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Singapore Defense Spending
Defense expenditures, which accounted for between 25
and 38
percent of the national budget in the 1960s and 1970s,
gradually
decreased to less than 10 percent in the 1980s. One of the
reasons
government leaders chose to establish a citizen's army in
the 1960s
was to enable the growth of the armed forces to keep pace
with the
growth of the economy. The pay-as-you-go principle worked
well for
Singapore. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the government
raised
taxes in order to pay for purchases of foreign military
equipment.
The largest increases occurred between 1968 and 1972.
Defense
budgets increased from US$100 million to US$249 million
during this
period, with the largest part of the budget allocated for
the
acquisition of tanks and naval vessels.
In 1971 defense was the largest component of the
budget.
Defense would have been a still larger portion of the
budget if
Britain had not provided US$94 million in grants and
US$281 million
in loans as part of a compensation package for the
withdrawal of
its armed forces. Singapore's takeover of British military
installations enabled the government to focus most of its
spending
on materiel, operations, and training. By 1973 when
defense
spending peaked at 38.9 percent of the national budget,
the army
was adequately equipped, and military planners began to
focus more
attention on the long-term needs of the armed forces,
particularly
the air force. In that year, military expenditures were
less than
17 percent of the budget. In 1988 an estimated US$1.1
billion was
spent on defense, which amounted to 7.5 percent of that
year's
total budget.
In response to the economic recession of 1985, the
government
instituted a five-year freeze on the size of the armed
forces but
continued to acquire new types of weapons and training
equipment
that were part of its ongoing modernization program. In
1986 the
defense budget was reduced by US$175 million from the
record high
US$1.2 billion figure spent in 1985, with the cuts being
apportioned throughout the armed forces. The five-year
freeze did
not affect national service. As new army units were formed
and
began their active service, other units were transferred
to the
reserves, and the longest serving reserve units were
deactivated.
The remainder of the cuts was absorbed through reduced
spending on
nonessential military supplies and certain types of
training (see
table 13, Appendix).
In the 1970s, the government established a number of
education
programs and increased military pay to encourage officers
and NCOs
to remain in the service. Officers were required to serve
three
years on active duty, after which most left to pursue more
lucrative professions. In 1971 the government began to
offer
scholarships to promising officers who agreed to reenlist
for at
least one additional tour of duty. The Overseas Training
Awards,
the first such program to be implemented, enabled
qualified
officers to earn undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in
management and other disciplines needed by the armed
forces at
prestigious universities and colleges in Western Europe
and the
United States. Many of the officers trained through this
program
accepted managerial and technical positions in the civil
service
after they completed their military obligation. Other
officers were
given scholarships to the National University of
Singapore,
Singapore Polytechnic Institute, and other local schools.
In the
early 1980s, more officers and noncommissioned officers
opted for
longer service because of pay increases and the tighter
labor
market resulting from the economic downturn in the civil
sector. In
1982 the salaries of 19,000 NCOs were raised an average of
26
percent at a cost to the government of US$25 million
annually.
Officer salaries no doubt were increased proportionally,
and the
government continued to increase military pay, albeit at
lower
levels, in subsequent years.
In 1987 the ruling People's Action Party agreed to the
establish most of a parliamentary committee to review
military
spending and provide a forum for public debate on defense
issues.
Prior to that, the government had closely monitored the
press and
discouraged the publication of articles critical of the
government's defense policies on the pretext that national
security
was the prerogative of the small number of government
officials
responsible for policy-making and budget decisions. In
1989 the
committee's primary function was to review the decisions
of the
executive branch on defense issues and to advise the
government
concerning public opinion about military spending.
However, the
committee lacked the power to change the government's
defense
policy or to amend the defense budget.
Data as of December 1989
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