1. As a small burden sharing country, we are a responsible partner nation of FPDA, the United States and a few others. To that end, Singapore has:
(i) provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine (by donating ambulances, fire engines and other supplies through the Red Cross); and
(ii) voiced MFA’s principled objection to the Russian invasion at the UN and enacted sanctions on Russia too.
2. At this stage, arming Ukraine would burn the last bridge with Russia and the amount of weapons we can provide is insignificant. IMO, Singapore is not a European power or privy to NATO coordination meetings on arming Ukraine. As a small nation, we should focus our limited military resources and networks on ASEAN, as our backyard.
3. But ASEAN as a whole is declining in relevance; with Indonesian as chairman this year, Singapore’s MFA can try to coordinate better with likeminded nations to manage great power competition and improve great power relations with ASEAN members. Money is better spent:
(a) training with the US Marines & their F-35Bs; or training with the Marine Nationale & their carrier based Rafales;
(b) working with ADMM Plus 8 partners, which I might remind you, includes China and Russia; and
(c) on soft power initiatives like hosting the Shangri-La Dialogue along with ADMM exercises and these soft power initiates includes providing evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, HADR, medical assistance and disaster assistance via RSAF aircraft or RSN ships. The effort to of the Singapore Civil Defence rescue teams (which has long and distinguished track record), earns good will abroad.
4. Aster-30 is only one of the layers; but the bigger issue for our IADS is lack of manpower to keep operating older missile systems
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