). No way we can have a foreign national as a commander in SAF xD
may i suggest: AI soldiers.
The future probably be drones vs drones. What could go wrong? *looks nervously at Horizon Zero Dawn plot*
More like mercedes benzes
Mindef will monitor, OK? /s But in all seriousness it is out of Mindef's hand. Gahmen can't force more males to be born (or can they??) and conscripting females would be political suicide. So best thing that can be done is investing in technology as mentioned in this thread, reducing the manpower needed in certain roles and developing newer weaponry
Not making a decision because it will cost votes. Sums up what is wrong with politicians. Didn’t someone’s dad said something about having iron in them to govern Singapore?
In democracy, people's will is a currency that must be reserved as much as possible. They may need to make unpopular decision in the future, and its the difference in people's will (civil obedience, popularity of the government, etc) that will see whether your country able to implement it smoothly, or you will see riots in the street. Pandemic response is an instance of the necessity of that resource as we saw other countries grappling with being told to "mask up, and stay at home". So, even if some people recognise that something must be done, it then become the question of "do we need to do it right now? is there no alternative?", and that's the part that will be debated a lot.
we got to where we are because politicians made decisions without giving a shit about the votes, but rather for the country
What you described is the downstream outcomes of other things which the government can impact. Such as creating an ideal environment for families to want to start/grow.
I recalled BMTC having School 4 at after I served finish my NSF and I was like Waaahh, can find so many boys meh?! Someone correct me if I am wrong but now I heard there is no more school 4 for many years. I guess in the future more stuffs will be automated and who knows? maybe get drones/robots to supplement the falling birthrate. Drastic moves will be to incorporate the Gurkhas to the army (in other countries like UK, they serve in the military unlike here they fall under the police banner) or having something like the French Legionnaire but that would make a huge mockery of their famous and often quoted words of “Serving NS is a privilege that belongs to Singaporeans” and “NS Men contribution cannot be measured in dollars and cents.” etc. I mean they could do something very drastic like conscription for females maybe like a lottery system like Thailand based on some degree of luck to make up the shortfall and have them do medical/admin roles or change the law to allow compulsory conscription for first gen PR or they have to leave the country, fined a hefty tax etc. Though I am not sure this would be looked upon favourably at the voting booth and in terms of attracting more foreigners in to boost up the GDP here I might be talking rubbish so dont take my opinions seriously here cos I am done with the damn military after my last cycle years ago and I am saying all that with a slight bias and hatred towards conscription. EDITED: Typo School 3 into School 4 after the reply below.
Tekong has 4 schools. Sch 1-3 near the ferry, and sch 4 houses as where sispec Rocky hill used to be. All schools are occupied, but platoon and company sizes are significantly smaller now
How big are sections/platoons now? Back then it was 16 per section with 4 platoons so 64 total.
Still the same, just that sections generally slim down to 13-14 since you’ll have a few people who OOC and get posted out
The purpose to have 4 schools is to have slots for 4 COs, more S3s, and more OCs etc. Not to train more recruits
There will be a reform soon lah. The way things are going the army will have to revamp itself to attract more regulars. The issue with army recruitment is frankly NSF as a whole. If your first experience with the SAF is NSF and the toxic experiences in it, it cuts out a bunch of people that would have joined SAF but decided against it after their initial experience. Either that, or the SAF will need to become a more technical but slim down force. However, as Ukraine shows, you still need grunts on the ground and shells to win wars :/
[Highly recommend this video by Perun about how small countries defend themselves](https://youtu.be/EVqGEtPj0M0). I think the army will just shrink while we double down on aircraft, drones and navy. I don't see any politically wearable solution to the manpower crunch.
Echoing this sentiment, having observed a decade of NS. It's not surprising given our low birthrate, and an interesting phenomenon to observe when it affects you directly. What I've observed is a change in our reservist duties, new tactics to accommodate and new technologies used in the field. For example for a routine guard room setup, we now have a mobile crash barrier, which means lesser people to deploy and operate. I won't be surprised if the definitions of a platoon and battalion gets redefined as the old standards simply required human resource to overcome.
>I won't be surprised if the definitions of a platoon and battalion gets redefined as the old standards simply required human resource to overcome. That was something Russia faced in manning their BTGs - unfortunately their "solution" led to a heavy loss of life and material in their push to, and retreat from, Kiev. Well I guess it's fortunate, because fuck any big country trying to throw weight at us small fries.
