Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia - Problems and Prospects For Small and Medium Navies (PDFDrive)

NAVAL
MODERNISATION
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Problems and
Prospects for Small
and Medium Navies
Geoffrey Till
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto
Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia
Geoffrey Till · Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto
Editors
Naval Modernisation
in Southeast Asia
Problems and Prospects for Small
and Medium Navies
Editors
Geoffrey Till Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto
Defence Studies Department Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
King’s College London Australian National University
Swindon, UK Canberra, ACT, Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-58405-8 ISBN 978-3-319-58406-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943482
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Contents
1 Growing a Navy: Problems and Prospects. An

Introduction 1
Geoffrey Till
2 Naval Modernisation Versus Naval Development:

Implications for Strategic Stability in Southeast Asia 15
Bernard Fook Weng Loo
3 A Common Setting for Naval Planning in Southeast Asia?

Two Case Studies in Divergence 33
YingHui Lee and Collin Koh Swee Lean
4 Naval Development in Singapore 47

Collin Koh Swee Lean
5 Naval Development in Indonesia 61

6 Naval Development in Malaysia 77

Geoffrey Till and Henrick Z. Tsjeng
v
vi Contents
7 Naval Development in Vietnam 93

Truong-Minh Vu and Nguyen The Phuong
8 Conclusions 107
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto and Geoffrey Till
Index 121
About the Editors
Geoffrey Till is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s

College London and Chairman of the Corbett Centre for Maritime
Policy Studies. Since 2009, he has also been a Visiting Professor and
Senior Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, Singapore. His Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from
Trafalgar to the Falklands was published by ABC Clio in 2014 and he
is currently working on a fourth edition of his Seapower: A Guide for the
21st Century.
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is an Indonesian Presidential Ph.D.
Scholar with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian
National University. He is also a former associate research fellow with
the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
vii
Abbreviations
AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines

AIP Air Independent Propulsion (of submarines)
ASEAN Association of South-East Asia Nations
ASG Abu Sayyaf Group
ASW Anti Submarine Warfare
AUV Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
BAKAMLA Indonesia’s Maritime Safety Agency
C4ISR Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance
and Reconnaissance
COC Code of Conduct for the South China Sea
CSCAP Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific
CTF Combined Task Force
DIB Defence-Industrial Base
DOC Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
ESSZONE Malaysia’s Eastern Sabah Security Zone
EU European Union
FAC Fast Attack Craft
GDP Gross Domestic Product
IMSS Integrated Maritime Surveillance System
IONS Indian Ocean Naval Symposium
ISIS Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies
ISR Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance
IUU Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (fishing)
JDA Joint Development Area
JMMS Joint Multi-Mission Ship
ix
x Abbreviations
KEMHAN Indonesia’s Ministry of Defence

LMU Littoral Mission Ship
LPD Landing Platform, Dock
LST Landing Ship Tank
MBT Main Battle Tank
MEF Indonesia’s ‘Minimum Essential Force’
MEMA Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency
MIMA Maritime Institute of Malaya
MPRA Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft
MSP Malacca Strait Patrol
NGO Non Governmental Organisation
NSC National Security Council
NTS Non Traditional Security
PA Philippine Armed Forces
PAP People’s Action Party (of Singapore)
PMD Poros Maritim Dunia—Indonesia’s ‘Global Maritime Axis’
PN Philippine Navy
RIMPAC (US Hosted) Rim of the Pacific Naval Exercise
RMN Royal Malaysian Navy
RSN Republic of Singapore Navy
RTN Royal Thai Navy
SAF Singapore Armed Forces
SCS South China Sea
SIPRI Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
SLOCS Sea Lines of Communication
SOMS Straits of Malacca and Singapore
SPKB Russian Northern Project Design Bureau
SSV Strategic Sealift Vessel
TNI Indonesia’s National Defence Force
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UNCLOS UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
List of Figures
Fig. 5.1 The concept of Poros Maritim Dunia 63

Fig. 5.2 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in real terms 68
Fig. 5.3 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in GDP terms 69
xi
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia 18

Table 2.2 Elements of Southeast Asian Navies 20
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Growing a Navy: Problems and Prospects.

