Chapter 7

Singapore's Encounter with Information Warfare: Filtering Electronic Globalization and Military Enhancements ¹

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The Singaporean approach to information warfare is best framed in terms of the language of an encounter. It is a phenomenon introduced from outside its sovereign borders. Moreover, informational threats are wholly unconventional ones that cannot be effectively tackled by a standard authoritarian combination of legal sanction and policing. Given these unplanned and unpremeditated features, as of 2011–2012 the Singaporean official response to informational threats tracks the tentative reactions made by governments elsewhere.

In Singapore's case, the authorities have had to reconcile Singapore's capitalist hub status with some form of a pre-emptive defense. The latter description is probably oxymoronic and shrouded in secrecy given its fledgling status as a national security concern. Above all, it is an encounter because information warfare represents either an externality of the ‘good globalization ’ that has brought prosperity to the Republic, or at worst an inevitable ‘negative globalization ’ that causes damage. This binary conceptualization will be evident throughout this chapter, and indeed, aside from treating this as a feature of the preliminary Singaporean experience, it should be queried whether any national encounter with informational threats poses a quandary about the dual nature of globalization.

Since this chapter is situated in a book that calls attention to cyber-conflict or cyber-warfare, it also needs to be noted that the Singaporean discourse does not draw neat distinctions between cyber-warfare, cyber-defence, and the widest umbrella term, information warfare. In this regard, since this chapter is not intended to be a meta-theoretical inquiry into the terminology of various forms of information-related conflict activities. For convenience we will adhere to Daniel Ventre's synthesized definition of information warfare as

“…the aggressive/defensive use of information space components (which are information and information systems) to reach/protect the sovereignty of a nation through actions conducted in times of peace, crisis or conflict. The concept is then centered on its political and military dimensions, and a connection of dependence is established between the notions of information space and sovereignty – which comes down to saying that an aggressive/defensive action conducted in the information space is not always an information warfare operation: some acts are simply part of cyber criminality or delinquency.”¹

In other words, this definition of information warfare may, on occasion, be loosely invoked by spokespersons of the Singaporean government to justify treating cyber-warfare as an attack upon the sovereignty of its collective citizenry, economy and institutions of statehood, including the military apparatus. In any case, the position of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) ambiguously embraces preparations for information warfare rather than cyber-warfare alone. In the civilian realm, it is the reverse – the threat is specifically from cyber-warfare rather than information warfare.

This chapter will pan out as follows. First, it needs to be elaborated that Singapore's information technology (IT) development is reflective of the Republic's embrace of an electronic globalization that co-constitutes its central role in the global economy. Subsequently, the chapter will branch into two broad sections examining information warfare via the generic discourse of ‘defense’. It will become evident in the exposition why this terminology is officially preferred over the highly alarmist tones of American official and academic discourses on the subject. First, in the domestic realm the government acts upon the threat of ‘cyberwarfare’, which covers attacks by both State and non-State sources employing the World Wide Web, as well as attacks by insiders with access to intranets. There is little official distinction between cyber-crime and cyber-warfare since the laws on internal security, libel and petty crime have also been applied to crimes committed against corporations operating in the Republic. As a result, the government has created the Singapore Infocomm Technology Security Authority (SITSA). This watchdog and strategic controlling outfit, housed within the Ministry of Home Affairs, is trying to engage private sector firms and individuals to collaborate with the government in establishing a joint Cyber Defender Programme to defend against threats to the island state's highly globalized economic links with the world. Cyber-defence is therefore literal in its meaning: to defend against unwarranted penetration via the Internet or through intranets comprising limited networks of computers. This takes place against the background of a steep increase in the number of hacking and viral attacks against private sector corporations in the past three years. Whether this will be a foolproof territorial defense remains to be seen.

On the second front, the SAF subscribes more to the American-originated understanding of information warfare as a realm of military operations designed to disrupt the enemy's decision-making capabilities while enhancing one's own. However, the implementation of military informational measures is often subsumed within the rhetoric of general high-technology improvements. This sort of logic is typical of the military in developing countries aspiring to modernize their offensive and defensive capabilities by acquiring missiles and aircraft. This chapter, however, will argue that the Singaporean defense planners have creatively treated information warfare in three dimensions of capability expansion:

– force multiplication;

– generating asymmetrical advantages in operational transparency; and

– continually revitalizing existing conventional arms capabilities.

In short, the Singaporean military approach is not revolutionary but evolutionary in nature. In summary, both the civilian cyberwarfare and military information warfare approaches render the Singaporean case unique on the grounds of their division of focus. The question of effectiveness, as for most nation-states, however, remains unanswered in this new realm of national defense.

7.1. Singapore: electronic globalization and its pitfalls

The story of Singapore's positioning as a beneficiary of globalization is well known. An island republic devoid of natural resources and a hinterland for hosting a large population necessarily seeks geopolitical and geo-economics strategies of an outward orientation. The Republic's first foreign minister, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, explained this orientation in terms of an aspiration towards becoming a global city, one which

“is the child of modern technology. It is the city that electronic communications, supersonic planes, giant tankers and modern economic and industrial organisation have made inevitable. Whether the global city will be a happier place than the megalopolis out of whose crumbling ruins it is emerging will depend on how wisely and boldly we shape its direction and growth”².

Telecommunications and their financial interconnection networks would integrate Singapore in an institutionalized interaction with the sister global cities of London, New York, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. The economic ‘tempo’ of economic activity would be sensitively intertwined with trends in the cities that would in turn be attuned to trends in their national hinterlands. Rajaratnam was keenly aware that interdependence may in practice mean lopsided dependence, with Singapore acting more as a follower than a pioneer. The country's governance, even sovereignty, may have to be selectively conceded so as to match foreign arrangements. Rajaratnam nonetheless believed that the risk had to be taken with the full awareness that “if we have the will and the intelligence, [we] create the necessary anti-bodies within our social system to give us immunity against the many dangers that close association with giant foreign corporations would pose”³.

