Singapore and the changing balance of regional power

 Written by: (Contributed) on 30 November 2020

A recent major diplomatic statement from the Singapore Government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has revealed serious disquiet about United States foreign policy toward the region in recent years.

The development, which rests upon a changing balance of forces and structural changes across the wider region, has already created problems for those supportive of US domination in the region, including Australia.

In mid-November, the Singapore government issued a major diplomatic statement about the predicament the country faced within the context of the wider Indo-Pacific: US-led regional foreign policy had included counter-productive elements, which PM Lee Hsien Loong warned were likely to 'have long-term repercussions'. (1) He noted that problems had arisen with the US attempting to create 'a Cold War-style alliance against China'. (2)

RCEP to further weaken US influence

The recent creation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade body which has included all ten ASEAN countries, together with others including Australia, has been noted as 'tipped to further diminish America's influence in the region'. (3) It has provided further evidence that the rapid rise of China has led to structural changes taking place in economies across the Indo-Pacific.

China was a major diplomatic player in the drive to establish the RCEP, which runs counter to recent US-led diplomatic initiatives and political rhetoric to build Cold War alliances centred on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) around Australia, Japan and India linked directly into US-led regional foreign policy. The RCEP has already been regarded as likely to strengthen trade links between China and ASEAN and their supporters, despite both the US and India not even being part of the trade body. (4)

The Singapore government diplomatic statement also drew attention to the fact that previous US presidential administrations before Trump 'have seen America as having broad interest in the stability of the region and the well-being of its partners'. (5) The Trump administration had largely been responsible, however, for pushing regional foreign policy agendas which included joining 'a coalition against those who have been excluded, chief of whom will be China'. (6) The creation of the RCEP had shown just how counter-productive the policies of the Trump administration had been.

The developments would also tend to add further weight to the findings of a US congressional commission in November, 2018, that 'the US is no longer clearly superior to the threats its faces around the world'. (7)

There would appear to have been a parting of the ways in recent times: the development has created a serious problem whereby those associated with US-led initiatives had included military and security provision alongside trade considerations; China's main concern has been primarily economic, military considerations being pursued through other channels.

These developments have far-reaching implications for Singapore: its dramatic rise was based largely upon US-led initiatives dating from the previous Cold War. It has been noted, furthermore, that recent developments have seen Singapore failing to become 'a major shaper of the ASEAN agenda', and 'out of synch with the rest of the region', together with the problem that despite the strong Chinese ancestry of their population, Singapore has failed to have much influence inside China itself. (8)

Implications for Australia

These developments also have implications for Australia, where sycophantic governments slavishly follow US-led regional foreign policy directives despite China being the country's biggest trading partner.

When focussing upon links between Australia and Singapore, it is, therefore, possible to establish the very distinct likelihood of just how fraught the diplomatic relationship may eventually become in future decades.

There are two very important considerations: rotations of military personnel and intelligence-gathering.

A new joint military training agreement has rested upon longer-term planning where Australia and Singapore entered into a 'comprehensive partnership' in 2013, which was updated three years later. The recent further update has included provision for joint training together with all three services of the Singapore Armed Forces having rotations through Australia for upwards of eighteen months for 14,000 personnel. (9)

Secondly, Singapore lies just below the arc from Diego Garcia to Guam from Pine Gap in central Australia and has a long history of involvement between the corporate sector and intelligence services. (10) Singtel, the main national mobile telephone company, for example, has provided a vitally important opportunity for 'the US and Australia to expand eavesdropping capabilities in the region', together with 'signals interception facilities within the South China Seas area'. (11)

It is also linked to several other mobile telephone companies and is known to have links into PACOM, the main US Command in Hawaii. (12)

The strategic significance of Singapore being approximately halfway between the two US military hubs for the vast Indo-Pacific region, has become more important following an announcement that China was thought to be planning a naval base on Cambodia's small coastline. (13) The proposed naval base would provide China with support facilities for the South China Seas.

Singapore, however, while remaining a strategic asset for US-led regional foreign policy, is faced with a reduction in viable options as traditional US domination continually declines.

Part of the problem arising with US decline, furthermore, has been greater responsibilities thrust upon Australia for regional military and security considerations.