An Introduction
Geoffrey Till
Abstract  In this chapter the main editor for the two volumes will iden-
tify the general problems and challenges faced by the small and medium
nations of Southeast Asia in growing their navies. The chapter will estab-
lish a general model of naval development.
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems

Strategic consequences · South China Sea
There can be little doubt that a substantial process of naval modernisa-

tion is taking place throughout the Asia-Pacific Region in general and in
Southeast Asia in particular. Most analysis of this phenomenon, though,
concentrates on its extent and nature and especially on its likely conse-
quences for peace and stability in the area. There is, in particular, a focus on
whether we are seeing the beginnings of a potentially de-stabilising naval
arms race in the region. This is perfectly valid and indeed an important line
of enquiry and will be discussed in the next and also subsequent chapters.
G. Till (*) 
Defence Studies Department, King’s College London,
Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
e-mail: geofftill45@gmail.com
© The Author(s) 2018 1

G. Till (ed.), Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_1
2 G. TILL
The focus of this chapter, though, is rather different. Instead it will

look at the processes of naval modernisation—how, in effect, countries
‘grow,’ or maybe maintain a navy and the special problems and chal-
lenges that they often face in doing so.
Looking at the problem theoretically the task of becoming ‘a maritime
power’ and growing a navy would appear to be fairly straight forwards—
in principle at least. It would seem to be largely a matter of reconciling
ends, ways and means at a series of cascading decision-making levels that
range from the grand strategic policy-making at the top of the govern-
mental hierarchy to the tactical details of implementation at the bottom.
The devil, though, is in the practical details. It is these that make the task
so difficult. For each country, the practical details are different, in conse-
quence of their geography, political and strategic culture, economic state
and general circumstances.
While their experience may therefore seem very different, there do,
however, appear to be a number of common factors that determine the
relative coherence, success or failure of a country’s naval development.
Particular cases are useful in illustrating general points. To a degree, this
chapter takes the process of modernisation in India as a point of refer-
ence, not because it is better or worse than anywhere else but simply
because as a regional power India has been ‘growing its navy’ for several
decades and its experience provides pointers to the challenges that other
countries in the Indo-Pacific region will face as they follow suit, if they
do. Perhaps, also, that experience will tell us something about the extent
to which we should worry about the consequences of naval modernisa-
tion for the region’s stability.
In responding to the challenges of naval modernisation, four broad
tiers of decision-making seem particularly important, namely the levels of
• Policy-making at the level of Grand Strategy

• Implementing and Resourcing Grand Strategy
• Military Policy and Strategy-Making
• Naval Policy and Strategy-Making
Of course the distinctions between these four tiers of decision are fuzzy,
but their hierarchy represents a process of identifying national objectives
at the top and implementing the naval means of helping secure them at
the bottom. At every stage, though, the relevant decision-makers have
to reconcile ends (objectives), ways (methods) and means (tools and
1 GROWING A NAVY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS. AN INTRODUCTION 3
procedures). Major problems at any level can cascade down causing fur-
ther difficulties lower in the hierarchy—inevitably, a feedback system can
work its way up the hierarchy too. After all, it’s a poor strategist who
does not take at least some account of his likely means when deciding his
operational objectives and course of action.
We must also be wary the danger of building apparently ‘western’
assumptions about both process and product into the analysis. 1 All the
same, the following hierarchy of decision in the acquisition of defence
capability is considered universal, even unavoidable, though the manner
in which, and the instruments by which, it is conducted may vary widely
from country to country.
Tier 1: Deciding Grand Strategy or National

Security Policy
At this rarified level at the very top of the decision-making hierarchy, the
task is to identify national objectives and to decide their relative impor-
tance and priority. This is a matter of policy, not strategy-making. This
has to be done before those lower in the hierarchy can address the strate-
gic issues of deciding how those objectives should be met.
One particularly important set of considerations at this level are related
to what the Germans call Aussenpolitik, namely the view that the coun-
try’s top decision-makers take of the international context in which their
country operates and what they deduce they should do about it. The
international context, in short does much to shape the way in which a
country’s policy-makers conceive their maritime vulnerabilities and needs.
Inevitably such perceptions and their policy consequences will in turn
shape the perceptions and policy responses of others—hence the narrative
of action–reaction cycles and, potentially, destabilising arms races.
Even here, though, perceptions of the outer world are likely to
be influenced if not shaped by factors internal to the state—which the
Germans call by contrast Innenpolitik. In any case, the manner in which
a country grows a navy, the process rather than the product will reflect
its domestic circumstances as well as its international context. This may
extend to a near independence of that context—a process of growing a
navy that, to twist an analogy ‘marches to the sound of its own drum,’
that is supported by perceptions of the outside world rather than driven
by them. In essence, naval policy is driven more by internal than exter-
nal dynamics. Accordingly many of the incentives for naval development
4 G. TILL
may have little to do with what is happening abroad, and logically, little
impact on it.
Both the external and the internal challenges facing decision-makers
are clearly comprehensive in that they include all aspects of a country’s
activity and interests—the political, social, economic, legal and mili-
tary. For this reason, decision-making in national security policy likewise
requires a comprehensive approach in which all aspects of a country’s
interests are represented and effectively integrated. One increasingly
common way of doing this is the formation of some sort of National
Security Council system which represents all stakeholders at this level. A
sense of urgency can also be developed by the periodic issue of formal
and public statements of National Security Policy which are intended to
inform the public and to guide policy-makers lower down in the system.
Two problems that affect prospects for maritime development often
characterise this level of policy decision-making. The first is the problem
of sea-blindness as it is often called. Sea-blindness is a condition which
leads sufferers either vastly to underrate the relative importance of the
maritime domain or which leads them to acknowledge this in theory
but to delay or postpone measures to protect their maritime interests to
some later and sometimes unspecified date after more apparently urgent
national requirements are met. For this reason, such ‘maritime interests’
are not handed down for further urgent consideration lower in the pol-
icy and strategy-making hierarchy. India has certainly suffered from this
because of its focus on territorial disputes with its neighbours and on its
internal security.
One way of seeking to correct sea-blindness has been recently exem-
plified by the recent policy statements of China’s President Xi Jinping
and Indonesia’s President Jokowi, both of whom seek to elevate the
development of their country’s maritime attributes to a very high
national priority. Whether this delivers what they seek or not, will of
course depend on consequential decisions about implementation to be
made lower down the system and for that they, and we, will have to wait.
The Indian equivalent of this would seem to be its ‘Maritime Agenda,
2010–2020’ which aims, particularly in creating the kind of maritime
infrastructure (in shipping, ports and related industrial capacity) that his-
torically has been associated with naval growth.2
Another common problem in designing a national policy for the sea is
that of having to ‘see through a glass darkly.’ It is uniformly and intrinsi-
cally difficult for foreign ministries or treasuries to predict the future or
to gauge its requirements. Wide consultation with non-military sources

