National Service, a thing of the past.

So I'm about to enter National Service and frankly I'm none too keen. For those who have yet to enter, are in the process of completing it or have already done it I'm sure you feel the same. Now before you go all out and condemn me as being a coward or unpatriotic let me state my case. National Service is quite frankly a by-product of the tumultuous period known as the Cold War. It was a period of great uncertainty, a period where the entire world could descend into war and chaos faster than you could blink. The kind of war which saw massive amounts of men and material being pitted against each other. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the progress of humanity such wars no longer exist. The war of today and most likely the future will be low-intensity conflicts, where numbers do not count for much. The deciding factor in conflicts of the future would be superior training and technology, as it has always been. In fact I am of the opinion that as technology progresses it will change the very way we fight wars and render a number of equipment obsolete. One of which is the Main Battle Tank (MBT). The tank has dominated ground warfare since the close of the First World War and has played a large role in wars since. But I feel that it's time has come. Greater development in Exo-skeleton technology will eventually render the tank obsolete. In fact the tank has played a peripheral role in every major conflict since the First Gulf War. In Eastern Europe, NATO forces found it hard to bring their heavy equipment to bear as the infrastructure of the villages they had to traverse simply could not support the weight of their heavy armour. In Afghanistan the terrain simply does not allow the tank any maneuvering space, relegating it as a static fire support piece. In Iraq the built up cities and villages are a death trap for any armour units. Frankly speaking, the tank was built for a period which has come and gone a long time ago, it is simply not relevant in the wars of today and tomorrow. And this brings me on to my main point. National Service was instated at a time where the world was a very uncertain place, a time where settling problems with high explosive was the preferred option. This meant that a large standing army was needed to show the other nations that you were not one to be trifled with. In this day and age National Service is frankly unnecessary. What we need now is not numbers, what we need now is a fluid, lean, well-trained and well-equipped force. Being someone who has studied the various forms of warfare I know full well what part reservists play in a conflict. Simply put they are cannon fodder. Reservist units are meant to hold and defend places while the real work is done by line units. For a country like Singapore where manpower is a premium this is a very wasteful strategy. Another point I would like to make is our equipment. The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is supposed to be a defensive force, but our equipment is that of an offensive first strike military. Why we bought the Leopard 2A4 Evolution tanks is beyond me. South-East Asia is not a place where one conducts armoured warfare. The Americans learned this in Vietnam. It is possibly an answer to Malaysia's acquisition of the PT-91 tank which is simply the Polish version of the T-72 built by Russia. But honestly, do we need to feel threatened by a Polish copy of a Russian tank? Aren't the massive amounts of 155mm artillery and our recent acquisition of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) more than capable of pummeling any potential invaders into little fine pieces? And then there is our navy. If I'm not mistaken Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels are used to deploy amphibious forces, which is only necessary if you're invading someone, so why do we have them? And then there are the stealth frigates. Stealth is an offensive technology, you do not want your defenses to be unseen, defences are there to be seen so that they can act as a deterrent. Why do we need stealth frigates to defend our waterways? Are pirates that well-equipped these days that we need stealth to defeat them? But the greatest perpetrator of waste is the Air Force. We have the most advanced and well equipped Air Force in South-East Asia. In fact I believe that we are more well-equipped than Taiwan, Australia, all the states in Africa, South America, Eastern Europe and a number of Gulf States. We boast the latest generation of F-16 and F-15 aircraft, both of which are strike aircraft, pure offensive weapons. While I do concede that our navy and air force are our first line of defence and their procurement of the very best can be justified to a certain extent I believe that our army needs downsizing. Which means that we should either scrap or shorten National Service. It is to my knowledge that there are still some units which are under-equipped even when they go on large scale exercises. What is the use of having the men when we do not have the material? Cannon fodder? By stream lining our armed forces we can not only save a couple of quid in our nations coffers, we can also save the time of the people who are forced to serve. And this of course includes me.