S'pore defence budget up 6%

SINGAPORE, battling what is likely its worst-ever recession, plans to increase defence spending by 6.0 per cent from a year ago, estimates released on Thursday showed.
The government intends to spend $11.45 billion on defence during the 2009 fiscal year, the estimates showed.

In the budget, the government took the unprecedented move of tapping into its vast financial reserves as part of measures to fight the recession, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said during a speech in parliament.

Singapore, which has one of Asia's most advanced armed forces, spent $10.8 billion for defence in 2008, figures contained in the 2009 budget said.

The money will be used to purchase and maintain military equipment and facilities, and to pay the salaries of national servicemen.

The mission of the armed forces is to enhance peace and security through deterrence and diplomacy, but should these fail, the military will aim to 'secure a swift and decisive victory over the aggressor,' a statement on the Ministry of Defence website said.

Singapore has a population of more than 4.8 million people, 3.64 million of them citizens and permanent residents who provide the manpower for its conscription-based armed forces. -- AFP

Unless SAF is on a big recruitment drive, politically this isn't going to go down well with some. I'd thought that spending would remain level at best. This increase certainly would raise some eyebrows.

the increase is modest.

its probably aimed at showing that singapore aint gonna slack on defence even if the economy is bad and we are ready to defend wats ours.

in times of crisis like this... i feel that singapore need to show its committed to defending its sovereightny...

I think as long as this translates into more employment in the defence industry, it should be politically viable, domestically speaking.

think it won't draw too much flak. The budget report has a substantial increase in social development spending ( real terms not percentages )

Local media didnt even mention it.

Wonder if the kopitiam crowd are even aware of the increase. All eyes focused on the resilience package and gov paying employer's CPF.

If the gov suspended employers paying cpf, that might be politically significant

There are some murmurs over in the blogosphere over military spending, but I would agree that given any lack of touching the CPF sacred cow, it would be neglible in terms of political capital being diluted.

Dollars and cents matter more to the average Singaporean, and while some may kpkb about defence spending, it's probably an issue not too close to their hearts. However, the insurance issue with MINDEF should not happen again, it was utterly shameful.

If one analyses staff numbers and staff cost, that forms an insignificant part of Mindef expenditure. Most of it imho comprises facilities maintenance/building, equipment procurement and maintenance, external exercise expenditure.

~US$XXXm-1b per year is also spent on US FMS/DCS acquisition (based on sec 655 report) <-growing. All the ti-ti-tup-tup all add up to quite a sum (most of which are aircraft components).

The report also good source eg 2007 saw SAF buy 213 lasers for US$204k.

Then also see ST eng annual revenue (most of which comes from defence budget). That probably gives a relatively clear pic of where a significant amount of exp goes to.

Development exp include underground ammo dump and all the new camps cropping up. All not cheap. Even more cost than schools (which is why education budget also very high) for reinforced concrete and designs.

Elsewhere...

While others are facing the crunches, SG seems to be doing the opposite. Is this a diplomatic message that SG is sending to her adversaries, that we maybe down but not out? :rolleyes:

Crisis hits defence budgets

Jan 27, 2009

Crisis hits defence budgets

LONDON - THE global slowdown will stretch defence budgets worldwide, notably complicating the task of new US President Barack Obama as he switches foreign policy focus, a top thinktank said on Tuesday.

As Mr Obama moves to pull troops from Iraq and bolster forces in Afghanistan he will face continuing tensions with Nato allies, themselves also tightening belts at home, said the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Elsewhere, the thinktank's 'Military Balance 2009' noted Russia's bolstering of its military stance around the world, as national pride in the country's military forces swells in the wake of Russia's conflict with Georgia last year.

Mr Obama, who has moved quickly to reverse a series of his predecessor's policies since taking office last week, will find his administration constrained more than ever by the bottom line and domestic priorities.

'The Pentagon... will have to consider (its military priorities) in the context of an economic crisis that will inevitably call into question the level of defence spending,' the publication's editor James Hackett wrote.

'The effects of the banking crisis... will have an impact on defence establishments around the world.... Nations that have spent considerable sums on foreign operations... will find future military budgets pressured by the need to spend more on other domestic priorities,' it added.

While the Iraq surge had been a success, 'tensions remain over burden-sharing in Afghanistan,' it noted, saying NATO has 'increasing problems forging a common understanding of objectives for its mission in Afghanistan.'

The United States has been the main supporter of Afghanistan since it led an invasion that drove the hardline Taleban from government in Kabul in 2001, but Washington has long battled to drum up military support from its allies.