The analogy – derived from the field of medicine, of antibodies, immunity and their antithesis, the virus – is apt for comprehending the political implications of Singapore's embrace of information flows that are carried through wired and wireless means.⁴ An early trial of Singapore's media antibodies came through the press. During the 1970s, a few newspapers such as The Eastern Sun and The Singapore Herald were shut down by the government for receiving undeclared foreign funds in order to undermine the local political system. In the first three decades since Independence in 1965, there had been numerous instances of editors either resigning or being forced to recant editorial positions on the grounds that their actions were inconsistent with Singapore's nation-building directions⁵. According to the official perspectives, then and now, the Republic of Singapore's multi-racial and multi-religious population makeup has to be kept in a condition of mutual tolerance devoid of serious provocation. The People's Action Party (PAP), that has ruled the island state since Independence, regards harmony among the citizens of Chinese, Malay and Indian origin as a sacrosanct part of the internal dimension of national security that must be actively policed.

This authoritarian imperative is based on the fact that Singapore's neighbors in Southeast Asia have been embroiled in inter-racial and inter-religious violence from time-to-time, to the detriment of economic growth and the inflow of foreign investment.⁶ Additionally, the PAP has found many occasions to employ the law to curb the circulation of foreign English-language publications – both offline and online – such as Time, Newsweek, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Asiaweek, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Bloomberg News and Al Jazeera for ‘inaccuracies’ in reporting local political events. Singapore's press is managed by the Newspaper and Printing Presses Acts of 1974 and 1986. Subsequently, the Singapore Broadcasting Act, which was passed in 1994, polices terrestrial broadcasting, digital television through cable, and Internet-based media based in Singapore. Direct broadcast satellite services are still limited to a handful of foreign firms based in Singapore, and selectively to the universities, ostensibly for teleconferencing purposes. When the Media Development Authority was set up in 2003 to consolidate all media regulatory agencies under one roof, its officials promised the ‘light touch’ regulation of digital media on the premise that total censorship could not be foolproof in the digital age.⁷ Moreover, the PAP intended to promote Singapore as a hub for global media corporations. This was not perceived by the PAP as a contradiction. It was in fact a relatively convenient two-way street for both foreign companies and the PAP. The former could avail themselves of Singapore's high-technology communications infrastructure to report world news and process other media products for film and Internet circulation, so long as they avoided ‘skewed’ reporting of local politics. It is no surprise that most global news agencies, such as the BBC, CNN, Deutsche Press Agentur, Reuters and CNBC Asia, station their Southeast Asian and Asian correspondents on the island to cover the East Asian region stretching from Indonesia to China. Disney and Spielberg Productions also have production facilities in Singapore.

The PAP is nonetheless concerned with the untrammeled flows of information offered by the Internet. An interesting piece of reflection was jointly written by the Chief Executive of Singapore's National Computer Board and the Deputy Director of the government-linked Institute of Policy Studies in 1998 – a significant milestone in the evolution of the World Wide Web and a few years after the first recorded international cyber-attacks. The authors argued that the government of Singapore had run into potentially intractable dilemmas in censoring Internet content⁸. On one hand, it would be possible to censor in the short term when Internet access depended heavily on landline connections and a handful of Internet service providers (ISPs) servicing the island's population. On the other hand, however, rapidly advancing IT geography would mean that Web-savvy citizens could surmount local controls by routing their links via multiple external ISPs; and furthermore, the globalization of overlapping and potentially supranational jurisdictions over Internet content and operational protocols will probably undermine national controls. The trans-sovereign activities of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the US-based Web ‘authority’ – is a foretaste of future Internet governance. Singaporean policing of Internet content could be reduced to mere acts of symbolism amidst the floods of information channels on the Web. It is also likely that a Web-savvy population, ranging from the intelligentsia to students, journalists, chief executive officers and ordinary private sector professionals will object to traditional forms of state control. As the authors of the aforementioned reflection put it, the chief dilemma for the PAP is to reconcile “the [digital] chasm between symbolism and reality in Singapore”.⁹ How might this pan out when it comes to the matter of information warfare? This is the subject of what I term the ‘dual encounter’ – civilian and military – in sections 7.2 and 7.3.

7.2. Cyberdefence in the private sector and society at large

In the parlance of the private sector in Singapore, cyber-defense is widely assumed in both private business and governmental publications to be the realm of protecting computers and their software from malicious disruption. It also entails protecting data that is meant by its original creator or designated third-party possessor to remain secret from the general public. In the official Singaporean terminology, cyber-defense is synonymous with cybersecurity. Having clarified the definition of cyber-defense, it is important to situate this discussion within the context of government–corporate sector relations in the dissemination of IT use in Singapore.

Taking after the general pattern in much of Singapore's political economy, the pace of technological embrace in IT can only be explained in terms of a combination of government intervention and laissez faire initiative¹⁰. It was in 1980, incidentally the same year that the Microsoft Corporation forged an alliance with IBM computers, that the government of Singapore made it official policy to spur IT penetration in business. Up until then, computers were treated as the preserve of an estimated 1,000 information systems professionals operating a mere 400 computer installations on the island¹¹. After the government initiated bodies such as the Committee for National Computerization and the National Computer Board to implement strategic directions for IT use, the numbers of IT professionals increased 1,075% by 1985 to 4,300. The numbers of ‘microcomputers’ sold quadrupled between 1982 and 1985¹².

IT became even more commonplace in Singaporean homes when the government-linked grassroots organizations led by the People's Association acquired ‘personal computers’ for home use and conducted demonstration classes in computer appreciation across the island's public housing estates. This helped acclimatize both the young and middle-aged segments of the population, who were also the most economically relevant, to the culture of an information society that had been predicted by Alvin Toffler, Daniel Bell, Peter Drucker and Kenichi Ohmae.

Not surprisingly, by the time the Internet arrived in Singapore, the ‘software’ of social and professional expectations had prepared the local population to embrace a computer and Internet penetration rate of more than 50% by 2000, placing Singapore ahead of Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and the USA¹³. In 2010, Singapore's Internet penetration rate was determined to be 77.8%.¹⁴ Moreover, the government had fostered an Institute of Systems Science as a partnership between the National University of Singapore and IBM in the US to assist companies with computerization and electronic workflow trouble-shooting. Subsequently, schools of computing, communications and new media sprouted within the local universities and polytechnics ensuring this information economy remained sustainable.

