The APPSMO Advantage: Strategic Opportunities

The following sections are included:

• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• Commentary on Ministerial Keynote Addresses
  • STRATEGIC INSIGHTS FROM APPSMO: REVIEW OF MINISTERIAL KEYNOTE ADDRESSES (1999–2015)

I was involved in the organisation of the first four editions of the annual Asia Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers, with the inaugural in August 1999. The first three editions were called ‘Summer Camp’ for Senior Military Officers from the Asia Pacific. It became known as the Asia Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO) from 2002 till the present…

From the start, the Summer Camp was not all work and no play. In fact, play was inter-woven in the programme as icebreakers and recreation for the participants. After arrival at Sentosa, the participants were organised into two or more groups to engage in beach soccer or volleyball and some other sport on the beach beside the hotel. This was followed by a welcome dinner, a poolside barbeque, with the IDSS staff and lecturers. A round of golf was also arranged for some interested officers at the Sentosa Golf Club, which proved popular with some participants from neighbouring countries. However, this recreational sport stopped after a few years because of diminishing interest…

Defence diplomacy is a key concept in today’s lexicon on Asia Pacific security. This reflects how the security agenda in the region has evolved to include efforts to foster dialogue and opportunities for interaction between military officers, defence planners, and security officials of the Asia Pacific countries at both Track One and Track Two levels…

I remember attending APPSMO in August 2007 as a Battalion Commander, not entirely clear what it was all about. I had graduated from the Indonesian Command and Staff College only two years before that and up till then, my life had been an endless series of military readiness exercises and field training. As a Battalion Commander, you tend to pay attention to very little else save for the unit and men and women under you…

To set the context for my reflections on APPSMO, I need to take a few steps back and talk about a related programme: APPSNO. In March 2006, I was tasked by then-Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS — renamed the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies or RSIS in January 2007), Ambassador Barry Desker, to set up the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) as a component research unit within IDSS/RSIS. From the get-go, one of the flagship programmes of CENS would be what I persuaded colleagues in the Singapore government to agree to call APPSNO — the Asia Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers. With the cooperation of my colleagues in the National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS) in the Prime Minister’s Office, I rejigged existing ad-hoc security courses for mid-level civil servants across the ministries as part of the process of creating APPSNO. As Head of CENS, I oversaw eight memorable runs of APPSNO from 2007–2014, before handing the reins of CENS — and responsibility of oversight for future APPSNOs — over to my distinguished successor Dr Shashi Jayakumar.

The China–US relationship is increasingly of a complicated nature. On the one hand, this relationship keeps expanding along a mutually beneficial trajectory. Their trade and investment relations are largely a major stabilising factor which assures that such a partnership would not derail. On many non-traditional security issues, such as antiterror, climate change, and curbing global pandemics, they have also increasingly collaborated. In addition, their people-to-people interaction significantly lays the foundation of a stable bilateral relationship…

I was privileged to be an invited speaker at APPSMO on 13 occasions from 2002 to 2012. As such, I was able to observe both the admirable qualities of the programme and also how it developed so as to meet the changing needs of the senior military officers who took part. I was first invited to give the opening academic address in 2000, and gave versions of that talk each year until 2012. In reflecting on my experiences, I want to cover three main topics: What were the main features of APPSMO? How did my presentation change during the 13 years I presented at the programme? And, how did APPSMO help senior military officers understand the security environment of the Asia Pacific region?

The highlight of every APPSMO is the keynote lecture or exceptional speech by a leading academic, domain expert or policymaker. This address will usually offer an overview of geostrategic, geo-political or geo-economic issues of relevance in the contemporary world and their impact on national and international defence and security. A number of speakers have highlighted the ramifications of change and new knowledge and technologies. Some crystal-ball gazing has been indulged but this thought-provoking exercise is meant to share experiences and stimulate substantive discussions among APPSMO participants on trends and cutting-edge developments…

It is a great pleasure to be with you this evening. RSIS is a very important player in understanding some of the most daunting challenges we face in the world today. I for one, am glad for your presence on the world stage as a thought leading organisation. I ask all of my international colleagues here tonight to bear with me to give me just a moment to speak to our Singaporean friends. When I landed the other evening at the magnificent airport at Changi, I felt as though I was home. And some of you may know that I was one of the principal negotiators of the Strategic Framework Agreement with the United States and Singapore a few years ago. It was a wonderful experience for me. It was fundamental to my sense that the Singapore—US relationship is one of the most important relationships for the United States, period. Not just in this region, but globally…