of expertise may help articulate policy alternatives here but for that to
happen there needs to be an informed ‘commentariat’ (derived essen-
tially from the university sector and national think-tanks) and a willing-
ness for policy-makers to engage with them openly. Perhaps because of a
tendency to overclassify potentially sensitive issues in India there is argu-
ably a lack of informed debate and ‘the security discourse is dominated
by former military officers or bureaucrats who…base their arguments on
opinions and claimed experience’.3
Another way forwards is for the military and other policy stakeholders
to base their own recommendations on rigorous and objective internal
studies. The failure of the Indian military to conduct such a reappraisal
of the operational lessons of the 1999 Kargil campaign has raised doubts
about the extent to which this kind of analysis is regularly done or has
much effect even if it is done.4
Without such internal and external debate, policy statements will
tend to be bland enough to cope with the variety of consequences of
their being unable to predict what is likely to happen when and what
their country will need to do about it in defence of national interests.
Options are maintained rather than prioritised. There is talk of balanced
approaches towards the future, which in practical terms offer very little
real guidance to decision-makers lower down in the system. This being
the case, they also either follow the same line and preserve options rather
than decide priorities, or, more insidiously, they decide their own way
forward in the light of decisions which they think the policy-makers
should have made, but did not. Amongst the consequences of this are
political, economic or military decisions made largely for narrow sec-
tional reasons. Russian experience shows that a likely result of this is a
sequence of unplanned shifts over time that makes it hard for a navy
to chart a consistent course.5 Paradoxically, smaller navies with fewer
options, may be better placed in this regard.
India, like most countries, suffers from all of this to some extent. In
the military dimension of its maritime aspirations it also has a residual
problem in less than perfect Civil-Military Co-operation since critics
allege that the Indian Administrative Service is generalist rather than
specialist and to some extent sees its purpose to be more a question of
controlling the military, rather than helping it take its proper position
in national defence policy decision-making. While it is surely possible to
argue that so firmly entrenched is India’s democracy after nearly 70 years
6 G. TILL
that the relative importance of this implicit task has much declined,
doubts remain.
Finally, in countries like India, deficiencies in the national maritime
defence industrial base (DIB) limit the country’s economic development,
restrict governmental revenue and act on a brake on its naval aspirations.
Despite India’s high levels of reliance on sea-borne trade, only 11% of
the total is carried in Indian ships, there is a lack of adequate port han-
dling capacity and its commercial ship building industry if anything is
declining, now producing barely 1% of total world ship building.6 This
limits what can be produced for the Navy and helps explains why India
has become the world’s largest arms importer despite its emphasis on
self-reliance.
There are questions about the relative priority of investing in the
maritime DIB when compared to other sectors of the economy, and to
the balance to be struck between the interests of the DIB and the navy,
where these diverge. The government’s particular aspirations are crucial
here. It may seek to produce a DIB that will allow the country to act as
an independent national player on the global stage. Alternately its aspira-
tions may be more modest—to support a national DIB that can act as a
global value-added supplier of niche capabilities, working in conjunction
with its equivalents in other countries. From this derive some obvious
questions, such as: What are the key industrial capabilities the govern-
ment wishes to foster? How successful will the maritime programme be?
More specifically, to what extent will maritime development focus on and
benefit the navy and the coastguard, as opposed to the civilian/commer-
cial sectors? As we shall see, this is a question of particular relevance for
Indonesia’s President Jokowi.
Tier 2: Implementing and Resourcing Grand Strategy

