FULL-TIME NATIONAL SERVICE (Variation of period)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Dr Ong Chit Chung asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence whether there is any plan to vary the period for full-time National Service.

The Second Minister for Defence (Services) (BG Lee Hsien Loong) (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence): Mr Speaker, Sir, MINDEF has no plans to vary the period of National Service.

Mr Chandra Das, the Chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Foreign Affairs, had suggested that MINDEF consider the possibility of shortening the National Service period.

The period of active National Service serves two purposes. Firstly, the national servicemen are trained for their operational roles. They learn individual skills, whether they are infantrymen, section leaders or platoon commanders. They also train as units, in order to fight as a team, at the platoon, company or battalion levels or beyond. This consumes a large part of the 2 or 2 1/2 years of active National Service.

Secondly, after they are fully trained, national servicemen form the bulk of the standing force available to the SAF. This is a force in being, whose very existence deters potential threats. It is immediately available to deal with emergencies, or to cope with periods of tension requiring higher states of readiness. Most countries meet this requirement through a regular army. The SAF, being a citizen army, meets it using national servicemen.

This is not to underestimate the importance of reservists as combat ready soldiers. In war, reservists will form the backbone of the SAF. But in many other situations short of war, mobilising the reservists would disrupt the economy and raise tensions. The standing force of national servicemen enables us to cope with such situations.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): As we are in fact in peacetime now and taking into account the interruption to students going into university and also in their job careers, is there not a case to reduce the period of full-time National Service?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have just answered that question. Every day spent in National Service is a day spent away from the economy. As the Minister also responsible for trade and industry, I am acutely aware of the manpower shortage in the economy, and how much of a contribution national servicemen could make if they were not required to serve in the SAF. But it is a balance between how much security we want to have and how much economic growth and wealth we want to produce. You can have National Service for six or eight months and then allow everybody to go out and earn a living. It is one extra year plus of economic production from each soldier who does that, not an insignificant amount.

But if we do not have enough in the SAF with all the wealth in the world, I am not sure whether, firstly, there will be confidence in the security of the country, and, secondly, if some threat did materialise, whether all this might not be taken away from us. One of the reasons people have confidence in Singapore is that the SAF is here. It is well-trained, it is professional and, without being an onerous burden on the economy, has been able to guarantee security and therefore confidence.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, as I understand it, in Switzerland, they have, in the first instance, national service for something like 19 weeks. In the case of West Germany, they have full-time national service for a period of about nine months. If these countries, which are in places where they have undergone two world wars, can have such short full-time national service, why can we not have it here?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Swiss, as Mr Chiam has pointed out, have a few weeks of national service. The Germans do not have nine months. They have 15 months. In fact, until the recent dramatic developments in East Germany and Eastern Europe, they were talking about pushing it to 18 months, for precisely the same reason that we have to keep our national service period, namely, not enough German babies were born, not enough soldiers, and you need a longer period to maintain that same size of standing force. Now that situation has changed. There is no more talk of extending national service in Germany from 15 to 18 months.

Our situation has not similarly changed. We have not seen a total revision of the landscape in the Asia Pacific. There has not been a change of government, for example, in Indochina or in China. There has not been a change in the strategic relationships in the region. I will be answering this more fully when I address Dr Lee's Question shortly. But there is a difference between a reservist force which you can call up in an emergency, and a force in being which is there all the time. I have to do nothing extra if tension rises, because I already have the troops at the ready and prepared deal with against any eventuality.

It is easy fo us to say that in a tension period, we will call them back from the reserve, and they will come back within 12 hours. We can get them. They can be mobilised, equipped, deployed, all will be well. In a real tension, to decide to mobilise reserves is a very big decision. Firstly, it raises the temperature because obviously you must be going to war. You are calling the troops back. Secondly, it is disruptive on the economy because you have to pull people out from jobs. There will be companies whose operations will be upset. Thirdly, psychologically, the country gears itself up, expecting to come to the crunch. Nothing happens, it comes back down again. The next time we need to build up is more difficult.

I do not know if the Member is familiar with military history but I think Dr Ong would be. One of the reasons why the Israelis were caught by surprise in the 1973 war was that they had, on several previous occasions just before that, false alarms, mobilised and had to demobilise. When the actual day came, despite the warning signs, this was one of the factors which led them not to move. The Egyptians had cried wolf on their behalf once too often, and very successfully. That is why it is important for us to have a standing force. Two years' national service means, at most, about a Division plus of troops to defend the whole of Singapore and to be available in case of any peacetime contingency. That is one reason.

The second reason why you cannot bring the period down very drastically is the way we train our soldiers. We want to give them not just a basic proficiency but as much competence as possible to enable them to look after themselves and the troops under their command in war. You can in 19 weeks train a soldier to fire a rifle or man a howitzer. I do not think you can train him to be an officer to lead men, or even if you could try to train him, I do not think any men will follow him.

The Swiss do it because they do not see the threat of immediate war. Their situation is different. They are in the middle of Western Europe. They are surrounded on all sides by EC countries. They believe that this is one chance in a million and if it comes then they mobilise. We are in Southeast Asia. I think the chances are considerably more than one in a million and we should be careful about following the same example. The Germans did not follow the Swiss example. Can we?

Dr Lee Siew-Choh (Non-Constituency Member): Sir, does the Minister see any immediate danger of war in Singapore?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, of course not. But one of the reasons for that is we have the SAF and therefore when we see developments in the region, we can afford to take a relaxed and tranquil approach to it. We can observe developments with equanimity and without having to be tense with the finger on the trigger all the time.