About 32,000 US troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan to fight Taleban-led insurgents. Up to 30,000 more are expected to arrive over the coming year, but Mr Obama is also expected to press his European allies to more troops too.

The IISS also noted that Al-Qaeda elements along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in particular, 'increased their activity in Pakistan while continuing to support the insurgency in Afghanistan.'

In Russia meanwhile pride in its armed forces, which collapsed after the Cold War, 'is being restored, not only by a more prominent international posture and the victory in Georgia, but also by a raised profile at home.'

'The continuing expansion of US and Nato activities into Russia's traditional sphere of interest is a driving force behind its current military posture,' it noted.

'Certain of these activities are viewed as a direct threat by Moscow.'

Elsewhere in the study, IISS noted that former US president George W. Bush's 'surge' in troops stationed in Iraq 'undoubtedly worked in terms of dramatically reducing civilian casualties and pausing Iraq's previously relentless descent into civil war.'

It added, though, that 'despite the improvements there was little sign ...that this 'window of opportunity', conceived to allow Iraq's politicians to move towards national reconciliation, had resulted in such progress and, as a result, questions have been raised about the longevity of its effects.'

So Iraq is not going to go away as a problem any time soon, and could yet swallow more huge sums of money at a time when cash is short for military operations around the world.

'While the long-term consequences of the banking crisis on public finances are not yet clear, how governments move to balance these competing priorities will be of prime importance in the year ahead,' wrote the IISS. -- AFP

Where are you getting your figures from?

Again where are you getting your figures from?

51% of ST Engineering's revenue is derived from outside Asia. Of the balance 49%, a large part of it comes from China and other non-military revenue sources. The balance that is SAF military related can hardly be construed as "most of which comes from defence budget".

Mindef exp.

http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/revenue_...NDEF_EE2009.pdf

For ST eng's exp, one can analyse their annual reports for details.

As to Mr Boey's article, a good read for propaganda. However, a bit kwa chang. One can half the RSN budget and yet still tackle pirates, if that is the only concern, effectively. One does not need investment in FFGs or Fokker 50s to tackle pirates. Still, the thrust of justifying mil exp is there.

Mil exp is like buying insurance. The value is best seen when the unthinkable happens...

Yet as the financial crisis shows, insurance companies are not immune to economics either and require strong regulatory regimes.

US to propose independent office for weapon's cost estimates...
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3926970&c=AME&s=TOP

Interesting ...

I had a look in there too ... and based on the budget report, how do you analyse that "staff numbers and staff cost" forms an "insignificant part of MINDEF espenditure".

I think you have been careless in reading the budget report ...

The statements I made are from ST's annual report. I'm interested in, assuming you've gone through ST's annual report, how you can surmise that "ST eng annual revenue (most of which comes from defence budget)."

Your statement may have been true 10 years ago. Their revenue stream has changed dramatically since then. I'd conjecture that Mindef now only accounts for <20% of their total revenue ...

Care to dispute that?

Just to explain what I meant by that ...

There are no figures in the budget report for Numbers and Salary figures for the SAF in the budget report.

The figures that you do see for staff numbers and figures are actually for Mindef only. The actual numbers and salary figures for the SAF itself are hidden in the massive S$10.94 billion chunk of "Other Operating Expenditure" - (2900) Military Expenditure ... which also includes procurement and maintenance.

If you do have other means of deriving total salary expenditure for the SAF, it certainly isn't from the budget report.

lol. Time to look at details.

$18.54m out of a $10,900m budget to me, is a little insignificant. Granted, that excludes SAF regulars, NSF and NSmen. Let's look at estimates.

DSTA reports ~50,000 Mindef civilians, SAF regulars and NSF. Each intake of NSF is ~20k which = 40k. Less 1.5k civilians = ~10k SAF regulars.

Assuming SAF regulars are 10 times the number of Mindef civilian ie 15k. That still requires only $180m per year as budget.

Taking a more ridiculous number.

Median salary is ~$3.5k per month. Let's take $5k and $80k per year + bonus = $800m.

Now add NSF, assuming avg pay is $1k per month (its mostly 1/3 of that) = $12k per year. 40k NSF = $480m.

Add NSman. Assume 1 month recall at $5k median salary (most lower) avg per year. 300,000 NSmen x $5k = $1.5b. Most serve far less per year than 1 month and don't earn $5k a month.

At the max, staff cost will occupy $2.78b out of a budget of $10.9b or ~25%. More likely staff cost is easily less than 1/2 that.

