Keeping it Within the Circle

 

The official news today is that Read-Admiral (two-star) Aaron Beng, age 41 will be taking over as Chief of Defense Force from Lieutenant-General Melvyn Ong, age 47. Admiral Beng will be making history as the first-ever navel officer to become Singapore’s top military officer. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/navy-chief-aaron-beng-takes-over-chief-defence-melvyn-ong-mindef-3296136

 

 There will undoubtedly be the usual mutterings from the online crowd about another “untested” scholar taking over a top government job and one might argue that running the head of an armed force that has never seen a day in combat shouldn’t bother anyone in particular.

However, Singapore is a nation with conscription (Yes, I did my two and a half years in a combat vocation in a combat role) and the armed forces are a reflection of the society at large and if you look at the people who have become Chief of Defense Force (CDF), you’ll notice that its become something of an old boys club. Of the ten of Admiral Beng’s predecessors, eight were from the army (3 Guardsmen, two from the artillery and infantry, armor and signals getting a single representative in the group). Of the two air force men who got the job, only Bey Soo Khiang (as a matter of full disclosure, I did present to him twice during my national service days) stayed in the job for more than two-years. The other, Lt-General Ng Chee Meng was catapulted into a ministerial position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_Defence_Force_(Singapore)

 

 The job of the Chief of Defense in any country is a challenging one. The job is primarily a diplomatic one, where Chiefs of Defense meet with each other as part of international war games and he (they inevitably are) is the bridge between the armed forces and the political leadership of the nation. To do this, he needs to be trusted by the political leadership but at the same time needs to command the respect of the men on the ground. Take the example of General Mark Miley, who was careful never to criticize President Donald Trump but at the same time made great pains to tell the troops that their oath is the constitution rather than to the individual in the office.

In way, Singapore’s top brass has it easy. Our generals are all young (all of them took the job before 50) and all of them have lucrative post-military careers. In a region famous for military coups, our generals have stayed in the barracks. In cynic might argue that there’s no need to have a coup when you just need to wait your turn.

However, just because our armed forces have thus far remained subservient to the political leadership, there’s no guarantee that this will be forever so. What if, for example, there’s enough of a public outcry about generals taking lucrative jobs in the public sector and the Prime Minister of the day decides to put an end to the current system. If that were to happen, who is to say that his or her generals would remain loyal?

Whilst this scenario looks unlikely in Singapore, you will notice that the defense chiefs in countries that often under military rule are inevitably from the same force – the army. Take Pakistan for example. Of the 18 men who have served as Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), only three have been from other forces. The last non army man to be CDS in Pakistan was Air-Chief Marshal Feroz Khan, who was appointed by the late Benazir Bhutto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff_Committee

 

 In Thailand, which, to all intents and purposes is controlled by the military, you also have the same thing. The last CDF in Thailand from outside the navy was Admiral Narong Yuthavong, who served back in 2001.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_Defence_Forces_(Thailand)

 

 The key issue here is that when one armed force becomes much powerful that the others, it creates a situation where cliques are formed around the levers of power and loyalty goes to the person who put you in that position rather than to the system itself.

Hence, there is a rotation of who becomes Chief of Defense in mature democracies. It isn’t always an exact balance, some services to get more time at the top but its not to the extent where everything becomes controlled by people from a particular force. The USA even goes the extra mile of ensuring that special exemption needs to be granted by Congress in order for a former general who has retired from service less than seven-years to be even considered for Secretary of Defense (as was the case with both Jim Mathis and Lloyd Austin).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_of_the_Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff

 

 

Both Australia and the United Kingdom also make it a point of rotating the top job between the services:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_the_Defence_Force_(Australia)

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_the_Defence_Staff_(United_Kingdom)

 

 Rotating the top job amongst the three services, isn’t unique to the Western world. In order to asset greater civilian control over the armed forces, countries that used to suffer from military coups start promoting officers from other branches.

Take Indonesia as an example. In the  days of Suharto, the commander of the armed forces was inevitably from the army (which was Suharto’s power base.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_of_the_Indonesian_National_Armed_Forces

 

However, when Indonesia had its first democratic election and saw the ascent of Gus Dur into the presidency, navy and air force officers started getting to the top.

 

 This is also the case in Nigeria, which was until the 1990s, infamous for being run by various military dictators. However, once General Abdulsalami Abubakar started returning the country back to civilian control in 1998, you started seeing officers from other forces taking the top job:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_the_Defence_Staff_(Nigeria)#:~:text=The%20current%20chief%20of%20the,Abayomi%20Olonisakin%20in%20January%202021.

 

 

 One of the ironies of military coups is that the institution that gets damaged worst by the military coup is the military itself. Generals at the top start to be more interested in power than being good at fighting. Everything becomes about looking after your clique instead of building an effective fighting force (much as I may not like to admit it – the army is not the be all and end all of a war). Look at the record of Pakistan’s military, which has a history of taking over the country. Sure, its powerful within Pakistan but its been squashed in every conflict with India, where the armed forces are under the “jackboots of civilian control.” Burma’s military doesn’t exactly have a great record of keep insurgents in check, even if its been pretty good at butchering civilians.

Stable societies don’t have coups. There’s a clear parallel between stable societies and diversity at the top of the military and its not just limited to the military. Diversity at the top with change every so often keeps things moving.

Singapore’s military planners should take note of this and hopefully Admiral Beng will not be the last officer to take the CDF job.