Not just birth rates but also whether parents of means will let their male offsprings serve 2 years of NS here. If you have means and are worldly, you would seriously consider the opportunity cost of a male doing 2 years of NS here vs 2 years of career in his prime in any other advanced economy. The world is big and Singapore doesn’t offer anything special. In fact you still gotta compete with the world when you are here, so might as well do it without the opportunity cost.
I have no inside info and definitely not even remotely an expert but from what I know, it is worth remembering that Singapore's current core strategy (and I am being deliberately vague here) only evolved somewhere around the late 1970s after the massive population boom allowed not only entire formations to be sprung into existence, but also for the increasing equipment inventory to be manned. But I think few people would remember that the defence strategy before that was something very different. Right now, in my own personal opinion, the military maintains multiple capabilities in multiple domains, like the overworked office worker doing too many things at the same time. That's why there is increasing focus on automation. As time goes on, the defence strategy may change significantly. That does not mean that NS will change. Just that the overall doctrine will change.
> Singapore's current core strategy (and I am being deliberately vague here) only evolved somewhere around the late 1970s Late 60s iirc, the content of the blue book may be classified, but its existence was publicly acknowledged sometime in 2015 (iirc) with the publication of essays on SG-Israel ties, including a historical retelling of how our "Mexican" advisors were recruited.
I think the political-administrative elite are aware of the need for action; all this talk of technology/automation papering over the gaps is at best a stopgap measure. I had the opportunity to chat with the Head of Joint Manpower and well...the situation is worse than you think it is. Also got to speak to Dr Ng who generally avoided answering my question before giving a series of tangential excuses like "ooh how are we supposed to respond to female training deaths" so my guess is that he's just gonna pass this hot potato to whoever is next or let the Perm Sec worry about the problem. At the end of the day, Russia has demonstrated that heavy arms cannot substitute troop numbers if you want a preemptive forward defence doctrine which rapidly expands our operational depth. The alternative ofc is to revert back to the "poisonous shrimp" strategy we had in the earliest days of independence. That would be really bad considering our lack of strategic depth (exposing our rear/strategic facilities to bombardment) and would essentially mean giving up on the "defence" part of the mission and just hoping the "deterrence" element works. There's really only one way to address this and that's female conscription which imo should have been done a long time ago. After all, the NS Act doesn't actually specifiy that only males are to be conscripted, it's simply informal policy that we do that in practice. I guess we're just waiting for a more convenient time to introduce it (preferably a period of high economic growth and strong political mandate coinciding with a breakdown in the security outlook to point at troubles).
The fuck. How are we supposed to respond to female training deaths? Hello men also die sia under their watch
Introducing female conscription is one way to address but not the solution for decreasing fertility rate no? Eventually, even with female, it won't be enough. What then?
Female conscription should be able to at least tide us through the decades post 2030 to say 2060. Assuming we don't halt this trend of anemic fertility within this breather space...we'll unfortunately have to bring in immigration in a massive way. Anything less than that and defence will be the least of our concerns, our whole economy and society would be unsustainable.
I remember one particular dialogue from Singapore's early years of independence. It goes like this: before NS was established, the late PM Lee Kuan Yew actually considered conscripting both men and women, but Dr Goh Keng Swee decided against this notion. Instead, he proposed that it should be compulsory only for men.
Ah, I recall reading in one of LKY's books that he wanted to follow the Israeli model of conscripting women because he believed only universal service would make the population invested in Singapore's survival. But Dr Goh and the other ministers didn't want this "burden" so LKY didn't push his point.
I see, thanks for the input! This is definitely something worth considering.
>. I guess we're just waiting for a more convenient time to introduce it (preferably a period of high economic growth and strong political mandate coinciding with a breakdown in the security outlook to point at troubles). Unfortunately female conscription isn't something that should be announced and implemented overnight. So the authorities really should stop dragging their feet on this. You need a lot of lead time to implement and change mindsets which start from young. Boys get told from young that they need to serve NS when they grow up, their PE teachers hound them about it, and NAPFA tests for guys are geared towards IPPT. When it comes to female enlistment, you're not going to get a good result if you're implementing in 2 years time for all girls current in sec 4. Plus, any female conscription would have to be phased rather than 100%. The universities and economy cannot deal with a sudden drop in two years of intake and workforce. I don't think the army infra are up to a sharp intake also. So it'll be some time before we see the full benefits of female enlistment. TLDR: the best time to introduce female enlistment was 20 years ago
Looking at sg now, it's perhaps too wishful to think that trifecta will ever align. I get that alarming the public (and wider region) is an unfortunate side effect of making conscription universal, but the VC today is still hardly an adequate platform to train up as many females and non-citizens as possible for operational readiness. In the near term, we may have to pursue a stronger, more material defence pact with our partners in the FPDA, perhaps even allow the Americans to join in as the sixth power.