The topic today is a bit complex. It was announced earlier that my latest book is precisely about complexity, in which the message is basically, that rebalancing issues is very complex. When we read in the media, it looks simple because it has been simplified. But the real story is more complex. Tonight, what I’d like to do is to try to make it as simple as possible…

I’m a civilian, who has really spent his entire career in the company of soldiers. I suppose you could call me a military historian. I’ve spent time with them studying their history, teaching them, working with them in our department of defence, and as a diplomat. Like all military historians, I think I’m very powerfully struck by the difference between the military way of life, which is ordered and disciplined and regular, which has provisions for just about every contingency, and manuals for just about any activity and the phenomenon for which military organisations actually prepare, which is war…

At the height of the bloody suppression of the protesting monks in Burma/Myanmar in 2007, a rather well-known Chinese professor from Shanghai was asked by an American newspaper for his reaction. His quoted reply, in two rather stark sentences, went to the core of what I have been asked to talk to you about this evening. What he said was this — “China has used tanks to kill people on Tiananmen Square. It is Myanmar’s sovereign right to kill its own people too”…

To understand why it is important for a government to be future-ready, we must first recognise that one of the foremost challenges facing any government is the challenge of strategic surprise…

My subject is the major transitions that are occurring in East Asia, and which I believe will have global consequences. It is evident, it’s almost a cliché, that the world is undergoing a profound transition of power and ideas. The modern international system was shaped by the West, who prescribed its fundamental concepts, established its basic institutions and practices and influenced all major developments. While that era is now drawing to a close, no one can predict the future and we do not know what will replace the Western shaped and dominated system. But we can at least glimpse some of the issues that will have to be confronted going forward. For the last 200 years or so, the core issue confronting Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, was how to adapt to a Western defined modernity. In fact, the very concept of modernity is Western. Only a handful of countries, almost all in East Asia, have successfully met the challenges, and ironically, this Western dominated system is now being transformed by the very transformations forced upon these countries by the Western system…

It’s an honour and a privilege to be giving this lunch lecture. Let me start by sharing a query with you. I wonder, if like me, you might have initially thought that Professor Iwan Azis’s talk last Tuesday about rebalancing was about strategic military rebalancing, or the pivot to East Asia by the US…

I am very happy to be here to speak about good governance, and I’m going to be talking mainly about Singapore, and why Singapore succeeded…

In this evening’s lecture, I would first like to make some acknowledgements to the people here, but also for the support that many of your nations provided to New Zealand for the Christchurch earthquake. This assistance was a valuable reminder of the importance of maintaining close and mutually beneficial international relationships. I will then deal directly with the issues relating to stability operations…

I am privileged to have the opportunity of addressing this gathering of senior military officers — no doubt, the best and the brightest of their respective nations…

My topic is new dimensions of international security, and the bulk of this presentation will focus on the main alternatives to the dominant theory of security that is found in the academic and policy-related literature on security. The key point to bear in mind is that it is this dominant theory of security that tends to inform nearly all debates on the TV and the media. In fact, they tend to accept it as if it was the only account of security. By the end of the lecture, I want you to be able to understand three things…

As we can see, the complexity and independent nature of the Asia Pacific geostrategic landscape raises numerous scenarios, especially those related to the security environment. The continuous shifts in the landscape have invited various responses with regard to the changing dimensions of strategy, as well as the changing nature of defence and security. In view of this, I shall provide a perspective relating to the present security challenges in the Asia Pacific region; and the views given from the Malaysian perspective and the ASEAN perspective will be my primary focus. I must stress though, that the views given are purely my own, and do not reflect that of the Malaysian government…

It’s a great privilege to come and speak to you. I feel somewhat odd speaking to you about matters pertaining to military affairs because most of you have military training and know much more about issues of national security, international security, and non-traditional security than I do. These are matters that I have understood better by having been on the board of RSIS. That experience has been a great learning period for me…

It is a great honour for me to be back at APPSMO. I am an APPSMO alumna and I treasure the memories of that wonderful experience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the RSIS for inviting me first as a participant in 2005 and then as a speaker this year…

It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon meeting all of you. I was here back in 1999 with the President, S R Nathan, when he was Director of IDSS. I was then a young Vice Governor of Lemhanas, the National Defence and Strategic Studies Institute of Indonesia, joining the IDSS as an adviser to begin this kind of programme. I must congratulate the committee and Ambassador Barry Desker, and I saw some of my old friends who were here back in 1999…

The following sections are included:

• ABOUT THE EDITORS
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

The following sections are included:

• LISTING OF APPSMO ALUMNI
• LISTING OF PAST APPSMOs AND SPEAKERS

The following section is included:

• INDEX