The strong links Australia has established with Singapore, therefore, are likely to become problematic over the next few decades, as China increases its regional influence and dislodges the US as the world's biggest economy. The Pentagon is unlikely to take such developments willingly, and we are already witnessing their military planning for real-war scenarios.
                          
                                           We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Asia's perception of America may never recover: Lee, Australian, 18 November 2020.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Beijing trade win as Asia signs on, The Weekend Australian, 14-15 November 2020.
4.     Regional partnership forms world's largest trading bloc, Australian, 16 November 2020.
5.     Australian, op.cit., 18 November 2020.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
8.     Is Singapore western intelligence's sixth eye? The Asia Sentinel, 10 December 2013.
9.     Australia-Singapore defence relations, The Diplomat, 23 March 2020.
10.   Sentinel, op.cit., 10 December 2013.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Ibid.
13.   Strategic alliance in north enthuses visiting US chiefs, Australian, 22 August 2019.

US to revive First Fleet – or the behaviour of misfits awaiting eviction?

 Written by: (Contributed) on 20 November 2020

The announcement from a senior military figure in the Trump administration that there are plans afoot to re-establish the US First Fleet was given a mixed reception in the Indo-Pacific region. Taking place at the same time as the annual US-led Malabar joint military exercise, the announcement appeared more as a statement of intention than as a serious military plan.

The area of demarcation for the US First Fleet has also raised the prospect of increased use of Australian-based military facilities, drawing Canberra ever closer to hawkish, aggressive diplomatic positions in the dying days of the Trump administration.

The announcement in mid-November from US Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite, while addressing the annual symposium of the US naval submarine league, that the Pentagon was planning to re-establish the First Fleet is but another example of the wave of US-led militarism sweeping the Indo-Pacific region. (1) It has followed the re-establishment of the Second Fleet which became fully operational last December, with a demarcation area of the US east coast and the north Atlantic.

The US First Fleet was taken out of operation in 1973, following re-organisation of naval facilities; its demarcation area, historically, from its formation in 1947, was the western Pacific.

If the new military planning is approved, the US First Fleet will cover parts of the Indian Ocean and Pacific alongside the Seventh Fleet which is presently based at Yokosuka, in Japan. The Seventh Fleet, composed of 80 ships, 140 aircraft and submarines, has the largest demarcation area covering 77 million square kms of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific, from the international time line, the Kuril Islands in the north and Antarctica in the south.

The announcement, curiously however, took place without the usual military protocol; Braithwaite admitted he had not sought approval for the plan from Acting Defence Secretary Christopher Miller who replaced Mark Esper, sacked by President Trump last week. While Esper had apparently discussed the matter in Pentagon circles, nothing was officially approved. Whether anything was even officially minuted, remains to be established. Braithwaite, therefore, might be regarded as little other than a political upstart, displaying behaviour typically associated with the misfits of the Trump administration who have problems distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Elsewhere, in other regional media outlets, the Braithwaite announcement was diplomatically downgraded to the position that he had 'suggested' the re-establishment of the First Fleet, although nothing further had been resolved. (2)

Singapore not happy

It is, nevertheless, interesting to note the Braithwaite announcement had been accompanied two days earlier with an official diplomatic statement from Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, that the foreign policy of the Trump administration had alienated countries across the region with serious repercussions. He stated, 'most Asian countries will resist any US attempt to create a Cold War-style alliance against China', whereby, 'smaller countries such as Singapore could be forced to choose sides between them'. (3) Most countries across the region have, historically, lived with Chinese diplomacy and trade for centuries.

The announcement also took place during the Malabar US-led naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal and the northern Arabian Sea, with India, Japan and Australia. It was noted in military media releases to form part of 'a second phase of a combined war game to counter China's influence in the region', amid a wave of US-led Cold War swashbuckling bellicosity. (4)

It was not only the announcement about the proposed US First Fleet which appeared questionable.

The proposed base facilities for the new First Fleet also appear to be a matter of some controversy; Braithwaite stated that 'the headquarters … is likely to be Singapore'. (5)

The Trump administration, however, appear to not to have followed usual diplomatic protocol and consulted the Singapore government with their proposals, nor requested high-level talks to implement the proposals. Diplomacy, for the Trump administration, would appear to be conducted more along the lines of directives which other governments are expected to accept.