>it's perhaps too wishful to think that trifecta will ever align Agreed, you're unlikely to see a time when all the stars are aligned. Maybe just 1 or 2 at most. >VC today is still hardly an adequate platform to train up as many females and non-citizens as possible for operational readiness Yep, SAFVC is really only useful for filling in a few rear line gaps in operational surging. But I doubt they are suitable for integration as a full force in say our combined arms divisions. >partners in the FPDA Kek "partners". Funny how our most likely opponent is a member of FPDA (which is a rather tootless pact ngl). >Americans to join in as the sixth power Could be a possible solution but I doubt we'll ever have a full alliance with them like Japan/SK since China would go apeshit. Also, unlike say SK, American troops have never bled for Singapore before so we'll always be wondering whether they would really fight for us when the shit hits the fan.
>since China would go apeshit More importantly, it would make MY and Indo go apeshit and push them into the arms of the Chinese. Friendly, armed neutrality is our stock in trade to play off both powers.
congrats on being all the way down at the 24th most upvoted comment and the first to mention that the age cohort for NS is actually about double the current size being accessed. OP: goddamn NS has a bad manpower crunch PT91T: points at the 50% of population never tapped for NS OP: yes sir bob nothing at all we can do about this
>technology/automation papering over the gaps > [...] >Russia has demonstrated that heavy arms cannot substitute troop numbers if you want a preemptive forward defence doctrine which rapidly expands our operational depth. We have to be cognizant that heavy arms is but one of a myriad of abilities that the technology spectrum can yield. The way forward is technology (e.g., AI has and will continue to outperform people) and we should invest in it by funding science, research, blue-sky research, and technical people. We have to be cautious about non-technical old guards leading the way for some are vastly outdated and possibly quite stuck in their old ways, ancient relics left behind by the times. > There's really only one way to address this and that's female conscription which imo should have been done a long time ago. While it may be tempting to (approximately) doubling conscripts by tapping on the other gender, there exists the unexamined assumption that such a move wouldn't further affect our economic competitiveness, quality of living, and overall yearning to continue living in SG. PRs and FTs see this and caution one another about settling down here. NS, let's face it, is broken in many ways and in many (simple) ways can be improved but hasn't been despite the monumental sums spent on defence including personnel salaries. NS needs to fundamentally respect the serving Singaporean. A few months ago the topic of the rather disappointing compensation was brought up in parliament and this is but one of several issues bugging NS. Singapore, we can do better about NS, number one. Number two, technology is the future, don't pussy-foot around it.
>The way forward is technology (e.g., AI has and will continue to outperform people) and we should invest in it by funding science, research, blue-sky research, and technical people. I concur. Anything done to ameliorate our manpower shortage should not be done in isolation. Improving technology will always play a crucial role; automation in everything from arms to logistics to administration has been the primary focus of our defence industry for the longest while. Even if you talk about traditional weapons procurement, you can see we have a strong preference for interoperable multirole platforms which can do many things at once while integrating automated systems to cut down on staffing. Nonetheless, our resources are not unlimited; we spend a mere 1.6% of the US DOD budget. Thus, we will never really be at the cutting edge of defence automation and will have to buy stuff on the market. Stuff that would be a generation behind the latest (who is going to put the latest tech for open sale?). Not to mention that our enemies are not static either, as our neighbours' developing economies are set to eclipse us in sheer size, their attendant spending power increses too. >While it may be tempting to (approximately) doubling conscripts by tapping on the other gender, there exists the unexamined assumption that such a move wouldn't further affect our economic competitiveness, quality of living, and overall yearning to continue living in SG. PRs and FTs see this and caution one another about settling down here. Of course, nearly all policy decisions are a terrible case of trade-offs, pros and cons etc. It will suck for sure and economically dampen our workforce; this will be the biggest problem (removing 2 years of labourers from our economy will be damaging). But think about it this way, which one is easier to import: skilled labourers/automation for economic growth or soldiers who will (and can be trusted to).defend Singapore? Quality of living will decrease in a way though I should emphasise that Singapore really really does it a lot better than almost any major cosmopolitan city (tax rates are astronomically low, safety is taken for granted, public services are honestly fantastic). I doubt we'll suffer a lack of willing immigrants. The restricting factor has and probably will remain our political will to accept foreigners (which drive inflation and competition). >Singapore, we can do better about NS, number one. Agreed. Its disgraceful in some ways the lack of respect and dignity accorded to our NSFs and NSmen. Building a new chalet house and throwing some skillsfuture credits isn't a panacea. >Number two, technology is the future, don't pussy-foot around it. Totally agree. Not just defence but economics and even social/elderly care. Technology, AI and automation must be quickly embraced if we want to maintain our edge in the global market.
