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June 30, 2026

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Defence not just about capabilities, intention also matters: Chan Chun Sing

“We are not at war, but neither are we at peace in the conventional sense,” says Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing on CNA’s Deep Dive podcast.

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SINGAPORE: As countries build their defence capabilities, it is important they signal to others what their intentions are, so as to prevent suspicion, Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing said.

“If you have no capabilities, nobody’s going to talk to you, and nobody’s going to talk to you nicely. But if you have capabilities and you don’t talk to people, it causes a lot of suspicions,” he said on CNA’s Deep Dive podcast.

“Then people might be wondering what you’re up to, and if people are suspicious of each other, what you do to make yourself feel more secure will make the other guy feel less secure, and you start taking actions.”

Every action has an opposite reaction, he added.

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This is why events such as the Shangri-La Dialogue are important, because defence diplomacy is at work.

“What’s the most important thing is to understand people deeply behind the scenes to ascertain the intentions, not just the capabilities … Because you can have capabilities, but it is your intention that matters,” he said.

It is important to partner with other nations, as this allows countries to compare notes and check for blind spots.

“If we just talk among ourselves, then we might convince ourselves. This is what they call the echo chamber effect.

“But when you look at it from a different perspective, and you say, talk to your friends, talk to your neighbours, people might have a slightly different perspective,” said Mr Chan.

Defence diplomacy is also about putting in place mechanisms that can hopefully avert conflicts or misunderstandings, he added.

“In a very complex world where people may not agree with one another, how do we maintain our value propositions to different partners? And these partners, they may or may not be able to work with one another, but we must be able to work with them,” he said.

This is why Singapore regularly sends people overseas and receives people here – to cultivate deep understanding and to detect subtle shifts.

“When people start to recalculate their positions, we must be there to know whether there are any shifts. Because if you don’t, then your reaction time will be behind the curve.”

Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing (centre) hosts his fellow counterparts during a ministerial roundtable at the 23rd IISS Shangri-La Dialogue on May 30, 2026. (Photo: CNA/Ili Mansor)

IMPROVING HARDWARE

During the podcast, Mr Chan also touched on a wide range of topics, including military spending.

For Singapore, the first guiding principle in defence spending is to never have a “feast and famine strategy”, he said.

The “feast and famine” approach refers to a pattern of alternating between periods of severe scarcity and periods of abundance.

“Some people say ‘oh, I’ve got a bonus, I go and buy a lot of stuff’. But if you don’t maintain it, you don’t have the capability to maintain it, you are not going to stretch your defence dollar.

“You will just buy the stuff, it will go and start to degenerate and rot, and then you don’t get anything. So the first thing is to never have a feast and famine strategy,” said Mr Chan.

This strategy has less to do with money and more to do with human capital, he added.

“Because you can have the money, you can go and buy something, but do you have the technical people that can operate it, that can maintain it? Otherwise, it will become a piece of junk quite soon,” he added.

When buying something, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) calculates the life cycle cost instead of just the upfront cost.

“Do we have the real money to make sure that we sustain this capability? Because we need to do justice to what we have and be answerable to parliament and the people of Singapore.

“And it’ll be irresponsible for us to go and buy something just to show people, but we can’t really operate it,” said Mr Chan.

An Army Deployment Force (ADF) sparrow drone demonstration at Mandai Hill Camp on Apr 9, 2026. (Photo: CNA/Ooi Boon Keong)

Mr Chan also spoke about a “quiet confidence” for the SAF.

“You know what you have, your people know what they have, but we don’t have to brag about it. We don’t have to trigger other people to do this,” he added.

“That’s why one of my previous permanent secretaries used to teach us … What is success in the SAF? He said, when you have designed a capability, you build up the capability, you have operationalised it, you maintain its operational readiness, you never have to use it, you retire it, and nobody knew about it.

“That is success.”

Singapore does not need to show people “everything that we have”, it just needs to show enough to tell potential aggressors not to “try to be funny”.

“We are not at war, but neither are we at peace in the conventional sense,” he added.

HEARTWARE

The way national servicemen are medically classified will change next year. Cohorts enlisting from October 2027 will no longer be assigned a Physical Employment Standard (PES) status – a system that has been in place since the 1970s.

Addressing the reasons for the change, Mr Chan told CNA’s Deep Dive that the SAF has the privilege of being a conscript armed force.

“We can plan our manpower 20 years ahead. We are not like some other armed forces, where, oh, this year I can’t recruit enough people.

“So, I have always told the SAF this very simple truth. You know how many people are coming in 18 years later. You better start preparing your operational concepts 18 years ahead,” he said.

But the people must feel that they have agency and that they can contribute based on what they can do and what they want to do, he added.

Mr Chan said: “If we have a one-size fit or a very blunt instrument, you don’t actually allow our people to contribute to the best of their abilities … you will never win over their commitment, because I want to feel that I’m contributing.

“Yes, everybody can complain about having to serve (national service) … but everybody will say that if I have to serve, I want to make sure that I make the best use of my time. I can do something meaningful, I can contribute something meaningful.

“So that’s very important. So this is why we have adjusted the way we not only do the medical classification system, but also where we assign people.”

Matching people to what they want to contribute and learn can strengthen commitment to defence, he said.

National Service (NS) recruits going through their SAF Basic Military Training (BMT). (File photo: TODAY)

Moreover, with a more educated national service armed forces, it is important for commanders not just to issue orders, but to explain the reasons.

“In a lot of militaries, from ancient militaries to now, people have this image that you tell the soldiers what to do, you teach the soldiers how to do. But actually, we have always learnt from the Germans what we call the ‘Auftragstaktik’, you don’t tell the soldier what to do or how to do per se. That’s not the most important.

“You must tell the soldier why he’s doing what he’s doing. And I have experienced this myself. So, when we give mission orders, you can tell the subordinate commanders, ‘do this, do this, do this’, and then they’ll just execute.

“But if they don’t understand the intent of what you want to do and achieve with your plan, they can’t make those adjustments when circumstances change. So, this is very fundamental to the training of the SAF soldiers and commanders,” said Mr Chan.

But the SAF is not just looking at soldiers, but also how many more people can contribute to Singapore’s defence.

A new defence volunteer network was launched in May, comprising 10 civilian volunteer schemes and capacity for almost 400 new volunteers.

“I think many, including the females and the new citizens, they want to feel that sense of being able to contribute to defence, and they may not do what the enlisted NS men have done, but they can contribute in many ways,” said Mr Chan.

For example, media personalities can help with information operations; doctors and lawyers can assist with their specialised skillsets, or they may want to do something else and manage command and control systems and logistics instead.

“Different strokes for different folks, but it allows them to have a sense of camaraderie, the sense of solidarity of having served national service in some way or the other,” he said.

Mr Chan added: “I mean, for us, we are so small, right? I always say there’s no frontline, backline; we are all on the line.

“We are not waiting for people to come here and take us out, and then we try and figure out how to recover from that. We need to see beyond the horizon.”