This visible hand of government was obviously not unwelcomed by the private sector, but it did indicate that any threats to the smooth functioning of information society in Singapore would be met by the form of integrated response you might expect of a corporatist relationship between State and society. In 1991, the government announced a top-down initiative called IT2000 in which all homes were to be wired for Internet access by 2000. In July 1998, the government passed the Electronic Transactions Act, which provided the legal foundations for online commerce by placing electronic signatures on a par with written signatures and records and provided legal protection to data sent over networks. Facilities for sending various applications – including tax returns – to government agencies online followed very quickly within a few years.

In August 1998, the Singapore Stock Exchange announced that it would implement an online trading system that would allow stockbrokers to directly interface with its in-house computerized trading system. By late 1998, the government announced the design of an islandwide broadband network named ‘Singapore One’, which it fully implemented slightly over a year later.

Government ministers and IT professionals were continually hosting IT conventions to plug the promise of Singapore as the premier IT hub in Asia. Meanwhile, several incidents involving undersea telecommunications cable disruptions in the Asia-Pacific during the 2000–2010 period highlighted Singapore's role as a vital hub for the physical infrastructure of Asian Internet geography. Although most of these cables were damaged by earthquakes in the Indian Ocean, around Taiwan and in Indonesian waters, Singapore's government-linked company SingTel was relied upon by the private consortium owning the cables to dispatch cable ships to repair the connections. During the disruption, Internet access across virtually the entire Asian side of the Pacific Rim slowed considerably. Despite this hub status, the erstwhile Minister of State for Trade and Industry in 1999, modestly claimed that Singapore's position on the ladder of IT in Asia was “at midstream, where it would bridge the gap between what technology could offer and what the market might require” [KWA 99]. By the early 2000s, the government had established an Infocomm Development Authority to oversee IT regulations and the monitoring of challenges to e-commerce within the island.

Nonetheless, the wired dimension of Singapore's economy endured several virus attacks, of which the more prominent were the ‘iloveyou’ viruses beginning in the early 2000s, outright hacking to steal passwords and other data, and ‘phishing’ attempts. These early threats were sufficiently serious that the government announced in early 2005 that it would spend S$38 million to build capabilities in cyber security. It also established a National Infocomm Security Committee (NISC) to formulate policies and strategic direction for cyber-defense at the national level. The NISC is chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the National Security and Intelligence Coordination and comprises representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, Ministry of Finance, Defence Science Organization National Labs, and the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) [IDA 05]. Another parallel agency, the aforementioned SITSA, was also created in 2009 and housed under the Ministry of Home Affairs to monitor and advise the private sector and individuals on cyber-defense.

Despite the government's proactive leadership, however, cyber-threats in the form of cyber-crime affecting individuals and private firms have grown alarmingly over the period 2004–2011. In a piece of statistical research published in the Singapore Journal of Library and Information Management in 2009, researchers found that a whole range of cyber-crime jumped by approximately 50% between 2004 and 2005, and subsequently hacking and fraud have sustained the steady increase in cyber-crime. Figure 7.1, produced by Na Jin-Cheon et al. is illustrative of this trend.

In September 2010, Symantec publicly released its Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact with alarming revelations. Seventy per cent of Singaporeans have been victim to cyber-crimes, which was greater than the proportion that Symantec considered to be the global average (65%) [SIM 10]. It is worthwhile quoting the exact words of Effendy Ibrahim, the consumer business head of Symantec in Asia, on this occasion: “Why do we say it is [a silent digital] epidemic? Because 70% of Singaporeans… confessed to having been a victim of cybercrime, and only 12% said they were confident that they would never be a victim,” he said. “If you imagine a room full of people, it means that 70% of the people have been robbed by a criminal, and yet it is not taken very seriously” [LUM 10].

Singaporeans had spent an average of 24 days and S$1,660.00 addressing the fallout from cyber-crime, yet this statistic does not factor in the emotional trauma of fixing the computer involved, cleaning up the phishing malware, or negotiating with the transacting institutions to annul fraudulent transactions [SIM 10]. Effendy claimed that the lack of education and awareness were responsible for this state of affairs. Singaporeans tended to be too trusting towards the Internet: “12% said they did not expect to be victims online, against the global average of 3%” [SIM 10]. Effendy felt that simple precautions, such as critically scrutinizing requests for personal information online, purchasing a reliable and constantly updated antivirus program or lowering the credit limit for a credit card frequently used online, could be very useful steps towards limiting exposure to cyber-crime. Although these revelations were all described in the language of crime and its prevention, it could constitute a form of ‘soft cyberthreat’ to the integrity of Singapore's information society and knowledge-based economy.

Firms have also been hit hard by cyber-attacks. This is evident even though data pertaining to Singapore-based firms have not been made available on a nation-specific basis. Symantec has again been at the forefront of these disclosures. It was reported in their 2010 State of Enterprise Report that 75% of companies in the ‘Asia-Pacific and Japan’ and 66% in Singapore have experienced cyber-attacks in the past 12 months [REB 10]. These attacks cost enterprise businesses in the region an average of US$763,000 per year and US$2 million globally [REB 10]. A simple ‘snapshot-type’ comparison between the malware that was reported by Microsoft's Global Security Intelligence Report Volume 11 for the first two quarters of 2011 and Trend Micro's Threat Encyclopedia for the Asia Pacific for the period August to September 2011 reveals very different types of malware penetration that further complicate efforts to contain cyber-attacks through software carriers.

These snapshots reveal a rapid and ever-evolving cyberthreat in just one category – malware, or software that infects your computer with the intent of partially or completely disabling normal functions. In November 2011, the Microsoft report specified that in Singapore's case, the malware infecting computers were mostly what IT experts term the ‘social engineering’ type. This term refers to the type of cyber-attack where a user is misled into executing commands that open their computers' windows to attack. This is manifested in users clicking on ‘pop-up windows’ advertising ancillary or unrelated products while surfing the Internet, or installing software patches that promise safety or computer performance enhancement [HO 11]. The viruses with the telltale names beginning with ‘ANDROIDOS’ and the suffixes ‘ShopperReports’ and ‘ClickPotato’ that are listed in Table 7.2 indicate this problem. Microsoft's findings indicate that adware was the most common form of social engineering malware. Adware affected 35.4% of all infected computers in the second quarter of 2011, which was reportedly a decline from 39.3% in the first quarter, but still significantly higher than the global average of 23.5% [HO 11]. Given the ongoing craze for Apple's iPhone, iPad, and other comparable devices in Singapore, as is the case elsewhere in the developed world, Symantec warns of the probable increase in the incidence of malware targeting innocent users using interfacing software across various platforms. In Symantec's words:

“While the number of immediate threats to mobile devices remains relatively low in comparison to threats targeting PCs, there have been new developments in the field. As more users download and install third-party applications for these devices, the chances of installing malicious applications also increases. In addition, because most malicious code now is designed to generate revenue, there are likely to be more threats created for these devices as people increasingly use them for sensitive transactions such as online shopping and banking.