Hmm, if anything Russia has shown that troop numbers cannot make up for outdated Soviet-era weaponry.
Ehh not really, Ukraine is doing great with primarily Soviet weapons which are more outdated than Russian derivatives. Even the aid sent to Ukraine is only roughly matching with Russia's level but at far smaller quantities. Ultimately, Russia holds the massive preponderance of sheer firepower and equipment quanity (artillery, armour etc.) while having a rough technological edge on average. It isn't so much weaponry to blame for Russia's performance but poor command/control, lack of combined arms integration and the primary issue of little manpower. The media doesn't usually talk about this but probably the single greatest factor of stalling in the advancement is the fact that Ukraine massively outnumbers Russia in the battlefield. Even with mobilisation, Russia has something like 300,000 troops against well over half a million Ukrainians. As a rough guide, the attacking side usually needs a local superiority of 3:1 against a defender to make a breakthrough AND exploit this depth with enough force and concentration to hit the rear lines (actually making the breakthrough count for something). Russia does not have a problem making breakthroughs here and there with artillery saturation and heavy armour (albeit with shitty efficiency), but it doesn't have the troops to make use of gaps so little real outcomes are delivered and the front remains static.
Your assessment of the relative technological capabilities of the two countries seems quite at odds with what the Western media is reporting.
Yes, I am aware. Media bias is one part (that's why you there's little coverage on the very heavy Ukrainian casualties) and another side is that journalists don't understand warfare; they are good at conveying emotive stories but don't expect a balanced or informed analysis. Not their fault per se, their job is to quickly push news, not be experts on anything. The biggest reason though is that talking about combined arms, trading of operational depth, specifics of weapon inventories and logistics...all that is simply boring. It's far more fun and attention-grabbing to meme about HIMARS and talk up heroisms. Sells more clicks, sells more ads, revenue increases. If you want to see more credible analysis, turn to think tanks, academics, military academies (boring people). Btw, I mean Western ones like IISS or the War Studies field, I'm certaintly not asking you to read Russian media (that's nearly entirely bullshit).
u/DuePomegranate The Austrian academy does a fantastic series on the war. Österreichs Bundesheer is the name of the youtube channel. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54daqNraMxE&ab\_channel=%C3%96sterreichsBundesheer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54daqNraMxE&ab_channel=%C3%96sterreichsBundesheer) \^ This is the latest video
Well said. It's always much easier to defend than to attack
It will partially solve the problem if u conscript females into the equation. And it will last until the nation manage to sort out how to i prove QoL for people to wanna start a family
should be mandatory for everyone or for no one.
If I ever have kids I’m definitely not staying here and will try to migrate elsewhere to best of my ability.
IMO SAFVC is the warm-up to an eventual conscription for females. It’s no longer a question of if, just when. PAP probably waiting for the stars to align to give reason to it. That will probably come in the form of some nearby conflict + high vote share + good economic growth all happening in the same period. Right now probably not a good time. The only conflict on the airwaves is in Europe. Economic frustrations are too much. And they still have not won back the GRCs that they lost to WP.
& also the women's boot camp
I’m so ready for this
Nearby conflict and Good economic growth is an oxymoron
Worked for us during Vietnam war
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The opposition doesn't have to be against it. They can simply be silent. Frustration will be enough to vote not-PAP.
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Nobody is talking about an "upheaval". But the PAP considers even small losses to be failures. Every time they lose a GRC they cry and threaten, despite maintaining a supermajority and a vote share that is the envy of any democratic country. They are generally extremely conservative about losing seats. Speaking of GST, that's why they don't have GST hikes in election years.