This decision-making tier is largely a matter of identifying the ways and
means by which policy objectives are to be achieved and of providing
the resources needed for their accomplishment. Here, general policy
directions get translated into practical action across the whole front
of government activity. In this, the maritime dimension takes its place
alongside all the others (education, health, social care and so forth) in
the consequent jostling for resources and budgetary priority. Here again
the requirement is to identify the extent to which the various levers of
national power can most effectively contribute to the general policy

objectives identified earlier and to ensure that each ‘lever’ is provided
with the resources necessary for the task, whether that be to build the
infrastructure, support the development or survival of a DIB or develop
a navy and/or coastguard.
Since government resources anywhere are never the equal of possible
commitments this is likely to be an essentially competitive process and the
political standing of the advocates of each dimension of national policy
is likely to be critical to their success. The maritime interest’s capacity to
‘get its case heard’ depends on the attitudes of the political class. In India
there is something of a problem in this regard, when it comes to naval
development. For a variety of reasons, not least residual concerns about
the politicians ‘meddling’ in operational matters widely held to have con-
tributed, for example, to the deficiencies of the 1962 campaign against
China, the political class have tended to steer clear of involvement in the
major defence issues confronting India, being content, it would seem, to
leave that to the professional judgement of the individual services. The
result is something of a lack of political ‘ownership’ of defence and insuf-
ficient dialogue between the political class and the military.
Tier 3: Military Policy and Strategy-Making

at the Ministry of Defence Level
At this third, (‘Ministry’) level, the broader decisions taken higher up

have to be implemented, within the constraints of the resources allo-
cated. Each section of the maritime community, the industrial, the navy
and the coastguard, have to identify their policy ‘ends’ or objectives,
deduce their strategy and decide their ‘ways’ and allocate their ‘means.’
For the Navy and the Coastguard, there will undoubtedly be issues
about the extent to which the administrative procedures and institu-
tions within their respective ministries actually work in translating gen-
eral ideas and aspirations into concrete and practical programmes. The
Indian navy suffers here from the less than perfect relationship between
the service headquarters and the Ministry of Defence and the defec-
tive division of labour that results from this. This state of affairs pro-
duces long bureaucratic delays and over the years has resulted in the
Navy being unable actually to spend the budget it has been allocated.
The problem is aggravated by the quality and attitudinal problems of the
8 G. TILL
Indian Administrative Service already referred to and, additionally by a

relatively low level of interservice cooperation, which results in both seri-
ous capability gaps and wasteful duplication. None of these problems are,
of course, unique to India.
Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy-Making
The ways, ends and means approach applies just as much at the fourth
level, the Navy department (and its industrial and coastguard equiva-
lents) where the maritime capabilities required to sustain the naval con-
tribution towards the conduct of actual or potential military operations
in support of national policy are developed. This task requires the iden-
tification and prioritisation of naval roles and the development of the
capabilities to perform them to the required degree. All of the poten-
tial constraints noted above will apply at this level of decision as well,
but there are some additional complications that especially apply to naval
development.
First, the maritime scene incorporates and represents industrial, ship-
ping and fishing interests as well as the navy and the coastguard. It will
require the navy to work alongside the coast guard and other agencies of
safety and law enforcement at sea. In all probability this will require close
cooperation with other like-minded navies as well. The Indian Navy, for
example participates in a large number of such multinational exercise and
togetherness programmes such as IONS, Milan, RIMPAC and so forth.
Accordingly, this will require the navy to develop a nexus of connections
and procedures to enable multinational maritime cooperation across the
whole security spectrum in addition to, but largely separate from, its
connections with the other two Indian military services. There may well
be tensions between these two demands.
Second, to the extent that the procurement and acquisition of mate-
riel is handled at the navy department level, then a series of non-military
industrial considerations are likely to come into play. The acquisition of
naval materiel is intrinsically difficult since both the lead times normally
required to produce sophisticated naval weapons, sensors and platforms
and their probable service life are likely to be very long. As one expert
group have recently concluded, ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged’
that ‘defence equipment acquisition is one of the most challenging of
human activities. …a uniquely demanding bureaucratic morass littered
with military, technological, economic and political pitfalls.’7 The very
long lead times normally required to produce sophisticated naval weap-