So where does the difference go?

Maintenance contracts are part of it. In 1 year alone,

ST eng announced a ~$400m RSN submarine maintenance contract.
$78m for 6 years of weapons maintenance
$393m for C130 modernisation and 16 Skyhawk maintenance.
$105m for G550 training
$20m for additional training.

That's not counting ammo sales, upgrades, engine servicing (which is another significant cost)

The bronco deal was $3.3m each. Assuming 300 broncos and 600 Bionixes, I'd estimate ~$300m a year for at least a decade.

The primus and arty/mortar deals are probably less of a small scale. Not counting SAR-21.

The other big item is of course the 6 FFGs and before that the 4 endurance. Easily another $200-300m a year for a decade.

Foreign acquisitions....

Air force wise, 24 F-15s probably cost S$3.6b (probably amortised over 10-20 years which is $180-360m a year). Add 4 G550s. Add the F16 purchase which is probably still amortised. Add the AH-64s, chinooks. Add missiles, training etc.

July 2008 - US$962m (S$1.4b) for F-15 weapons.
Sep 2007 - US$330m (S$495m) for Himars
Aug 2007 - US$200m (S$300m) for GBUs and training
Jul 2006 - US$301m ($450m) for GBUs and training

How about the 100 leopard 2s. Then new Hermes 450 UAVs + radars.

That's easily $2-3b a year in equipment expenditure.

Then add SG's FMS/DCS exp avg $500m a year...

Cost of networking....

Then no need to add training in India, France, Brunei, Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, all free one ah...

Still haven't counted cost of underground cavern. All the new camps.... That won't come free.

What about maintenance of numerous army camps, airbases, naval base etc? All free one ah?

I have stated that imho the bulk of mindef's expenditure goes into facilities maintenance/building, equipment procurement and maintenance, external exercise expenditure.

If that is not the case, then where in your expert opinion does the money go to?

Bribes?

Somehow I think this is going to be another of those arguing for the sake of arguing kind of thread...

Defence is never a "Kwa Chang" issue....the saying in chinese to rear an army for thousand days, to use it once - that once could mean the difference between survival and death.

Defence budget whether its too big or small, is only seen or understood by us who do not have the entire picture (entire Singapore picture). Also, we must understand that there are some infor which are out of bounds to us.

I only know and believe that whatever it is, our defence must continue to be strong and our policies and resolve must never waiver. The government would have experts to come up with figures which they would substantiate with evidence, that would make Singapore safer.

I think the defence budget is one aspect which would be maintained or even increased, unless the economic situation is so very dire that makes it absolutely necessary.....other than that we can see from pass slowdowns that SG strives to increase our edge (technological / numerical / both) over our neighbours during such times....

Yes, I'll agree that $18.54 million is insignificant. That is what the meaning of the word "insignificant" means. I had figured the wage bill to be ~20% of budget, which by my books is hardly insignificant. But that's not my argument.

I was more curious with where you are getting your figures from ... afaik, it couldn't be from the Budget Report since it doesn't contain any SAF salary expenditure figures. I surmised it must have been from your own estimates, and you have kindly proven that it is based on your own estimates.

That being the case, when people ask you where you got your figures from, please don't attempt to make it legitimate by one-lining a link to the budget report. You have in the past few threads attempted to gloss over proof-of-claims by putting up spurious substantiation ... it is starting to become a trend.

I'm not quite sure of the relevance of your explaining where the rest of the defense expenditure goes. It's a given that it goes to the areas you've outlined and it was not what was asked of you.

What was asked was ... where is your proof of claim that "most" of ST Eng's revenue is from SAF expenditure. You do realise what is implied by your usage of the term "most of"? In any case, I doubt your above figures are to prove SAF-ST income flow since it includes expenditures that have no relation whatsoever to ST Eng ... such as the few billions you listed for foreign expenditure.

So ... The question is, where is your substantiation that SAF's expenditure forms a major part of STEng's income stream? If your substantiation is your own estimates then please say so. Please do not try to quote ST Eng's annual reports to legitimise your claims because your claimed figures are not in there.

You may choose to view it this way and continue to be annoyed by my request for proper substantiation. In actuality, it's more that no one's gonna believe everything you claim unless it (i) agrees with what they think is correct or (ii) is proven to them in a considered manner.

It's not about disrespecting your opinions and it's not because I think I know everything. However, without knowing you, your credentials and without the benefit of a credible posting history ... do you honestly expect me to believe everything you say?

