Is Malaysia Going To War?

Even if we did we are probably going to get trashed because of our flimsy "state of the art" weaponry. By Colin Archer, in 2009 global military spending is at an all time high of US$1.53 trillion which translates to $224 for every human being on the planet! It could have been better used for eradicating poverty, save mother earth or better health care systems.

In our Bolehland, we also try to spend our way like the world is doing. Our Defence Ministry happily announced that we have signed a RM10 billion contract at the KL Defence Fair in April 2010 and for the 10th Malaysian Plan we are allocating RM23 billion for defence and security. At what cost? We are already in deep shit with debts of around RM400 billion. Furthermore you are trying to justify yourself to raise another RM1 billion through the GST mechanism while withdrawing subsidies to get another RM700 million from there. All done at the expense of the rakyat!

Little do most people know that Malaysia has a growing military-industrial complex. Many retired generals and top ranking military officials are in the directorship positions in our local aerospace industry. This is a sector where contracts are awarded directly without competition and more often via direct negotiations. These people have the power and privilege of easy access to the defence budget and using simple justifications such a "national security". What security? Are we going to war?

A good example would be Pekan constituency, as you know is our PM's stronghold simply because it has an extensive military automotive complex with its layers of contractors, sub-contractors, servicemen and other gainfully employed. We manufacture air-frame components, cannons, ammunitions, tyres and etc mainly through arms deal. We spend more on defence than in education and health. Why?

Yet with all the spending, we have lost 73 lives from Nuri helicopter crashes, another 17 from De Havilland Caribou helicopters, the Super Puma crash that was going to fetch then DPM DSAI (Anwar Ibrahim), 5 deaths from Pilatus PC-7 training aircraft and many others. In short, we have more deaths through accidents than from action in war combat. What else? We lost two jet engines amazingly and recently our defective submarine which failed to submerge during its exercise run. Discrepancies in deals, maintenance and poor accountability is all we have.

If we examine closely at the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam, we can learn a great deal about them and generate alternative defence policy which can be extremely effective at minimal cost. This policy is known as a "people's war", decentralised army in many small units armed with decent infantry weaponry, anti-tank, anti-air missiles, urban and jungle warfare tactics. In those 3 wars, tactical weaponry has shown its limitation with the aggressor's army having to fight a protracted war with the locals for many years e.g. 10 years and still with no favourable end in sight. Malaysia can make full use of the National Service linking them with our conventional army together with our Silat Association or other martial arts association to form a strong militia force that is multi racial. Promoting unity and with a sizable of our young population of 10 million strong people will make an insurmountable deterrence to any would be aggressor. You can easily spend RM2.3 billion on this rather than the RM23 billion price tag. Does our government have the political will to do this? No lo because through this they cannot earn a lot of commissions & kickbacks.

I have high respects for the men and women in the army, they are a tough breed indeed. Our army is not useless, we can do a lot of things we our current arsenal such as humanitarian causes, peacekeeping role, disaster relieve by establishing law and order. What I don't truly DON'T respect is how our government is messing things upside down inside out.


I decided to write this following the comments and articles in Arms purchases: Who are our enemies?