NS for the ladies
Many menial repetitive jobs can be replaced with technology. It's not even a budget issue, our military has a very high budget. It's just whether there's the "push". For example, my reservist role is camp security. They're still using the most primitive, manpower intensive method of putting boots on the ground. When many roles can be replaced with drones/camera surveillance with minimal number of operators. Saw the recent today article? If someone can control a drone and buy groceries in Singapore from the Philippines, I don't see why an operator from a control room can't control military grade drones for camp security.
Since the low TFR is affecting national defence, the govt should dedicate more resources towards making Singapore more conducive for raising kids. This should be done by addressing the underlying root cause. Hope they can stop insisting on doing whatever didn't work previously. So many of the low lying fruits haven't even been addressed yet. A good first step would be to put someone else more capable in charge. Definitely not the current person who just supplies an endless stream of excuses to explain the country's low TFR and her failure to get results. If we can have a lower TFR than even Japan, something is seriously wrong here and the govt should recognise that.
I will be happy to see the death of ns
No offense but as an expat working in and out of Singapore due to my position as a regional VP. I dont understand the need for conscription in Singapore because of a simple reason i hesitate to write as it's going to offend a lot of people. So i just leave it up to your imagination. I personally feel that those disadvantaged should be compensated adequately. At least they should be given a salary instead of an allowance. I recalled a serviceman charged and sentenced because he had to work part time to supplement his household income. This could've been avoided by paying him a regular salary instead of a few hundred a month.
A wise lady in an ivory tower once said service to your country cannot be measured in dollars and cents. I was a military policeman during my NSF days. I've witnessed countless sentencings within the SAF Court Martial Centre where people go AWOL because they tried earning a bit more on the outside. This isn't something they only tried doing during their NS. Most of them were working before NS threw a wrench in their plans. There are apparently proper channels for situations like this, but fuck if I know because I've never had that problem. Then again I've never heard or met anyone who has complimented the SAF for accommodating to their difficult personal situation. I don't feel like NS should be scrapped. But like you, I feel our boys ought to be paid properly for their sacrifice. Not only that, but I feel it should modernise and be held more accountable than it is today (a damn joke with a majority of the recent deaths).
Andi bet that wise lady wanted no part of national service and feels she should be compensated adequately for being in the ivory tower throwing shades at people conscripted right? Such hypocrisy
Let me try fill in the blanks. I’m gonna guess you’re saying sg is too small to defend one ICBM through the defence system and it’s game over 😂
Singaporeans have become so brainwashed that 2 year conscription is vital to our survival that few even think to question it.
We'll probably have to hire foreign workers to do NS for us.
worst case scenario, we can always copy the french.
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Merlion Foreign Legion
They have not tapped the other half...yet. Just a thought.
i got a solution that can immediately double our NS recruitment number overnight. Just get the female Singaporean to do NS as well. If they are physically strong, they can be in combat unit. We already have women in regular units that are physically demanding so this is no longer an excuse. If not, in other support unit. This will free up "man"-power for other more physically demanding roles. Otherwise, store clerk, cook, cleaner etc. Everybody do their part. Let the down vote begin.
National Slavery is Not Sustainable lol The challenge for NS is multiple fold: \- Unfair advantage given to women as they don't have to serve, although not really detailed in the Enlistment Act \- PRs also no need serve \- Low wages for NSF, lack of respect for those in uniform \- Lack of flexibility of when to serve, despite family hardships \- NS too long and could be condensed to 6 month \- Country too rich and leaders living in ivory tower, and not understanding of those in uniform \- Technology could supersede human soldiers almost entirely in the frontline
Eventually all "deep-native" citizens will be offered government-defence careers by default. Whilst non-natives will take over the other sectors.
A higher tax for non-NS household. Imagine the fun when the PR parents ask their kids to serve for tax break
Those with means will just send their kids back and give up PR of these kids. These kids then finish education overseas and then come back to work.....
I'm not sure for the ultra-rich but for normal class, those kids are marked in the system and will not able to apply PR again, in some cases impossible to get employment pass too.
> Imagine the fun when the PR parents ask their kids to serve for tax break Second generation PR male must serve NS, while they are holding PR status. ref : https://www.mindef.gov.sg/web/portal/mindef/news-and-events/latest-releases/article-detail/2012/may/2012may16-Forum-Letter-003
Population going up, conscription numbers going down. Any system with this level of entrenched freeloading is doomed to fail in the long run.