“As with desktop computers, the exploitation of a vulnerability can be a way for malicious code to be installed on a mobile device. In 2010, there were a significant number of vulnerabilities reported that affect mobile devices. Symantec documented 163 vulnerabilities in mobile device operating systems in 2010, compared to 115 in 2009. While it may be difficult to exploit many of these vulnerabilities successfully, there were two vulnerabilities that affected Apple's iPhone iOS operating platform that allowed users to ‘jailbreak’ their devices. The process of jailbreaking a device through exploits is not very different from using exploits to install malicious code. In this case, though, users would have been exploiting their own devices.”¹⁷

The Singaporean government's response is to reinforce the ‘capacity building and engaging regulators and industry players’. This is SITSA's strategic mission. What this means is that regulators will have to reprise the historical role of government intervention in IT matters. Corporate and consumer IT users will have to follow the government's direction and render their systems compliant with government-dictated rules and informal advice. The NISC provided this concept of a corporatist cyber-defense at its launch, and it is represented in Figure 7.2.

Given the government's tendency to set up yet another agency or committee to confront cyberthreats, along with the oft-expressed ancillary interest in fostering international cooperation to govern cyberspace for legitimate traffic, we get the impression that cyberdefence in the private sector and civil society will remain a matter of following the government's lead. This may be helpful in the short term given the ongoing rush by IT professionals to ensure that their systems are security compliant in Singapore. In the long term, however, civil society and private firms have to exercise some initiative and take an active interest in introducing their employees to cyber-security consciousness. This was the point made by Symantec's disclosure of the wanton public ignorance of cyber-crime, and their remedy by commonsensical precautions to take when engaging in online finance transactions and buying protection software. Meanwhile, the government of Singapore seems to be constantly scoping cyber-defense in the widest possible spectrum to focus attention upon curbing jihadist proselytization online and the mass mobilization of individuals for extreme causes via social media networking [TEO 11]. This is a disjuncture that may have to be resolved if cyber-defense is not to be treated as a mere elite initiative that carries the imagined prospect of a magically comprehensive solution to all manner of cyber-threats.

7.3. The Singapore Armed Forces and the embrace of third-generation warfare

The SAF was formally inaugurated in August 1965 upon Singapore's separation from the Malaysian Federation. On its official website, the SAF was then described in minimalist terms with no pre-planned aspiration towards a capability that would come to be known as information warfare:

“Singapore then had only two infantry battalions of 50 officers and some 1,000 men and two ships. There was no air force. Singapore's armed forces had to be created virtually from scratch. With its small population and the need to channel resources to economic development, it was decided that Singapore's defence would be based on citizen armed forces” [LIM 97].

Certainly, there was an element of psychological operation needed to deter potential adversaries across the Straits of Johor (Malaysia) and the Straits of Singapore (Indonesia), as well as to stiffen the population's resolve to supply manpower from their own families to build the armed forces. Yet, as the SAF evolved in tandem with a booming economy over four decades, technological examples of improvement from the corporate sector, as well as the augmented intellectual qualifications of its mostly conscripted manpower, pointed to the possibilities of embracing an information-driven ‘revolution in military affairs’.

In 2009, the SAF was officially designated a third-generation armed forces, or in short, the 3G SAF. This transformation entailed exploiting the ever-higher educational qualifications of the vast majority of its citizen soldiers to the full. In 2009, it was reported that 75% of enlistees were GCE ‘A’ Level graduates or polytechnic diploma holders [CHW 09]. In tandem with this trend, SAF regular officers and non-commissioned soldiers are increasingly being offered in-house opportunities to upgrade their skills and qualifications through professional military courses taught by a pool of academics contracted from both the internationally reputable S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Nanyang Technological University. These professional courses include leadership, military history, security studies and engineering. For those regulars who are more capable, the SAF offers a follow-on fully-sponsored range of Masters degrees tenable at Nanyang Technological University and its affiliated schools. This is in addition to the existing array of SAF overseas scholarships and local study awards for basic undergraduate and graduate education, either overseas or at local universities.

An officially-approved news report on the 3G SAF explained the brainpower-reliant dimension in this way: “every 3G SAF soldier has an innate ability to soak up reams of information and act on them” [CHW 09]. It is expected that the 3G SAF soldier will operate in a dense environment of “fluid geopolitical conditions, a glut of high-tech military hardware and different military scenarios [that] require highly adaptable soldiers” [CHW 09].

Some middle-level SAF officers have latched on to US Marine General Charles Krulak's analogy of the ‘Strategic Corporal’ to digest these implications of becoming 3G. Sample this excerpt from an essay published in POINTER, the inhouse SAF journal for officers:

“…the Napoleonic Corporal's role was to listen to orders that were drafted so clearly that no one could misunderstand. With the orders, Napoleon's Corporal will carry out his mission in the exact way required of him. On the other hand, the Strategic Corporal of the information age must be able to function across a range of missions and be able to make decisions that have implications far beyond his responsibilities. With the high-tempo and dynamic battlefield today, the Strategic Corporal needs to be flexible to cope with different demands… This means that soldiers on the battlefield no longer fight alone. He is supported by a larger system for the conduct of his mission. Effectively, the enemy not just faces the soldier in combat, but also the larger system-of-systems that the soldier is connected to”.¹⁹

This is the context for discussing how the SAF encounters the challenge of information warfare. As is the case with most military establishments, it is difficult to obtain an interview with an official spokesperson or to read internal documents clarifying contingent plans for responding to information warfare within a military dimension. Nonetheless, the discussions and selected chronology of events leading up to the implementation of the 3G SAF will offer some useful clues regarding the SAF's information warfare thinking, and whether it stretches into cyber-warfare, as its civilian counterparts would have it.