Personally, I like this forum for local defence matters and I'd like to keep the posting standard high. There are enough sh!tty forums out there as it is.

lol. What is a trend is your constant attempts to exaggerate issues.

I've stated that Mindef's expenditure on staff cost is insignificant. My basis is the $18.54 mil which is clearly stated in the link posted.

If you can't accept that, too bad. lol.

The best part is the claim that every figure is an estimate. lol.

Look how carefully you have glossed over the main reason of your original disssent ie the focus of my post which is the following:

"I have stated that imho the bulk of mindef's expenditure goes into facilities maintenance/building, equipment procurement and maintenance, external exercise expenditure."

Your tactics is to discredit even when a person post links and figures but I don't see your links.

Same thing with the US budget thread. Look how carefully you used my link AFTER I posted it. Same thing here how you can claim oh you had the impression so and so AFTER my links are posted.

Don't read much about your views, just your standard irrelevant contradictions. I think I have decided to ignore your posts. Thank you and have a nice day.

Really now? If my original point of "dissent" was just that "the bulk of mindef's expenditure goes into ....", I'd be yelling at myself too, because I do agree that the bulk of Mindef's expenditure does go into those areas.

My original point of dissent was quoted as follows ...

I see you conveniently left out the first half. I had asked for clarification because I was wondering how you analysed those figures for staff numbers and staff cost.

You are aware that there is a difference between
i) Mindef (The actual Ministry of Defence), which has the staff numbers ~1,500 and wage bills of $18.54 million listed in the budget report. Let's call this Mindef-HQ
ii) Mindef (The budgetary section which includes Mindef HQ and the SAF), which does not have staff numbers and wage bills in the budget report

If you are referring to just Mindef-HQ, why go on to talk about procurement, buildings, exercises, etc? Those come under the Armed Forces budget (2900 - Military Expenditure). The operating cost of Mindef-HQ is given as $63.52 million in total ... of which a wage bill of $18.54 million (29%) is no longer insignificant.

If you are referring to Mindef, as in the budget organ including the SAF, with a total budget of $11,000 million, then why attempt to quote figures of $18.54 million for salaries and link to the budget report?

This is similar to your attempts to legitimise your claims on STVOL/FARP operations by false inferences.

Speaking of glossing over issues ... I haven't seen your reply on "most" of ST Eng's source of income being from the SAF, especially since you tried to legitimise it with their Annual Reports. Who's glossing over issues now?

I'm not trying to shout ... I just don't want you to miss this point ... or gloss it over.

I did mention right from the start that my source was the US Treasury figures. I used your links because the best way to discredit someone's argument is to use links that they themselves posted. They may argue about your sources but they can't dispute sources that they themselves put up for scrutiny.

If you want my links, just ask. Have you asked yet? If you had asked, I could even have given you a link which has all the US budget data nicely in Excel format so that you don't have to manually punch a calculator. Did you dispute my troop level figures? If you had asked, I would have given you another link with US troop levels for all countries and continents from the Korean war onwards. Stop flattering yourself that others are copying from your links.

I have posted in this forum for quite a while now. I started out linking every single claim I made. It was tiresome but given my newbie status, I felt it was only polite. Give people time to make an assessment of my credibility. Linking everything is tiresome, so I stopped doing this. I felt that my posting history will give credibility to my points. I have yet to receive complaints from the more discerning members of this site with regards to this.

I don't expect you to link on first instance everything you claim, but I do expect you to be able to provide proof on demand ... I think the other members of this forum would too.

Because I understand that everyone has their own views and opinions. Views and Opinions don't have a definite right or wrong. I don't see the need to impose my views on others, nor do I have time to indulge in opinion based arguments where both can be correct ... so I tend to stay out of politics and opinion based discussion. I'm content to just read and absorb.

Facts on the other hand are immutable. I tend to get involved in these more because there is a black and a white to this and I'd hate very much for this forum to be dominated by people whose opinions are based on spurious data.

I will venture an opinion on your comment ... as the relative newcomer to this forum, the onus is on you to prove your credentials and not the other way around. Take the time to find out what posting history the old timers have before you start going around dismissing everyone that disagrees with you.

It is also rather childish to resort to ignoring someone when you have no answer to their rebuttals. So to stoop to the same level, I'll end this post with another infantile behaviour you seem so fond of ...

lol

Just a slight comment, the Malaysian defence figures is always slightly skewered due to the inclusion of funding of the compulsory summer camp program that is called National Service

Now that you've brought the 'summer camp experience' :P up , roughly how much money is spent on that?

~RM600m a year.