ons, sensors and platforms and their lengthy probable service life makes
them peculiarly susceptible to developmental risk because conditions
change.
The US Navy’s Rear Admiral Thomas Rowden dramatically illus-
trated the point recently by pointing out that most ships of the US Fleet
of 2034 are either already at sea or in advanced design stages.8 Building
modern ships of submarines is especially complicated and expensive, with
defence inflation in steel, equipment and sensors running at 6% per year,
a rate that exceeds the inflation escalators that most countries build into
their budgets. This will bear down on platform numbers and increase
incentives for levels of individual platform versatility that are in any case
justified by the unpredictability of the future operating environment.
Canada’s Halifax replacement programme, for example is expected to
deliver a ship capable of operating on the open ocean and in the littorals,
at home and abroad, independently, in a national task force or as part of
an international coalition force. It will need to cope with great distances,
and be Arctic capable. Not surprisingly, the currently planned programme
of 15 ships will come in two variants, a general-purpose type and a more
specialist Area Air Defence and Command and Control version.9
Such future-oriented procurement strategies tend to suffer quite badly
from the unpredictability of the future economic, budgetary and strate-
gic environment. All too frequently, this produces cycles of boom-and-
bust which make sustained planning over, say, a 30-year period, almost
impossible for manufacturers. Typically, this will result in constant delays,
cost increases and iterative tinkering with the original specification; and
eventually in the failure or chronic delay of the programme in ways
which means that the navy tends to acquire new materiel in an piece-
meal, opportunistic way rather than as part of an overall strategic plan
and in a manner which may undermine its capacity to perform its present
roles, let alone its future ones. No navy has shown itself immune to such
pressures and constraints.
The Indian Navy—and the whole Indian defence effort—has been
a victim of such unavoidable problems in the acquisition of platforms,
weapons and sensors. Over the past 7 years, $9 billion worth of tenders
have been cancelled halfway through procurement, half a dozen foreign
companies have been black-listed on charges of alleged corruption, and
more than 50 complaints against various defence deals have been sent to
the country’s anti-fraud agency.10
10 G. TILL
Nor can the problem of corruption, in which procurement deci-

sions are made for entirely the wrong kind of reasons, be safely ignored.
Countries vary in their vulnerability to this problem and it is one of the
clearest ways in which a navy can reflect the nature of the state it seeks
to protect. Corruption can not only result in naval acquisition that does
not properly match a country’s naval needs but can also breed amongst
the wider population considerable scepticism about the validity of those
needs in the first place. It can be a truly corrosive problem, both malign,
in its effects and difficult to eradicate.
Additionally, there could well be problems in the industrial capacity of
the country to produce the equipment the navy needs in terms of time,
number and quality. Here there might well also be a conflict of interest
between the navy in getting what it needs when it needs it, and indus-
try in developing the research, development and production sustainabil-
ity that is so much easier to provide if demand is predictable and so can
be planned for in advance. Finally if government policy is to develop a
defence industrial sector not just for strategic reasons, but to help encour-
age the kind of industrial and technological skills needed for a modern
developed economy or in response to its wider economic interests (such
as employment opportunities, balance of trade or regional development
policies11) then there might well be conflict between government policies
and the immediate needs of the navy. Recent Australian investigation sug-
gests that for all these reasons the cost of naval technology may be 20%
higher than buying the same technology off the shelf from a foreign sup-
plier—at least when narrowly measured in the short term.12
Coping with all these defence management problems while deliver-
ing the kind of equipment needed requires personnel in sufficient num-
ber that have the experience, skill sets and authority necessary to ensure
that naval defence acquisition system is ‘smart.’ For this to happen they
need to be familiar with industrial processes, able to articulate a convinc-
ing case, to defend it where necessary (for this is inevitably a competitive
process too) and to follow a project through to completion of the par-
ticular stages for which they are responsible. Producing the kind of peo-
ple in the numbers required to make a material contribution to the naval
policy and decision-making system and indeed very likely to help shape
policy at the Ministry level as well demands heavy investment in profes-
sional military education and training.
Bearing in mind the many challenges the Indian navy faces, it is pos-
sible to argue that it has been remarkably successful. In accordance with
the Maritime Capability Perspective Plan, 2012–2017, the fleet will