The SAF's information warfare culture is built around force multiplication, revitalizing conventional arms capabilities and generating asymmetrical advantages with operational transparency. We refer to an information warfare culture because the SAF has not openly announced an information warfare doctrine, while it has been taking steps to ensure that as closely as possible the 3G SAF is capable of functioning as a model information-age military entity.

7.3.1. Force multiplication

In the SAF, the notion of force multiplication needs to be understood in terms of the ‘folk wisdom’ of making a little go a long way. Military hardware does not need to be continually replaced by newer versions of existing equipment. If existing hardware can be extended beyond the manufacturer's specified shelf-life by expedient application of intermediate technology and hybridized processes, it is embraced. Such is the trajectory of the computerization of the SAF and the Ministry of Defence since the early 1980s, coinciding with the civilian push for IT use.

Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) was the emphasis in the SAF's officer and technical training schools and administrative departments. CAI ensured that individual learning could be pursued without the disadvantage of placing the student in a position of fatigue due to the inability to keep up with his the pace at which his peers learn. Moreover, the availability of instructors could be economized in terms of not being physically present all of the time; he or she only needs to be beside the student when he encounters a learning block.

Computers understandably would enhance the accuracy of payrolls and meticulous accounting of personnel histories and medical records, logistical readiness, and recording of test performances [TSK 85]. There has been extensive documentation of computerization through the deployment of simulators for artillery, air defense and pilot training. The navy and infantry followed suit very quickly, rendering the SAF a computer-penetrated organization by the 1990s.

Simulator training readies the SAF for war by schooling the human senses in the ability to learn through trial and error without incurring the damage that accompany physical trials; moreover, computerized sensors in the simulators feed back the human operator's weakest spots as scientifically as possible so that they can be corrected. For the trainee, the simulator provides a multisensory substitute for authenticity complete with recorded battlefield sounds and preloaded sights. In this way, the trainee gets to hone his skills while expending virtually unlimited stocks of ammunition, experiencing technical malfunctions, and dealing with damaged equipment until some degree of perfection is achieved in his trials. Only then does he move onto training using the real equipment [LIE 76].

Force multiplication has also been treated through the notion of ‘battlefield automation’. According to one in-house journal article written by a signal battalion officer, battlefield automation augments force lethality against the enemy by clarifying where friendly forces have made preemptive arrangements to forestall the enemy, enabling cross-indexing and real-time updates on friendly force positions, recording enemy movements up to the minute, and finally enabling traditional human leadership via ‘command and control’ decisions [YAP 88]. More recently, at the end of the 2000s, the 3G SAF reformulated battlefield automation into a buzzword: IKC2, or Integrated Knowledge-Based Command and Control.²⁰ This concept is based upon the SAF becoming a more thoroughly cybernetic organization that is able to transmit assorted details from human and electronic sensors out into the field, process them centrally and enable commanders to deliberate and come to a decision quickly based upon an approximation of the ideal of total information awareness. The sum of an integrated knowledge-based command structure should be more than a sum of its parts. A cybernetic SAF command structure should be able to act and react faster than the enemy in real time, and in so doing defeat the opponent by appearing capricious, menacing and pre-emptive. An in-house SAF journal described IKC2 as information warfare, as shown in Figure 7.3.

In many ways, this is a direct extrapolation from the thesis presented in John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt's RAND (US think-tank) report titled In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age [ARQ 97]. While it is heavily reliant on adapting the latest digital and reconnaissance technologies ranging from satellites and hand-held miniature cameras to breaking news on the Web, it also strives to interpret the better parts of Carl von Clausewitz's warning about seeing through the ‘fog of war’ to the SAF's advantage vis-à-vis the adversary. In an unusual piece of criticism, in the pages of the same journal where the IKC2 concept received its most detailed elaboration, a junior weapons systems officer noted that IKC2 would suffer from information overload, coloration by technological biases, and the imperfections of assuming that adversaries would act rationally according to prior experience with electronically-facilitated war gaming [NG 08]. Von Clausewitz apparently returns to haunt cybernetic decision-making through the back doors of the very human factors of genius and chance. Nonetheless, IKC2 as the culmination of IT-assisted force multiplication in the SAF ought to be acknowledged as a forward development from the angle of virtually upgrading the Singaporean military from a mere brick-and-mortar institution with limited quantities of hardware to one aspiring to creatively transcend its material constraints.

7.3.2. Continually revitalizing existing conventional arms capabilities

The 3G SAF extends its preparation for information warfare as part of its longstanding policy of incremental technological upgrades. We might argue that it was consistent with the Republic's impoverished military beginnings in 1965 that weaponry upgrading performed in part by your own defense industry, or by the original manufacturer, was a rational way to stretch the defense dollar over time. Journalist David Boey has coined the term ‘defense creep’ to refer to this upgrading policy, which often kicks in after equipment systems have undergone several years of service following their initial purchase²². Moreover, Boey argues that incrementalism is also a form of information management of the upgrading process; incrementalism does not unduly alarm your neighbors and anticipated adversaries.

Tim Huxley, a major scholar on the subject of the SAF, has observed that Singapore's industrial defense complex manifests itself as the SAF's subtle need to deter the Republic's potential adversaries by maintaining a technological edge that is “not accessible through off-the-shelf purchase in the international defence market”²³. At the same time, Huxley notes that Singaporean defense planners must certainly realize that such superiority tends to be short-lived unless research and development are pursued existentially with a view towards tailoring innovative upgrades for national needs²⁴. In short, the technological edge is an informational edge in terms of scientific superiority. We can understand how the concept of IKC2 ties in with this approach towards industrial defense development.

Although this is not the place to provide an account of the entirety of the 3G SAF's weapons procurement, two examples suffice to illustrate the notion of hard weapons capabilities becoming integrated into a scientifically-conceived information warfare paradigm. The first is an excerpt from the official online description of the Pegasus light howitzer, which is jointly produced by the SAF, the statutory board DSTA, and another government-linked company, ST Kinetics.

The Pegasus incorporates several sophisticated subsystems in its design. Some significant features listed in Table 7.3.