According to the 2007 MOD annual report (2008 report not out yet), MYR666 million was allocated (188million USD) for the national service programme from a total Ministry operating expenditure budget of MYR9.39 billion

Edit: forgot to add operating expenditure

Damn, that's more significant than I thought. Thanks for the numbers, both of you. So in effect, the Malaysian military is subsidizing this national education effort. Their generals can't be very happy about that.

Wouldn't really say that as the money on NS in Malaysia may not have been given to the Ministry at all if it wasn't administrating the NS programme, the allocation for NS is factored in when giving the money to MOD, the budget just gets skewered in terms of calculating how much Malaysia spends on defence without factoring a portion is spent on a non-defence programme.

Edited to add: The Malaysian defence budget consists of two seperate parts OE (operating expenditure) and DE (development expenditure), DE is for procurement and infrastructure construction. NS is under OE

And not forgetting contingency budgets...

Oh, ok. At least the program got funded via a top-up. But... 600 million ringgit. Do the politicians really think they're getting their taxpayer's money's worth? :unsure: Tsk tsk. There's got to be so many more things they can better spend that chunk of money on. Heck, if they invested that into their education budget, I think they would gain more.

is RM666M a lot? what is the number of trainee per cohort? if assuming 30,000 at any one time in the program, that comes to RM1,850 per month per trainee. this would include feeding and equipping them, amortising the facilities, maybe also include the salary of the trainers?

now if the trainers are actually in server personnel and their salary gets paid for by the program, in effect MOD gains by not having to pay their salary.

Well, there's the economic downtrickle provided by those companies/individual contracted to provide training, build the camps, transport the trainees and provide them with uniforms, supplies etc. Naturally the opposition here has a fair bit to say about how this is done :D but this is going OT, for those able to read BM, the MOD website does have the 2005 and 2006 annual report available for download (14mb+ pdf file) with the first 30 pages giving the budget figures

http://www.mod.gov.my/index.php?option=com...=126&Itemid=261

Edit: To add to five-two, the wikipedia entry pretty much explains the system here at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_National_Service

110,000 intake every year. RM450 per person per month = RM150m given as salary. Bank fees was a big issue.

110,000 per year at three months each would give you only 27,500 at any time. wow I am impressed by my thumb-in-the-air :lol:

Yup. 27,500 x 12 x 450 = 110,000 x 3 x 450 = ~RM150m.

That's still 110,000 a year learning how to shoot the M-16, summer camp or not.

It's only a day course, 8 hours theory and 1 day shooting practice, hardly something to really worry about, more like those going to thailand and paying money to shoot at one of the rifle ranges for fun and honestly, Malaysia could train all the ppl it wanted and it'll still mean nothing when you don't have rifles to hand out :rolleyes:

http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=42421

No matter how high the defence budget as long it is spent wisely, it will still be good for Singapore. Unlike some other countries where the funds are channelled to other purposes. ;)

unfortunately the M16 gangs does have the rifles :blink:

So in future, not only get robbed by m-16 armed pple, but also know they're trained to use it as well...even in SG, didn't we have love sick guy(s) who kena charged for taking M-16 out illegally?

I thought it was an SAR21?

I think what is more frightening is not that they know how to use it, its that they were only trained to use it for ONE DAY :lol: so they might actually shoot you by accident :rolleyes:

Reminds me of an incident when the range officer shouted ceasefire and then a shot went off. When asked why he shot after the ceasefire order was given, the excuse was the specs fogged up!!??? That was many many years ago.

Sorry I was thinking that number being trained was in connection to a military manpower strength context hence my comment. Anyway we've had criminals in the past using M-16s before the M-16 gang and sadly some of them were ex-military but I don't think it would make any difference crimewise in regard to the NS firearms module, anyone wanting to use an M-16 in crime would get some training/instruction in it's use anyhow. It's not that easy to obtain the weapons here though we have had some thefts from the armoury but that happens in all militaries (I can tell you a story about the aussie sergeant who stole a GPMG)
Anyway the NS program as I mention isn't really that major, I read somewhere that only 20 rounds allocated to each trainee. Not sure if you all are aware of this but you can easily get trained on M-16s etc just by joining the reserves in Malaysia or even before that via Uni ROTCs and school cadet corps, also sometimes there are arrangements for corporate events where the military organizes shooting events for various parties and also the media shooting events. Frankly it's easy enough to get firearms training etc in Malaysia if you know ppl or join the shooting clubs here, or even the banks as bank officers are sometimes invited to join their bank security guards for firearms practice.