An official media release from the Singapore government and Ministry of Defence, therefore, stated no official talks with the Trump administration had taken place about the matter. (6) They clarified the position of the Singapore government with the statement that 'it would be deemed unacceptable for the small island nation … among Washington's key strategic partners in south-east Asia … to host a permanent naval base', and that Singapore did not want 'a formal military alliance with Washington'. (7)    

The announcement, by Braithwaite, about the proposed Singapore First Fleet facilities, had paid no attention to the detail of a vital factor explaining the behaviour of their governments, past and present, for decades: Singapore has long pursued a regional foreign policy of maintaining friendly relations with all countries, including those, historically, which did not support the US. The Singapore government, for example, when positioning statues of former regional political leaders whom they had supported, around the surrounding gardens of the main parliamentary buildings, was proud to also include one of Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the northern part of the country from 1945-69 despite the war with the US.

It is, therefore, interesting to note the Braithwaite announcement about the First Fleet had already planned a fall-back position which gave reference to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean as another additional command headquarters. (8) The US Naval Communication station on Diego Garcia is directly linked to similar facilities at Pine Gap, in central Australia. It forms the centre of US-led global intelligence provision, with the Pentagon. Operational in 1973, the US base has been continually upgraded, and now includes extensive military facilities.

It is significant to note the arc which swings from Diego Garcia in the east, from Pine Gap, also swings through Guam in Micronesia in the west, linking two important US military hubs for forward regional operations. The same arc also swings through Singapore, which already has sensitive military agreements with Australia.

The announcement about the new, proposed US First Fleet, can, therefore, perhaps be best viewed as a military game of smoke-and-mirrors which will hopefully never see the actual light of day before the demise of Trump and all that he is associated with.

Whatever the outcome of recent political instability surrounding the Trump administration in the US, Australia, nevertheless, is increasingly being drawn closer to the hawkish, anti-China view of the world, the origins of which lie in the Pentagon with military planners. Biden is probably closer to this group than was Trump. The myopic and intellectually limited vision of the world and regional foreign policy, characteristic of the imperialist system of the US, is dangerous.

We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     US to revive old fleet as curb against Beijing, Australian, 20 November 2020.
2.     US Navy Secretary proposes new Indo-Pacific fleet, The Diplomat, 18 November 2020.
3.     Asia's perceptions of America may never recover: Lee, Australian, 18 November 2020.
4.    Australian, op.cit., 20 November 2020.
5.     Diplomat, op.cit., 18 November 2020.
6.    US Navy First Fleet, This Week in Asia / Politics, 18 November 2020.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Australian, op.cit., 20 November 2020.

Military planning and the Asia-Pacific region: Mini-satellites, major confrontations?

(Contributed)

Recent technological developments resulting in the creation of Australian designed and manufactured miniature satellites reveal far more than scientific advancement for western defence and security planners.

While the new mini-satellites will assist in the struggle for western technological superiority and control of the Asia-Pacific, their use exposes far deeper issues about regional developments.

There are two pressing problems for western intelligence in the Asia-Pacific: the rise of China and its increased economic and military influence; their ability to strengthen diplomatic relations with countries in the wider region, thereby undermining traditional western hegemonic positions.

Jindalee satellites get smaller as their role gets bigger

An official media release from the Australian Defence Department in October announced a new range of miniature satellites for their use with the 'five eyes' intelligence-sharing networks of the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Britain. (1) While many satellites are cumbersome, the new mini-satellites are about the size of a two-litre milk carton, weighing less than five kilos. They, nevertheless, form a significant part of US-led militarisation of the Asia-Pacific region and appear more suitable for highly sensitive operations being more difficult to identify. They are also easier to launch.   

By comparison, the latest Australian national broadband network's second satellite to provide coverage for 400,000 homes and businesses in regional areas launched in early October, has an estimated weight of 6,405 kilos. (2) 

The miniature-satellites form part of the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) which in turn is part of Surveillance Australia based at RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia. Its role is to monitor the vast Asia-Pacific region from military facilities on northern shores as part of the Defence of Australia Doctrine: defence and security threats are assessed as more likely to come from the Asia-Pacific. Most sensitive military facilities are therefore situated in the southern part of Australia. 

