His answer is for Singapore to ‘exercise discretion’, being ‘very restrained in commenting on matters involving great powers’.
Prominent Singaporean pundits denounced his declaration but its resonance could be felt around Southeast Asia. ASEAN is not the GCC and the great power dynamics at play in the Middle East differ considerably from those affecting ASEAN and, in particular, Singapore. But the parallels are sufficiently resonant to make Mahbubani’s comments unsettling. After all, like Qatar, Singapore is a small state that has been the base for a considerable regional US military presence. Yet there are limits to the parallels, in part because of the different great power dynamics in Asia.
Graham Allison’s book Destined for War has brought into vogue the term ‘the Thucydides trap’, which refers to the work of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Writing about the Peloponnesian wars in the middle of the fifth century BCE, Thucydides recorded details of the clash between the rising great regional maritime power, Athens, and the land-locked city-state of Sparta. Worried that leaving Athens’ power to grow unchecked would lead to its own downfall, Sparta embarked on a catastrophic war that saw both states suffer greatly. The implication is that the structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one make war almost inevitable.
Great power dynamics can certainly generate tensions but the jury is out on whether such a war is inevitable in Asia. Smaller states sometimes play disproportionate roles, and other times not. During that war, for instance, Athens subjugated the city-state of Melos, which had sought to stay neutral in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides observed that in subjugating Melos, Athens demonstrated a truism: ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’.
There is a sense that Mahbubani seems to have tapped into a fear that Singapore may have some Melian-like tendencies and that if not careful, the city state could become a casualty in a great power clash in and around Southeast Asia reminiscent of Thucydides’ war.
The seizure of Singaporean armoured vehicles en route from Taiwan in late 2016 by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong pointed to a growing concern that China was sending a message to Singapore: that China was unhappy with Singapore’s close associations with Taiwan, and by implication with the United States. The implication was that Singapore should heed Mahbubani’s advice to exercise greater discretion.
Mahbubani has been criticised by some eminent contemporary Singaporean pundits including Singaporean Law and Home Affairs Minister Shanmugam and by diplomats Bilahari and Ong Keng Yong, who have declared Mahbubani’s commentary ‘questionable intellectually’. Their view is that, for Singapore at least, size does not matter.
One pointer to that being so comes from the neighbourhood.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has spoken about Indonesia as the maritime fulcrum, poised between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, as a gateway between East and South Asia. That arguably applies to all maritime Southeast Asia, but nowhere more so than to the city state of Singapore. At the mouth of the Malacca Strait, Singapore sees a vast proportion of the world’s maritime trade pass its front door on the way to and from Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Northeast Asia. That location means great powers will always be interested in what happens to Singapore. Singapore has understood that very well and worked assiduously to cultivate a range of constructive relations to shield the city-state from the kinds of great power challenges the Melians experienced.
In light of its centrality, the US Navy operates a logistic hub from Singapore. Likewise, due to its location and importance to its engagement with Southeast Asia, Australia has established a comprehensive strategic partnership. In addition, Australia and Singapore, together with Malaysia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, form the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA). This little-known arrangement has helped Singapore develop its joint (inter-service) and combined (international) military capabilities. The benefits of these ties make the FPDA more relevant than ever to help bolster Singaporean security. Even Indonesia, against which the FPDA was originally intended, now has observer status on FPDA activities, thus helping to renew and revitalise the FPDA as a component of Singapore’s internationalist hedging.
Today, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is a robust, high-tech and highly regarded organisation with considerable reach and power. Indeed, the SAF trains extensively in Australia, the United States and elsewhere. The SAF also looks likely to be included in the club of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter recipients.
Most importantly, Singapore is a founding member of ASEAN. Founded fifty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, ASEAN today has its critics, but it has served Singapore well as a forum for bolstering prosperity and security. It has done so particularly through the establishment of defence and security mechanisms including the ASEAN Defence Minister Meeting (ADMM) and the ADMM Plus, as well as facilitating the quadrilateral Malacca Straits Patrol which has remained operational for more than a decade.
Mahbubani certainly caused a stir with his remarks. But reflections since then and the responses generated indicate that while Thucydides’ work remains eminently readable, due to geography, alliances, regional architecture and other ties, its application to Singapore is of limited utility.
John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies, Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute and head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.