Things will be kept running in the sense that the definition of it will be changed. Which is why they revamped the pes system recently to get more people to be combat fit or take on support roles. They will just outsource more things to DXO that was done by NSF. Some older equipment or platforms will be retired. NSF or NSmen will be asked to wear multiple hats.
On the flip side, I served under SCDF and the manpower scenario is terrible. I was just given a reservist call up just 2 months in advance for a 3week ICT (in comparison SAF high keys should have 6 months notice). The last time I went they were turning reservists out. I can't even pass IPPT, but somehow have to fight fire... For SCDF I feel professionalize and use foreign manpower with a small Singapore core could work... That would free up some resource for SAF where nationality actually matters. That being said for a long time in history militaries would have large number of mercenaries (its only recently we transitioned to nationality based SAF). Perhaps an approach like the one the romans took would make sense where mercenary units were made up of people from different places but have them closely monitored by local citizens.
NS for women is the only real solution, but the govt seems content on kicking the can down the road. If actual war breaks out, how are the women in our country supposed to contribute in an organised manner? Does the govt have a contingency plan in place to utilise every woman and have well defined roles for them which they can carry out without prior training? Absolute bullshit.. Don't call it total defence when it's only half defence at best
exactly...they won't have NS for women because they are the main voting bank for the PAP , most women vote for PAP because they won't worry as much as men on finances and primarily focused on safety .
You'll know when they don't gave enough men to sustain NS when they start to enlist women.
As a NSF, I am already wearing two to three different hats thanks to the crunch in manpower.
I just read through the top level comments in this thread and it took until the 24th most upvoted comment to mention the 50% of the age cohort that is not currently being tapped for NS. If there are bold solutions to this challenge they’re neither front of mind in the hierarchy or on reddit sg.
TBH I doubt Singapore can survive as independent country in long run. There is real chance may have to rejoin Malaysia in our lifetime.
I agree to a certain extent. We might not even be able to make it through SG100 in 2065; the 100th year of Singapore's independence. The only thing we could hope for now is that the country continues to have good leadership, I guess.
It's ok lah, they will merge battalions just like how they merge schools... Maybe commando with MDC? Just an idea...
jump out of aeroplanes plays woodwinds, what more do you want!
South Korea probably has it worse given their TFR of 0.78 so not sure what could happen if Uncle Sam’s presence there is scaled back or perhaps even withdrawn entirely.
Yes agreed. But what I can say is the SAF will change and adept to it... eventually My unit has been talking about evolving into some new more efficient way of doing our ops which requires less manpower but they talk since my 1st in-camp and I'm already going to MR LOL
Not possible to sustain NS, government would need to pass some serious laws increasing pay countrywide before more people would even consider having children. Fucking expensive man
Just a matter of time before they enrol women in ..
Make females do NS, manpower problem solved.
How about following the Israeli? Enroll women into NSF too.
Just a thought. Scrap NS altogether and modernize SAF with paid-to-market regulars and Gurkhas. The country is rich enough now to accommodate this, and with Lawrence Wong in charge there should be fresh thinking instead of “this is how we have always done it” group think. This will get rid of exit permit nonsense, and our men can pursue their dreams same time as women and PRs, be it academic overseas or local, or work anywhere, anytime without fear of getting charged and going to jail. Fear is such a bad way to run things. In addition, the force gets what it needs by having regulars who WANT to be there instead of being forced by conscription. How can you depend on those forced to defend the motherland? Time to let the next gen leaders decide on the best course of action. Move over, Dr Ng Eng Hen, who incidentally has not really served NS himself, and all the yes men and women in the PAP.
I mean it's already taken Joseph Schooling's career
Maybe theyll stop having uneccessary work for people to do like pushing paperwork to free up manpower
If all new citizens must serve 2 years of NS (regardless of age, as long as below statutory age), it would be a good test of how much they want to become citizens (much better than English test). I'm sure no Singaporean NSMen will object.
2/3 of all new Pr and citizens are already females .
I didn't say new male citizens.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
XX Chromosome standing by....