Most operational information about JORN remains subject to higher levels of classification. From media releases, however, the following has been noted: while usual radar facilities are limited to line-of-site range and the horizon, it has the ability to bounce signals from the ionosphere and deflect down onto a target. The ability to process signals is conducted through filters which are programmed for specialised intelligence-gathering. And, the facilities monitor 'activity of crucial strategic importance, such as missile launches, far into Asia'. (3) 

The Singapore connection

The stated range of the JORN facility is about 4,000 kms, although it is linked into other land-based facilities including those in Singapore to provide regional coverage. (4) Highly secretive signals and intelligence-gathering facilities operated by the then-named  Australian Defence Signals Division (DSD) have a long history of operations in Singapore, with links to other western intelligence services. (5)    

It is therefore not coincidental that the timing of the announcement about miniature-satellites coincided with a high-level diplomatic visit of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to Canberra where he addressed the Australian parliament with a major statement concerning 'the pillars of US engagement in Asia'. (6)  A reciprocal statement from Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne included acknowledgement that 'Singapore is Australia's most advanced defence partner in Southeast Asia. We have a long history of defence engagement and shared interests in regional stability and security'. (7)

It was therefore also no surprise the joint Singapore-Australia diplomatic initiatives also included moves to increase military cooperation with training in northern Queensland. The present 6,600 Singapore troops receiving six weeks standard training will be increased to 14,000 receiving more specialist training of eighteen weeks. (8)

The Australian diplomatic relationship with Singapore, however, is underpinned by other considerations. Moves to implement the US-led Global Transformation of Defence and Security (GTDS) in the previous period of the Bush presidencies saw Japan made into a northern region hub for US interests with Australia as a counterpart in the southern part of the region. 

Then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was also responsible for the creation of a highly secretive Strategic Support Branch (SSB) to provide a 'full spectrum of humint operations' in numerous areas of the world for specialised intelligence-gathering. (9) Pentagon documents from the period also reveal the human intelligence operations included 'interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to peacetime recruitment of foreign spies', and an acknowledgement 'recruited agents may include notorious figures whose links to the US government would be embarrassing if disclosed'. (10)  Secrecy, therefore, was regarded as essential, to prevent US 'intelligence assets' being identified.

The GTDS, however, is also supported by a myriad of regional alliances aimed at securing US hegemonic positions by encircling and containing China. It is within these alliances the role of the SSB would appear instrumental, with preparation for real-war scenarios. It is not difficult to establish the chosen method of operation for Pentagon planners. Military documents, declassified in 1993 after being updated, provide evidence of who are regarded as adversaries: the US Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, Army Regulation 381-20, page one, has the statement: “Coordinated counter-intelligence activities worldwide were directed against those who oppose the US Defence Department during peacetime and all levels of conflict”. (11)

It is, however, at this level that developments are not straightforward for the US. Their regional foreign policy has encountered difficulties; the basis of their diplomacy rests upon the shifting sand of political and diplomatic expedience.

Most countries across the region have favourable diplomatic relations with China. Beijing has been generous with offers of soft loans for economic development programs while flows of US capital have not been so forthcoming. In fact, western economic and financial markets have come to rely upon China to buttress their own failing predicament. The global economic is experiencing economic stagnation, with projections even by IMF chief economist Oliver Blanchard using adjectives such as mediocre. (12) Their failure is difficult to hide. Global trade this year, for example, will grow at the slowest rate since before the global financial crisis of 2008. (13) It has led many observers to question the whole economic model which international financial institutions have thrust upon subject economies and governments for decades.

China, by contrast, has continued to facilitate higher economic growth rates and lift millions of their citizens out of poverty.

US imperialism is losing ground

In a number of Asia-Pacific countries, US foreign policy is beginning to unravel as the sands begin to shift.

In Thailand, the recent death of King Bhumibol  Adulyadej, has raised the real possibility of serious political instability. Thailand remains important for US regional defence and security planning with regular joint military manoeuvres which include other Asia-Pacific countries. There are also numerous sensitive military facilities across the country. 