Table 7.3. Specifications of the Pegasus Light Howitzer [MOD 11]

Auxiliary Power Unit (APU)	Ease of Deployment
The APU is an independent engine unit on the Pegasus, which provides the gun with a short-range self-propelled capability. With the APU, the system is able to maneuver over terrain at a speed of 12 km/h. The Pegasus is the world's first heli-portable 155 mm howitzer with a self-propelled capability.	As a complex system that needs to be readily deployed for mobility, firing and heli-lifting, the Pegasus is easy to configure without any lifting support in the field. Through a simple seesaw action that shifts the gun's center of gravity to suit the different missions, the Pegasus can be rapidly engaged for deployment in less than 2.5 minutes with a detachment of eight men.
Ammunition Loading System (ALS)	Lightweight Materials
Powered by the APU, the ALS automatically loads ammunition to reduce crew fatigue. This allows the gun crew to operate the Pegasus for a longer period while maintaining a burst rate of three rounds in 24 seconds.	The Pegasus employs lightweight materials such as titanium and high-alloy aluminum that provides the strength and stability required to withstand the recoil force of a 155 mm system.
Mechanical Sight	Innovative Recoil Management
Each gun is also equipped with an advanced mechanical sight that can withstand firing shocks of up to 90 Gs. This is critical for sustained operations given the system's lightweight structure.	The recoil of the Pegasus is a third lower than conventional 155 mm howitzers. This is achieved through innovative recoil management design.

In tandem with the anticipated demands of the IKC2 transformation, a piece of the ‘brick and mortar’ artillery equipment has been redesigned according to the SAF's information warfare requirements. The Pegasus howitzer has therefore reduced the physical exertions required so that humans can sustain more accurate firing for longer periods of time. Rapid deployment and redeployment, according to the speed of IKC2, is enabled because the structure of the howitzer is lighter and therefore is heli-portable. It can also drive itself if distances are short.

The next sample of information warfare consistency is an innovation on the waterborne craft called the frigate.

This diagram of the Stealth Frigate's combat system is a revelation of the scale of the ground-level integration of IKC2 into maritime capabilities. In fact, Figure 7.4 can be superimposed upon Figure 7.3. The electronic sensory capabilities in the lower half of the diagram approximate the battlespace monitoring and battlespace management components of IKC2. The ‘combat management system’ represented by the electronic consoles reproduce the sense-making core of the IKC2, while the panoply of weapons represents the choices for engagement. The electronically-flushed stealth design of the vessel's outer shell is also faithful to the spirit of information warfare: our side should be able to see the enemy and its plans in their totality, while remaining inscrutable to them.

7.3.3. Generating asymmetrical advantages in operational transparency

Tucked away in the SAF's standing equivalent of a defense White Paper, in the document titled Defending Singapore in the Twenty-First Century published in 2000, is a subsection titled ‘Superiority through information technology’. In it, the SAF restates its standard mantras about the need to compensate for the shortage of manpower and hardware resources with sharpened battlespace awareness. More importantly, knowing more implies a new truism: “Having superior information will be as potent, or even more potent, than having an advantage in firepower.”²⁶ Some scholars have read this message into the SAF's expanding SIGINT (signals intelligence) capabilities, ranging from airborne radars mounted on reconnaissance aircraft to air traffic monitoring facilities shared with the civil aviation authorities, to access to satellites operated by local universities and government-linked firms, and most recently, to the SAF's openly declared unmanned aerial vehicle capabilities [HUX 04]. These ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ certainly earn the SAF an enviable reputation among the region's military organizations as a surveillance power.²⁷ In 2001, a Major Seet Pi Shen, a guardsman with a Cambridge degree, published an essay that won the Chief of Defence Force essay prize for that year. It was titled ‘The Manoeuvrist Approach and Dislocation Warfare for the SAF in the Information Age’. In it, Major Seet made a very telling observation:

“In theory, if there is perfect situational awareness, pre-emption – to appropriate or seize for oneself before others – becomes very likely. Knowledge of enemy dispositions and intentions enables commanders to emphasise speed over caution and make unexpected rapid moves before its time. However, as Clausewitz's ‘fog of war’ continues to thrive in the Information Age, temporal dislocation will be more realistic. This is the art of rendering enemy strength irrelevant through the manipulation of time, and is the basis for surprise in war. By acting faster than the enemy can, it undermines his decision-making ability, ultimately leading to the enemy's disintegration”.²⁸

This perspective reinforces the overall approach of this chapter by couching the Singaporean experience and preparation for information warfare in terms of an encounter where we must comprehend the military adaptation to information warfare as an evolving series of principles that guide operational decisions rather than scrutinizing the SAF for a single grand concept that encapsulates all of its approaches to information warfare.

While it is possible that incremental and ancillary institutions such as an Army Information Centre, the Navy Information Fusion Centre, or the Peace Support Operations Development Group, which were all established in the past decade, are functioning as building blocks for a coherent information warfare capability, we must interpret things in an open-ended manner in the spirit of faithful scholarship on the subject. The SAF's IKC2 may already be operational in peacetime policy and response without a public declaration of it being so. We may therefore leave the inquiry into more tangible evidence of the SAF's institutionalized information warfare capabilities here, and await emerging trends following the accumulation of diverse future field experiences. One case in point is how the guards formation in the army has derived an ‘Operations Development Centre/Civil Military Relations Centre’ under the umbrella of the Peace Support Operations Development Group in the wake of diverse peacekeeping, humanitarian and disaster relief operations ranging from Afghanistan to Indonesia and New Zealand [SAF 11].

This form of asymmetrical information edge is also ironically dependent upon preventing slippages from the civilian dimensions of the SAF. The SAF has tended to argue that its soldiers are always disciplined in their conscript phases, and that these messages are constantly reinforced. The reality is that the upcoming generations that are likely to staff the armed forces are the same as those who have grown up with ‘Facebooking’ and photo sharing via Smart phones and iPhones. The SAF must certainly be mindful that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal arising from the US Occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2005 was facilitated by digital cameras and Internet photo-sharing. Moreover, between 2009 and 2010, the Israel Defense Force has been gripped by fears that Palestinian militants may be gleaning militarily-usable intelligence from soldiers' Facebook pages. In some cases the militants had been trying to befriend Israeli troops through those very Facebook pages with a view towards conducting psychological operations against Israeli society. Most recently, the examples of the Arab Spring show that Facebook, Twitter and Flickr social media sites have been instrumental in enabling Arab civil society activists to mobilize supporters as well as bystanders to meet in symbolic public spaces to confront troops sent to pacify political unrest. A POINTER journal article analyzed the problem of the information-savvy ‘Generation Why/Y’ soldier in terms of a generic enlistment-aged youth avatar (sic) named Heng89 ‘fresh from junior college, awaiting his enlistment’ and plugged into the world of 24/7 email, Facebook, blogs and constant bombardment by SMS and MMS:

“Tech-Savvy

Gen Y grew up surrounded by electronics and gadgets that are constantly vying for their attention. They have played a wide variety of computer and console games that train them to intuitively navigate through new menus and interfaces, master new control sequences and process images faster than they can process words. The advantage of having a new generation of tech-savvy soldiers is that much time and cost could be saved in the training and deployment of new technology on the battlefield. However, they also have a certain expectation of the workplace and a desire for access to new and existing technology. This poses both a challenge and an advantage to the SAF. The challenge would be to manage Gen Y's expectations of technology on the battlefield; despite all the technological advances, soldiers are still needed to fight on the ground. The advantage is that this generation can easily adapt to the latest technologies incorporated on the battlefield.

Staying Connected

Technology is no longer just a convenience but has become a defining factor in their well-being. It allows people to establish bonds in virtual space, make friends across continents and oceans, and bridge the gap between religions, races and cultures. Through social networking, (micro)blogging, Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and the entire gamut of communication software, Gen Y have overcome geographical constraints to form ties with people from abroad and beyond. “Heng89” might have hundreds of friends, whose true names he knows not, but who share the same ideology and opinions. They might even know him better than the people who surround him physically. As they seek to stay connected with their online friends, this creates a conflict with the need for information security within the SAF.” [SHU 09]

Singapore's corporatist approach to securing society will be questioned by future generations accustomed to a more cosmopolitan existence derived from the borderless electronic globalization occurring worldwide. The SAF must therefore find a way to ensure that the logics of defending a still evanescent Singaporean nation-state remain compelling in spite of the cultural allures of a liberal popular culture permeating the portals of global information flows. At the other extreme, the right wing with causes that mesh with Islamic fundamentalism will also prove to be a threat to national solidarity among all enlistment-age youths.

The question of identity may force the SAF to re-examine the stability of the ‘home front’ in any information warfare planning. It is worth noting that in 2010 to 2011 alone, there have been three embarrassing photo episodes circulated online among Singaporean-frequented chat rooms and blogs involving the SAF:

– the sight of a gently crash-landed Republic of Singapore Air Force Apache helicopter and its decoupled tail strewn across an open field adjacent to residential apartments;

– the scene of a Filipina maid carrying a national serviceman's full pack for him while he fiddles with his mobile phone; and

– another unforgettable snapshot of an elderly father shouldering his national serviceman son's full pack upon his return from camp.

Facetious online captions are not difficult to create out of these incidents whether for amusement or counter-propaganda purposes: the Air Force's broken blades; Maid's army/army softee; and Dad's army!

Leaving these light-hearted episodes aside, the SAF has also confronted the increase in servicemen posting social and comical snapshots taken on camp premises on Facebook. This led to the SAF reminding Singaporeans that posting inappropriate information on the armed forces might be chargeable offenses under either the Sedition or Official Secrets Acts. Through these experiences, the SAF is beginning to evaluate the complex facets that accompany any aspiration towards information asymmetry using the technologies of globalization.

7.4. Conclusion

With the case in Singapore, the encounter with information warfare has proven to be both enriching and frustrating from an official angle. In fact, the contradictions found between a forward movement (IT producing opportunities for augmenting economics and defense) and a countermovement (IT producing opportunities for destruction, disruption and smear campaigns) are reminiscent of the early theoretical debates from the mid-1990s concerning the precise sociological and anthropological impacts of globalization²⁹.

This chapter has argued that on the civilian front, involving the private sector and society at large, information warfare has been reduced to dealing with cyberwarfare and cyber-defense. On this front, it is the ordinary citizens and working professionals who need to find ways to tame the excesses of electronic globalization while exploiting the benefits of borderless global commerce. On the military front, it has been argued that the SAF does not address information warfare as an autonomous field of warcraft requiring a dedicated command structure controlling its own wing. Instead, the SAF accommodates developments in information warfare through three prongs:

– force multiplication;

– continually revitalizing existing conventional arms capabilities; and

– generating asymmetrical advantages in operational transparency.

The Singaporean military approach comes across as more evolutionary than revolutionary in nature.

In summary, Singapore's encounter with information warfare is riddled with layers of ambiguity. It is certainly not a case of straightforward offence and defense across demarcated boundaries. IT can both empower and disempower agents that employ them. We can return to the erstwhile analogy offered by Singapore's first foreign minister S. Rajaratnam; Singapore needs to build the robust antibodies that enable its population and government to render electronic globalization a servant of progress and prosperity, but the question remains as to what the formulae of these antibodies might be. One final reflection is perhaps in order, assisted with an insight from Eugene Chang, a panelist at the 2007 e-Government conference representing Singapore's Ministry of Defence. Chang opined that “IT systems are organized in a stovepipe manner… Ideally, we should try and harmonize systems before we even build them” [ZDN 07].

As most studies from mass media scholars would argue, information theoretically distributes its benefits best when it flows through untrammeled channels to equalize the knowledge bases of human beings everywhere. Singapore's encounter with information globalization has, however, produced a position whereby its present antibodies – individuals, firms, government, defense planners and their regulations – are trying to harness the information flows by controlling them for the purpose of isolating some pieces information from others, so that temporary inequalities are produced among the recipients of information. In this regard, the Singaporean approach thus far approximates what Jean-Loup Samaan predicts, that “there are no truly independent or even autonomous cyberwars per se”³⁰.

Cyber-attacks tend to be deployed as an integrated component of a broader strategic campaign possibly integrating both civilian and military measures. The Singaporeans seem to be gradually taking to heart, even if unacknowledged, the thrust of Martin Libicki's assessment that cyber-warfare can be practiced through open conquest, via generating international software dependence through buying Microsoft products, or through hidden conquest by inserting botnets and malware through innocent-looking Internet shop fronts³¹.