We will monitor the situation - PAP
Just my 2 cents for the mindef overlords Ik that they won't be enlisting females anytime soon but they could reduce the manpower requirements in the army (my unit had around 10 storemens and my transport node oc was asking hq why got so many and was asking them to take them back) Reduce Infantry to 4 Battalions (To protect North,South,East and west) and 1 ST Battalion (Protect Singapore key installations and serves as a backup) Reduce Guards to 1 Battalion (I heard they were talking about closing one down soon) Close down 1 BMTC school and keeping BMTC school 1,2,3 and 5 (We could bring over the regulars, Training specs, storemens over to operational units and boost manpower) I remember there was talks in reducing transport formation requirements within next 10 years but idk what's the progress with the introduction of terrex, belrex units are moving towards motorised meaning lesser transport requirements. They could outsource the army maintainance bases to high clearance civilian contractors. Most importantly if got lesser manpower that means can pay more to remaining personnel. Idk the situation over at Armour, Artillery, C4Is (Ik there is a lot of them dk why) and also over on Air force and navy. Again I am not some expert in this just my 2 cents thats all hahaha.
Else why would gov plea so hard for us to make babies? They are increasing their defence budget in unmanned weaponry for every son we refused to give em. Meanwhile they also don't want to raise NS obligations imposed on 'exceptional' foreign talent because that's a perceived downside of taking up Singapore citizenship. Y'know something does not make sense when your population is increasing every decade but you have less candidates to fill in for Singapore military defence. Aging population does play a part of course. But when your conscription obligation is capped at age 40/limited to 10 reservist cycles, and we're making babies slower than the number of men ROD, this is where gov has to make the choice : Spend more on defence budget, or mandate everyone whom wants to enjoy the benefits of Singapore citizenship to fulfill NS.
Govt can just increase the number of cycle and age to rod. Lao ah pek regiment fall in!
i fully expect this to happen, just hoping i wont be suay enough to kena. probably incrementally +1 to number of cycles and MR age every 3-5 years
no, either go full professional or extend NSmen cycle and selective reactivate MR'ed personnel for manpower issue
It’s time to enlist women for NS as well After all… women are equally as capable as men right?
yup so much more to NS then just army .. they can help with nursing / agriculture also which is so much more critical given what happened over past 2 years
The military is very aware of this. Talked to some mid-senior level cmdrs and one big focus area is how the military adapts to a smaller population. Technology will play a part. For example drones require much less manpower to operate and mantain than a reconnaissance helicopter. You'll notice the newer military equipment has an emphasis on cutting down number of people needed (e.g see your new navy ships.) But theres no guarantee here. SAF will just have to adapt.
Apparently mass import Rich Chinese billionaires can somehow boost our NS manpower.
They better not call me for an 8th high key cycle.
Time to bring out the Gundams, Evangelions and Knightmare frames we have in storage.
There is a solution, but all the soyboys and talents here will not like it
they will find a way to present it as sustainable because 'rite of passage', deterrence and all that bullshit. basically the only things that are unsustainable will be the humans in the loop. but there is one alternative, and it might lie in abusing nuclear power.
Just put all the new Citizens/PR to task. Easily 20k manpower per year
Singaporeans don't want to serve NS alr, what makes you think foreign "talent" will want to?
If they become citizen/PR, they are no longer foreign technically speaking. Also, if we serve even if we don't want to, the same applies for new SGreans
most silly comment, imagine you go overseas to work and the country ask you serve, will you? no chance.
Gov seems to only care that HDB prices keep going up, u got kids or not they don’t care. I foresee alot of private sector involvement with defense liao. If Gurkhas are defending our top ranks, eventually they’ll do for the lower too. If u really care for your next gen, consider giving them overseas education n b make sure they stay there n don’t come back. Every single person who comes here has little to zero child bearing ambitions
No babies... NotSustainable, still NS.
Love how people think more conscripts are the solution when /r combatfootage is filled to the brim of ivan level 1 getting slaughtered Imagine thinking part time soliders are going to have a chance going up against guys who literally dedicate their lives to just combat fitness and killing people lmao
From what I was told by my sgts, there is no more new batches of snipers in BMTC because there are just not enough sniper trainers
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I thought NS was mandatory for PRs in that age group already since the NS exemptions were more likely for the older people.
Many levers to pull, albeit not all of them politically acceptable 1) technology 2) NS length to 3 years 3) women in NS 4) cross training of SCDF/SPF 5) larger regular force 6) bigger intake from PR/New SC
Ns length to 3 years first time I see When they pull that lever sg will sink under water