The King was regarded by many Thais as a unifying force in a bitterly divided country: all that is now left is the military which remain unpopular because of previous coups and repression. A recent referendum on a new constitution guaranteeing the 'ruling junta' with rights to 'ensure its dominance over civilian governments' has further divided the country. (14)

In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo has already stated he has chosen to not seek involvement in the 'intensifying great power conflict in the South China Sea'. (15) He has no wish to antagonise China. Indonesia, in reality, has little to gain from siding openly with the US. By contrast, President Joko Widodo has already been courting financial support from Beijing for a number of strategic infrastructure projects. Indonesia, nevertheless, remains of central importance for the US with security considerations for shipping-lanes linking the South China Seas with the Indian Ocean. They are, however, being slowly pushed from influential positions.

In South Korea (ROK) a decision to allow the US to station a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system linked to similar facilities in Romania and Poland have been criticised by China and the Russian Federation, heightening diplomatic tensions with the west and NATO. (16)   

In the Philippines, incoming President Rodrigo Duterte has already announced a break in traditional military arrangements with the US and sought stronger diplomatic relations with China and the Russian Federation, economically and militarily. The Philippines, historically, has been the most dependent ally of the US in the Asia-Pacific region due to its geographical centrality and subordination to Pentagon planning. The incoming Duterte administration, however, has already shaken traditional diplomatic relations. 

President Duterte has already stated 'he wants his country to be free of foreign troops, possibly within two years'. (17) The Philippines, at present, hosts about 50,000 US troops in various military capacities. President Duterte has also announced planned military manoeuvres with the US 7th fleet in the South China Seas will end.

The incoming presidential administration has also announced it intends ending joint US counter-insurgency provision in Mindanoa and reviewing the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement allowing the US military access to Philippine-based facilities.

Tide turns against US, increasing risk of war

The tide is turning against the US in the Asia-Pacific region, their hegemonic position is being reduced. Two recent matters have given them cause for considerable reflection. 

Joint military drills with the Russian Federation and China from 12 September for eight days in the South China Seas shook western defence security planners. The Russian Federation was long held to be a European consideration, not a matter for the Asia-Pacific. In recent times, however, levels of cooperation between China and Russian Federation have increased dramatically. Their joint military capacity is now also almost equal to that of the US.

It is also significant to note the Russian Federation has implemented higher-level military technology to 'new types of platforms, new types of sensors, new types of weapons systems that are far more flexible and far more capable than during the Cold War'. (18) They are, increasingly, a military force to be reckoned with. 

Secondly, even mainstream Australian media highlight the successes of China, in both Thailand and the Philippines, and elsewhere. (19) It is not difficult to observe across the region: those who oppose China are increasingly thrown into questionable positions. Recent official statements from right-wing Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, for example, about the US being 'an indispensable power in guaranteeing peace and stability in our region' look increasingly hollow and mere nostalgia for previous diplomatic positions of past decades. (20) 

Developments, across the Asia-Pacific region, heighten the possibility of a major military confrontation as the US attempts to deal with threats to traditional hegemonic positions and the sands on which their accoutrements rest, shifting beneath their feet.

1.     Milk-bottle space odyssey gives spy force a boost, Australian, 18 October 2016.

2.     Second NBN satellite lifts off, Australian, 7 October 2016.

3.     Australian, op. cit., 18 October 2016.
4.     Radar Surveillance, World Today, ABC, 16 December 2010.

5.     Oyster, The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, (Melbourne, 1989), page 146.

6.     Balancing mission, Australian, 13 October 2016.

7.     Ibid.

8.     Ibid.

9.     Pentagon's parallel spy network revealed, Guardian Weekly, (U.K.), 28 January/2 February 2005.

10.   Ibid.

11.   Website: Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, Declassified 15 November 1993, Army Regulation 381-20, Section 1.5, Mission and Policy, Page One.

12.   Five years of low growth, warns IMF, Australian, 8 October 2014.

13.   Has globalisation had its day? Australian, 18 October 2016.

14.   Charter vote splits Thai elite and poor, The Weekend Australian, 6-7 August 2016.

15.   Joko keen to court China money, Australian, 20 October 2016.

16.   Red alliance targets US missile shield, Australian, 13 October 2016; see also,  Russian missile beats any defence, Australian, 27 October 2016.

17.   Duterte says he wants foreign troops out, Australian, 27 October 2016.

18.   Russia's newly sophisticated military unsettles Artic states, Australian, 7 October 2016.   

19.   China flexes its muscle in Bangkok and Manila, The Weekend Australian, 8-9 October 2016.

20.   Jakarta push for code of sea row, Australian, 27 October 2016.