Originally posted by qpicanto:
Singaporean leader once said its ready to go in militarily to secure our water supply if needed. Is this a threat or what? So much for war rhetorics, Syed Hamid said 'go to war' if Spore is not happy. Spore took dead serious, open mob on sunday, and its shown on TV that we are ready. Come on this is all political mileage thing.
Since the day Malaysia let Singapore 'go'., we already know nobody owes us a living. Whether it oil, water, sand, we got to be resourceful. Can u tell us why did govt take so many decades to built the recycled water plant while the technology is there all along?
The volumes of trade Malaysia had with the outside is tremendous. Its the world no 10 trading partner for US. It is no hermit state like NK. War is last thing they want.
So what exactly is your stance in this? Cut 20% or don't cut?
It seems you are talking in circles. If you are saying that our military is strong to give us a political bargaining chip you are really stating the blatantly obvious that everybody already knows. The question is if this bargaining chip is needed... and by all indications the answer is yes.
So what is your point? Besides stating the obvious that everybody has more or less accepted as if it was even a point worth mentioning?
It is pretty obvious, before we started to reduce our need on external sources for water, that Singapore will be pretty much screwed if our water supply was subject to the whimsical digestion of a certain neighbour. So what is the most obvious solution, if all else has failed... to this problem?
Look at it this way: War is unlikely in our region... but the reason it's unlikely has a lot to do with our security assets to begin with. Conversely, one might realize that remove our assets and you make possible many things that make war a more likely choice for a hostile goverment.
If we really didn't have the means to defend ourselves... what is to stop a hostile/radical govt. from deciding to annex us ala. East Timor all those years back? One could argue that the economic features of Singapore make an annexation unlikely to be ignored by world powers... but then again one needs to ask: how exactly do we retain or aquire these economic abilities in our area? You need security and stability to begin with to even get to the point of economic relevance in the first place.