steadily expand in size and capability through the period, and its share
of the defence budget rise from 18% at the moment to 30% in a dec-
ade’s time. The extent to which this happens is however, because of the
general and the specifically naval decision- and policymaking apparatus
remains an open question, however.
All this may be particularly difficult for smaller navies which cannot
generate the economies of scale in either platforms or personnel that
make such problems more manageable. In that at least the Indian navy is
better off than most of its smaller equivalents.
Conclusions
When analysts look at the naval modernisation process, especially when it
takes on the characteristics of an actual or potential naval arms race, they
often make one set of assumptions about motivation which depend on
a second set of assumptions about whether the process itself is a careful
one or not. Is the naval force that drops out of the bottom of a coun-
try’s decision-making process the result of a considered and deliber-
ate policy at the grand strategic level together with a coherent overall
plan of implementation? Or, on the other hand, is it the near accidental
product of a whole variety of conflicting interests and perspectives that
neither tells us very much about the overall intent of the programme,
nor provides other countries with much guidance as to how they should
rationally react. Most navies exhibit the symptoms of a mix of both these
approaches!
In trying to understand the various ways in which the countries of
Southeast Asia are growing their navies, some obvious questions seem
naturally to emerge, and which may serve as topics for analysis in the
chapters that follow. Does the country in question have a grand strate-
gic vision of its overall security objectives, a clear sense of its maritime
interests and the role that it navy (or coastguard) can play in securing
them? Does it even have the apparatus for grand strategic thinking? Are
its security policy objectives identified with sufficient clarity to guide oth-
ers lower down the hierarchy, and is the maritime case given due weight
in this process? Does the machinery of government effectively turn such
objectives into a coherent strategy through the provision of priority and
resources? Is the Ministry of Defence fit for purpose in driving guid-
ing naval development within a joint service perspective? And finally, to
12 G. TILL
what extent are the Navy’s troubles (assuming it has some!) due to its
own institutional deficiencies rather than to malign circumstances? Is its
success the consequence of institutionalised ‘muddling through’ or the
result of a coherent policy and strategy-making process?
Implicit in this is the complex issue of the source of the conceptions
which drive policy and strategy-making. Do they derive in the main from
the nature of the state or from an objective appraisal of the challenges
posed by the international context. In this regard how the naval mod-
ernisation processes of other countries are seen and interpreted may well
be crucial in framing a particular country’s perception of strategic need.
Inevitably tackling this issue slides us back into an investigation into the
consequences of naval modernisation rather than into its processes. But
this is clearly a determinant in naval policy-making, even if indirectly, and
so this book will move on to a review of the overall possible results of
naval modernisation in Southeast Asia, before returning in subsequent
chapters to the narrower issue of the manner in which naval modernisa-
tion is being pursued in the region.
Notes
1. Bettina Renz, ‘Russian Military Capabilities after 20 years of Reform,’
Survival 56, No 3—June—July 2014, 61–84.
2. Shyam Saran, ‘Enhancing India’s Maritime Security,’ The Tribune,
(Chandigarth), 25 Feb 2014.
3. Anit Mukherjee, ‘Tell it like it is,’ Times of India, 9 June 2010.
4. Anit, Mukherjee, ‘Facing Future Challenges: A transformational roadmap
for India’s Military Strategy,’ IDSA Paper no p 3, also ‘Facing Future
Challenges: Defence Reform in India,’ RUSI Journal October/Nov
2011.
5. Nicholas Papstratigakis, Russian Imperialism and Naval Power: Military
Strategy and the Build-Up to the Russo-Japanese War (London: I.B.
Taurus, 2011).
6. Shyam Saran, op cit.
7. Ken Hambleton, Ian holder and David Kirpatrick ‘Ten chronic challenges
in UK defence acquisition,’ Defence studies, 2013, Vol 13, No 3, 361–371.
8. RAdm Thomas Rowden, ‘Building the Surface Fleet of Tomorrow,’
USNIP, Jan 2014.
9. Ian Wood (ed.) National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy: Charting the
Course (Halifax: Dalhousie University, June 2014), pp 38, 48.
10. Vivek Raghuvaneshi, ‘Procurement problems Await Next Indian Gov’t,’

Defense News, 14 April 2014.
11. Hambleton et al., op cit, p. 369.
12. Julian Kerr, ‘Report on Australian ship-building finds 30–40% cost pre-
mium,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly, 22 April 2015.
Author Biography
Geoffrey Till is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s College
London and Chairman of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies. Since
2009, he has also been a Visiting Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. His Understanding
Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands was published by ABC
Clio in 2014 and he is currently working on a fourth edition of his Seapower: A
Guide for the 21st Century.
CHAPTER 2
Naval Modernisation Versus Naval

Development: Implications for Strategic
Stability in Southeast Asia
Bernard Fook Weng Loo
Abstract  The chapter reviews naval development in Southeast Asia as a

whole and finds that it is less than a naval arms race but more than a pro-
cess of normal naval modernisation. It then identifies some of the possi-
ble consequences for international stability in Southeast Asia.
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems · Strategic

consequences · South China Sea
Since the 1980s, navies in Southeast Asia have been experiencing a sig-
nificant increase in the allocation of resources. This study focuses on
six countries who have significant maritime—Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. According to data
derived from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, total
spending on naval platforms by the countries in this study increased by
approximately $US one billion each decade between 1970 and 1999
(see “Appendix”). This increase in spending has resulted in a significant
B.F.W. Loo (*) 
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: ISAFWLoo@ntu.edu.sg