This is all happening in Internet ‘time’, which also means that information warfare, if it is waged, would require rapid learning and the improvisation of countermeasures. Defense against information threats must be equally nimble. The logic of a corporatist Singaporean nation-state with some degree of centralized authoritarian direction may still work best if the efficiency of single-minded governance can match intellectual perspicacity. This is something that no nationstate has perfected, not even China with its Web patrols. Therefore, the Singaporean experience in dealing with information warfare will remain experimental, in the realm of open-ended encounter.

7.5. Bibliography

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[HUX 00] HUXLEY T., Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia, 2000,.

[HUX 04] HUXLEY T., “Singapore and the revolution in military affairs”, in GOLDMAN E.O. and MAHNKEN T.G., The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia, pp. 185–208, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

[IDA 00] INFOCOMM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (IDA), IT Household Survey Shows Highest Ever Household PC Ownership and Internet Penetration Rates in Singapore, IDA, January 22, 2000, available at: http://www.ida.gov.sg/News%20and%20Events/20061124143944.aspx?getPagetype=20, accessed 19 January 2012.

[IDA 05] INFOCOMM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (IDA), Singapore Gears Up for Cybersecurity, IDA, February 22, 2005, available at: http://www.ida.gov.sg/News%20and%20Events/20050712110643.aspx?getPagetype=20, accessed 15 November 2011.

[ITU 01] INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION (ITU), The E-City: Singapore Internet Case Study, ITU, April 2001, available at http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/singapore/material/Singapore.pdf, accessed 19 January 2012.

[IWS 12] INTERNET WORLD STATISTICS (IWS), Singapore – Internet Statistics and Telecommunications, IWS, 2012, available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/sg.htm, accessed 19 January 2012.

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[LIB 07] LIBICKI M., Conquest in Cyberspace: National Security and Information Warfare, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

[LIE 76] LIEW M.H., WONG L.C., “Simulators in the Republic of Singapore Air Force”, POINTER (Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces) vol.2, pp. 12–13, 1976. (This whole issue of the officers' journal is dedicated to trainee reflections on simulators.)

[LIM 97] LIM E., 1965 Independence of Singapore, Posted August 7, 1997, available at: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/about_us/history/birth_of_saf/v01n08_history.html.

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[MOD 00] Defending Singapore in the Twenty First Century, Ministry of Defence, Singapore, 2000.

[MOD 11] Singapore Light Weight Howitzer Pegasus, Ministry of Defence, Singapore, 2011, available at: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/mindef_websites/topics/Weapons/slwh/capabilities.html.

[MOT 89] MOTIWALLA J., GILBERT A.L., “Managing the Information Revolution”, in SANDHU K.S. and WHEATLEY P., Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, pp. 881–891, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore,1989.

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[SAF 11] SINGAPORE ARMED FORCES, Guards – Army News Special Supplement #6”, ‘Subsection – Always Ready – Keeping Our Army's Edge, SAF, February 2011, available at: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/content/imindef/mindef_websites/atozlistings/army/army_news/Download_Our_Issues/Issue_2011/_jcr_content/imindefPars/download_1/file.res/Guards_Supplement.pdf.

[SAM 10] SAMAAN J-L., “Cyber Command: The Rift in US Military Cyber-Strategy”, The RUSI Journal (UK), vol. 155, pp. 16–21, 2010.

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[SHU 09] SHUO H., WAN A., TANG D. “Generation Why – so what?”, POINTER (Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces) vol. 35, 2009, available at: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publications/pointer/journals/2009/v35n2/feature6.html.

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[TAN 90] TAN T.L., The Singapore Press: Freedom, Responsibility and Credibility, Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, 1990.

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[TAN 09] TAN T.K., Developing leaders for the third generation Singapore army: A training and education roadmap, MMAS Thesis, Fort Leavenworth, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2009.

[TEO 11] Keynote address by Mr Teo Chee Hean, Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs at the Singapore Global Dialogue on Wednesday 21 September 2011, 7.45pm, at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore.

[TRM 11] TREND MICRO, Threat Encyclopedia for the Asia-Pacific up to October 2011, Trend Micro, 2011. Made available to author by an anonymous Trend Micro staff member via email communication on 25 October 2011.

[TSK 85] TSK, “Computer awareness week”, Pioneer (a publication of the Singapore Armed Forces) vol. 95, pp. 22–24, 1985.

[VEN 09] VENTRE D., Information Warfare, ISTE Ltd. London, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2009.

[WAT 95] WATERS M., Globalization, Routledge, 1995.

[YAP 88] YAP W., “Battlefield operation in the army operational context”, POINTER (Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces) vol. 41, pp. 39–42, 1988.

[YEO 98] YEO S.C.S., MAHIZHNAN A., “Developing an intelligent island: dilemmas of censorship”, in MAHIZHNAN A. and LEE T.Y., Singapore: Re-Engineering Success, Institute of Policy Studies and Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1998.

[ZDN 07] ZDNETASIA.com, “SINGAPORE: Resiliency Is Top IT Concern”, November 13, 2007 reproduced in Asia-Pacific Informatization Bulletin vol. 20, Winter 2007, available at: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan028293. htm#1ap6_3_3.

 

 

1 Chapter written by Alan CHONG.

1 [VEN 09] p. 288.

2 [RAJ 87] pp. 225–226.

3 [RAJ 87] pp. 230. Italics are mine.

4 See also the Singapore chapter in [VEN 09].

5 [TAN 90] pp. 5–7.

6 [BIR 93].

7 [MDA 12].

8 [YEO 98].

9 [YEO 98] pp. 144.

10 [MOT 89].

11 [MOT 89] pp. 881.

12 [MOT 89] pp. 882.

13 [IDA 00, ITU 01].

14 [IWS 12].

15 [MIC 11] p. 41, figure 29.

16 [TRM 11] personal communication with author.

17 [SYM 11] pp. 15.

18 [IDA 05].

19 [TAN 08] pp. 31–32; also see [TAN 09].

20 IKC2 is the Singaporean equivalent of network-centric warfare.

21 [CHE 08] pp. 18.

22 Boey quoted exclusively in [HUX 00] pp. 173–175.

23 [HUX 00] pp. 181.

24 [HUX 00] pp. 172–181.

25 [RSN 11].

26 [MOD 00] pp. 46.

27 [HUX 04] pp. 204.

28 [SEE 01] pp. 15–16. The italics are mine.

29 [WAT 95].

30 [SAM 10] pp. 20.

31 [LIB 07].