Comment by heraclius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heraclius | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The report mentioned in Haaretz (https://www.haaretz.com/1.5053685) was plausible but by no means incontrovertible.

Malaysia is not necessarily more threatening than Indonesia so it’s rather unclear why you mention it in particular. Indeed, Indonesia bombed various things in Singapore during the Konfrontasi period, whereas Malaysia has never done anything like that. (Well, I’ve heard rumours of actual hostilities about some islands supposedly from a relative in the army, but either way both sides have kept it very quiet if that did happen.)

I don’t really see the point of an iron dome system for SG: Singapore can hit KL or Jakarta in a matter of hours (if that), their relatives shop and children go to school at international schools in Singapore, there’s a big American base, if Singapore gets hit they’ll immediately end up in a terrible recession, etc.

There's not a big US base. I used to be stationed there. There is a logistics command, CTF-73, and more recently (past decade) some LCS rotational crews call Sembawang/Chagi Naval Base home. Singapore owns the wharf where the logistics command resides, as well as the old black and whites used by the US military.

To your point of it being intended for Indonesia over Malaysia, that could be the case. I was going off of heresay about Malaysia being the threat . It seemed plausible since some sensitive positions are still off-limits to Singaporean-Malays during their NS.

It’s not that Malaysia isn’t a threat (there has been sabre-rattling too, e.g. in 1991 when the army was mobilised in response to a Malaysian exercise)—just that it’s not only or most important one. Merely geographically Indonesia is probably in a broadly comparable position to try to blockade Singapore to that of Malaysia. There are fewer e.g. Javanese citizens of Singapore, and many Indonesians assimilated to a Malay community principally associated with Malaysia and not Indonesia if anything, so fears of dual loyalty do not tend to focus on Indonesia; for example many Malays will have Javanese ancestry.

Changi is not, as you point out, really a big US base, but I imagine that putting strategically important thingums for the US Navy at risk would not be regarded well in DC which, (inter alia!), would deter Malaysia and Indonesia. It would also hurt US economic interests regardless because of the port and various investments, so I suppose the US Navy might not even be terribly important.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com