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_2
16 B.F.W. LOO
increase in naval platforms, allowing these navies to move from primar-

ily brown water-capable platforms to green water-capable platforms, and
most recently, platforms capable of performing limited blue water mis-
sions. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, most of these
countries have either espoused interest in, or have acquired, sub-surface
warfighting capabilities as well. Clearly, the trend of dedicating resources
to growing naval capabilities has not shown any signs of abating.
How should this increase in naval platforms and capabilities be under-
stood? Is it a case of obsolete capabilities simply being replaced—in other
words a straightforward modernisation programme? Or is it a rather
more complicated phenomenon? Are these recent acquisitions changing
the balance between offensive and defensive capabilities? Are they chang-
ing the regional balance of naval power? Stemming from this last ques-
tion, are these acquisitions suggestive at the very least of a potential naval
arms race? If so, what are the follow-on consequences for strategic stabil-
ity in Southeast Asia, and indeed the larger Indo–Pacific region?
This study rejects two arguments that have attempted to explain these
processes: one argument suggests that these processes represent a naval
arms race in Southeast Asia1; another argument suggests that these pro-
cesses represent a modernisation programme, anchoring in what Buzan
and Herring refer to as maintaining the status quo.2 Instead, this study
argues that recent developments in naval acquisitions in Southeast Asia
ought to be understood differently, that these represent a slow-motion
development of fully fledged navies, at least in terms of how each state in
the region understands a fully fledged navy that corresponds to how each
state perceives its respective strategic environment and the security mis-
sions that accrue thereafter.
Deconstructing the Naval Arms Race Argument

Depicting arms acquisition processes in Southeast Asia as potentially
destabilising at the very least, if not as an arms race in the offing, has
been something of a cottage industry since the 1990s, when military
spending in the region began to garner international attention. The idea
that arms acquisitions in Southeast Asia had potentially destabilising con-
sequences is strengthened when comments by particular political leaders
painted these processes in a negative light.3
Admittedly, there are elements of arms acquisitions by Southeast Asian
countries that at least partially fulfill the arms race argument. Outside
2 NAVAL MODERNISATION VERSUS NAVAL DEVELOPMENT … 17
the domain of naval acquisitions, for instance, Malaysia’s acquisition of

F/A-18s and MiG-29s was announced by then-Minister for Defence
Najib Abdul Razak, now Malaysia’s Prime Minister, to state that the
Malaysian air force was back on par with Malaysia’s neighbours.4
Indeed, Malaysia’s reconfiguration of its armed forces from counter-
insurgency doctrines to a conventional warfighting doctrine was almost
certainly driven by the growing conventional warfighting capabilities of
the Singapore armed forces.5 Singapore unveiled its Ah-64D Apache-
Longbows shortly after Malaysia’s Defence Ministry announced the
acquisition of PT-91 main battle tanks. Myanmar’s attempt to develop
a conventional land warfighting capability in the late 1990s was almost
certainly motivated by Thailand’s growing military capabilities.6 At face
value, these patterns at least partially resemble the action–reaction ele-
ment intrinsic to any arms race.
But how accurate are these arguments? As Richard Bitzinger argued
recently, the portrayal of these Southeast Asian acquisitions as an arms
race is problematic.7 To begin with, although political relationships
within Southeast Asia are not entirely positive, the idea of armed conflict
between Southeast Asian states is nevertheless almost certainly almost
unthinkable, at least for the foreseeable future. Certainly, it would be
a mistake to characterise political relationships within Southeast Asia as
openly mutually adversarial and hostile. Second, while there is almost
certainly an element of one-upmanship in how specific weapons capabili-
ties are either acquired or announced, this does not qualify as the action–
reaction acquisition patterns that arms races demand.8 Finally, there
has been no significant increases in defence expenditures in Southeast
Asia throughout and since the 1990s. Indeed, defence expenditures in
Southeast Asia have remained remarkably consistent when seen as a per-
centage of national gross domestic products or national budgets.
It is true that spending on naval platforms experienced a fairly signifi-
cant increase for at least some Southeast Asian countries in the 1990s (see
Table 2.1). Furthermore, individual acquisitions can appear to parallel at
least certain aspects of arms race models. For instance, Singapore ordered
six missile corvettes in 1983. Ostensibly this was to assist the Singapore
Navy in its stated mission of protecting the sea lines of communica-
tion upon which Singapore’s economy was so dependent. At the time,
the strike component of the Singapore Navy comprised smaller brown
water-capable missile gunboats, whereas their immediate neighbours had
larger (and presumably more prestigious) green water-capable vessels.
18 B.F.W. LOO
Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia
1960– 1970– 1980– 1990– 2000– 2010– Total

