Chapter 14: Leveraging Civilian Academia for Professional Military Education

In 2004, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) formally announced its vision to transform itself into a ‘Third Generation’ military force, or the ‘3G SAF’, one that would have enhanced capabilities via the exploitation of new concepts and technologies, and an improved ability to fight across a wider spectrum of operations. Along the effort to transform into the 3G SAF, the then Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General Desmond Kuek, embarked on a three-pronged ‘ONE SAF’ strategy. Using the acronym ‘ONE’, the first prong is “Operationalising the 3G SAF by ensuring high readiness in full mission capability”. The second is to “Nurture 1st class people in a world class organisation”. The third is to “Engage all our people towards stronger commitment”. Professional military education was furthered under the second prong. This nurturing effort recognised that people are the SAF’s most valuable resource and expressed the SAF’s commitment to develop its people to lead and excel in their mission imperatives, by training and educating them well, and to bring out the potential in each individual and team…