The need for defence

There was a letter in Saturday (27 Jan 2007) forum of The Straits Times, in which a reader wrote in about the use of our budget. It probably triggered from the ongoing GST talks, as Singapore is going to increase our GST (aka VAT) so as to provide a source of funding for more welfare (called Workfare in Singapore) benefits.

A large portion of Singapore's budget is spent on defence. The reader's comment was that, since "war is neither imminent nor anywhere near imminent", why are we spending so much on defence? Well... it does make perfect sense that you don't spend on something that you don't need now, or something that you are not going to need in the future. But then, defence, like insurance, is something that you don't know when you will need, and by the time you know, it is usually too late to try and get started.

Defence is like insurance. You acquire it with the hope that you never have to use it. Also, with the new security environment of transnational terrorism threats, militaries are called upon to do more than they traditionally had to do. With expanded roles, costs can only go up, or at the very least maintain as they were.

So cutting defence spending for welfare benefits is like reducing your insurance premiums so that you can finance the car loan. You can't expect the insurance company to still cover you for everything that you used to be covered for when you are paying them less.