Singapore foreign policy is yet to be firmly established.
It cannot go on like the present: playing a lead role in policing of major international terrorism.
Why I say this: our neighbours are mostly muslims. Their feelings towards us now are subdued because we are making some self-survival speeches. That feeling is not hostile yet. But we do not know when that fine balance may tilt. Too much complex issues are to be unravelled.
We have built up an internal racial harmony and multi-racialism. That is a good base - our strength. Why not build on it?
Religious conflicts and clashes of civilization are topics beyond solutions of Singapore. We have only one voice. We can mediate rather than become adversarial.
Therefore the major policy direction should be set - play it cool. Do not be in a hurry to teach or lecture on this topic.
Be a mediator by all means. Our ability to mediate must be there because we have an indigeneous multi-racial harmony to begin with and that is our sincerity in fact.
Learn one lesson from the collapse of former Soviet Union - play reserved. But because Soviet Union exposes its triumph card too soon in going into field conflict in Afghan they begin to wear down till the American came in to capitalize on it. Soviet Union would not have collapsed had it not drawn its triumph card - military superiority of unknown proportion. Singapore may be militarily ready and prepared, don't get over-confident or be exposed. The day we start going into field conflicts, enemies will assess how strong we really are and make new opennings in our front. No point to go though all these.
How can Singapore survive under the same old policies?
Apart from concepts and assumptions, what do we have in all these past policies - scholars and talents will get us there, middle management is not that important, long-term pain is always necessary, non-welfarism that leads to to high as more defensive cost centre approach is set up in all departments.
We have not seen anything working well except continuing high costs.
Now that we need to compete with China and India as well as Thailand and Malaysia, what is our Business Plan - not the same as before but what?
How can scholars and talents save us from all these even as they are paid top dollars ?
How can our GLCs compete when actually they are stifling the growth of our domestic economy.
So far, no new plans are announced to take all the above challenges into stride so how can we hope to have change and change for the better.
The BEST TALENTS are our own neglected in-house talents.
Sadly, they are not scholars and not given the chance to contribute.
They are actually our best assets but marginalized to a large extent at work and socially into EM3, Non-scholars, Not enough, Not as good as WE are,..
To get Singapore to the next level - remember to try MASS PARTICIPATION AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE APPLICATIONS AT ALL LEVELS.
They will get Singapore there. There is no need to hype on talents. Anyway talents had their opportunities to prove their worth during the Asian Financial Crisis and Last two recessions. Where were there?