No doubt this too is another interesting analysis but some issues need to be clarified.
1 “Recently the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, dropped a bombshell.”
This is because Dean Kishore Mahbubani is arguably Singapore’s self-appointed ‘Naysayer–in–Chief’.
This is not such a bad thing because according to Professor Chan Heng Chee, current Chairwoman of the Singapore University of Technology and Design’s Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, there is a need for more robust internal discussions on policies with a wider range of people from different backgrounds because “We need naysayers in leadership teams who can think the unthinkable.”
Dr Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large, opined that differing points of view should be valued and that “When we appoint people to boards, we can also appoint challengers who are subversive and who have alternative points of view. That’s the kind of cultural change we want to see. It makes Singapore stronger, not weaker.”
Source : http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/why-singapore-needs-more-naysayers
2 Dean Kishore Mahbubani’s “answer is for Singapore to “exercise discretion’, being ‘very restrained in commenting on matters involving great powers”.
In my view, this is not an unsound advice particularly since Singapore has been a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, since 1970.
3 “Prominent Singaporean pundits denounced his declaration but its resonance could be felt around Southeast Asia.”
Perhaps, they should take cognizance of what Prof Chan and Dr Koh have presciently proposed recently.
4 “Graham Allison’s book Destined for war has brought into vogue the term ‘the Thucydides trap’, which refers to the work of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. The implication is that the structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one make war almost inevitable.”
Thucydides’ observation, in retrospect, is now an anachronism because, though it is true that in the last 5 centuries there were 16 cases in which a ruling power was threatened by a rising power and 12 cases ended in war, the ‘binary’ equation has changed as explained below.
5 With the advent of nuclear bombs, the Planet’s ultimate weapons of mass destruction after WW2, this has finally put paid to the ‘Thucydides trap’ and it should be laid to rest. Why? This is because as the writer observes: “Great power dynamics can certainly generate tensions but the jury is out on whether such a war is inevitable in Asia”.
This is true, because today the world has over 15,000 nuclear bombs among nuclear states like the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
Japan is reportedly to be only a few turns of the star screw driver away from joining the Nuclear Club because Japan has about 48 metric tonnes of reactor-grade plutonium, the world’s largest cache in peace time, enough to add another 6,000 nuclear bombs to the deadly pile.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the time indicated in the Nuclear Clock is now 3 minutes to midnight, the closest to Armageddon in the last 64 years.
Perhaps, the simplest analogy to describe the ominous situation is to imagine three Army Generals of the largest nuclear powers standing knee-deep in gasoline in a basement full of gasoline fumes and thermite. Each protagonist holds a doomsday match ready to strike it. But if any is struck all three will be incinerated in a flash.
It is therefore MAD to strike the first match, as it means Mutually Assured Destruction.
So it is unlikely that the US, the current hegemonic power and China, the rising power, will strike the first match to start WW3. But all bets are off if Kim Jong Un lights up one and threatens to throw it into the basement.
6 “There is a sense that Mahbubani seems to have tapped into a fear that Singapore may have some Melian-like tendencies and that if not careful, the city state could become a casualty in a great power clash in and around Southeast Asia reminiscent of Thucydides’ war.”
This is self-evident because in a nuclear war, no nation is spared when a nuclear winter sets in. There will be famine and disease and hundreds of millions of people will perish worldwide.
7 “The seizure of Singaporean armoured vehicles en route from Taiwan in late 2016 by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong pointed to a growing concern that China was sending a message to Singapore”.
This is not true because China did not seize the said armoured vehicles. When asked if his department had to report to China ‘on the progress and decisions made during the investigation’, the Hong Kong Commissioner of Customs and Excise, Mr Roy Tang Yun-kwong, replied: “No, we are a Hong Kong law enforcement agency. The authority of the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department is based on Hong Kong law. No other institutions have been involved.”
He added that the responsible party (not the Singapore Govt) would be taken to court, based on sufficient evidence that “someone” had violated import and export regulations.
8 So “Do the lessons of Thucydides apply to Singapore”?
In my view ‘No’. Why not? This is because Singapore is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and is a friend to all powers, big and small.
Thank you.
The author seems to have forgotten how Britain and France were jealous with the rise of Germany in 1870 once the various German states were unified under Otto Bismark.