1969 1979 1989 1999 2009 2013
Indonesia
Aircraft 1784 485 1178 617 656 921 5641
Armoured 311 48 141 110 31 42 683
vehicles
Artillery 40 10 111 23 24 40 248
Ships 1270 361 1596 1075 1021 110 5433
Malaysia
Aircraft 299 566 485 1369 1117 60 3896
Armoured 12 109 281 28 241 51 722
vehicles
Artillery 2 89 38 8 51 23 211
Ships 261 680 877 720 1218 350 4106
The Philippines
Aircraft 246 558 248 223 100 35 1410
Armoured 11 67 35 43 5 3 164
vehicles
Artillery 8 66 6 78
Ships 109 481 14 156 19 108 887
Singapore
Aircraft 20 887 1348 1720 2288 1562 7822
Armoured 20 308 154 62 126 400 1070
vehicles
Artillery 92 71 17 20 200
Ships 20 377 699 2018 198 3311
Thailand
Aircraft 609 1183 1127 1546 581 468 5514
Armoured 142 63 522 346 26 146 1245
vehicles
Artillery 38 61 200 206 31 41 577
Ships 114 460 554 1781 22 115 3046
Vietnam
Aircraft 1006 2031 2829 606 355 1124 7951
Armoured 239 2178 240 18 2675
vehicles
Artillery 519 396 34 949
Ships 250 280 574 300 314 760 2478
Expenditure on major combat systems, calculated at constant 1990 USD, millions; data accessed from
http://www.sipri.org/databases, accessed 20 November 2014
Granted, the missile corvettes gave Singapore’s navy an anti-submarine

warfare capability, but only Indonesia possessed submarines—and old,
no longer seaworthy vessels at that. Arguably, acquiring a modern mine
counter-measures capability might have been a more pressing require-
ment, given the Singapore Navy’s mission of protecting shipping lanes.
It is possible to conclude that it was the politics of envy that drove this
Singapore decision. More recently, regional navies have been focusing
on acquiring submarines—Singapore first, then Malaysia, Indonesia and
Vietnam, and even Thailand has now espoused interest in acquiring sub-
marines. Robert Kaplan cited this author as describing these submarines
as “bling”.9 In other words, there is the element of these platforms as
flashy and ostentatious statements; but there is potentially also an under-
lying statement of “having made it”, of now being a more rounded naval
force with both surface and sub-surface warfighting capabilities. Intrinsic
to the acquisition of “bling” is therefore an element of “keeping up with
the Joneses”.10
It is possible to argue that “keeping up with the Joneses” implies a
pattern of competitive, if not outright adversarial, relationships between
the states of the region. Southeast Asia is certainly not a security com-
munity; there are some lingering suspicions and points of contention
in specific bilateral relationships.11 Nevertheless, the absence of adver-
sarial relationships and action–reaction acquisition patterns identified
earlier still applies in this case, and consequently undermines—if not
invalidates—the arms race argument. Furthermore, as the subsequent
section will argue, naval spending in the 1990s can be—indeed it ought
to be—understood through a longer term historical lens that will begin
to suggest a non-arms race explanation for this increase in spending on
naval platforms.
Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia: A Long-Term

Perspective
To begin with, looking at the patterns of defence expenditure across
the maritime states of Southeast Asia, the general trend is that up till
the 1990s, the respective navies of these states were not receiving very
much in terms of their shares of their respective states’ defence budg-
ets. This trend of relative neglect becomes apparent by examining the
number of principal surface combatants that the respective navies had
(see Table 2.2).12 Singapore’s navy is the starkest manifestation of this
20 B.F.W. LOO
Table 2.2 Elements of Southeast Asian Navies
1969 1979 1989 1999 2009
Indonesia PSCa 21 11 15 33 30
Heavy lift 7 9 15 28 29
Submarines 6 3 2 2 2
Malaysia PSC 2 3 4 10 12
Heavy lift 3 2 3
Submarines 2
The Philippines PSC 18 3 1 1
Heavy lift 6 27 24 9 7
Submarines
Singapore PSC 6 12
Heavy lift 6 5 3 4
Submarines 3 6
Thailand PSC 3 7 7 20 20
Heavy lift 14 5 6 9 6
Submarines
Vietnam PSC 3 7 7 11
Heavy lift 3 7 6 6
Submarines 2 2
aThis refers to principal surface combatants, which in this study includes aircraft carriers, cruisers,
destroyers, frigates and corvettes
pattern of relative neglect, growing significantly in terms of principal sur-

face combatants only since the 1990s. Vietnam’s navy gained a principal
surface combatant fleet only since the late 1970s. Indonesia started out
the 1970s with a large naval force, but the numbers of principal surface
combatants dropped drastically by 1979. This pattern remained con-
stant for two decades before a significant surge in naval platforms in the
late 1990s. The Philippines experienced a significant growth in princi-
pal surface combatants and heavy sealift in the 1970s, but those numbers
dropped significantly after the 1980s.
There are two obvious exceptions. Malaysia’s navy may have been
relatively small in the 1969s, but it has thus far not experienced any sig-
nificant drops in terms of the numbers of principal surface combatants of
naval heavy lift throughout the period under study. This constant empha-
sis on naval platforms is consonant with the strong maritime element in
Malaysia’s strategic calculus of its geostrategic environment.13 Thailand’s
navy similarly started out small, but grew slowly and steadily, and did not
experience any significant drops in numbers of platforms.
This pattern of relative neglect becomes more apparent when jux-

taposed with the acquisition of air power assets.14 Between 1989 and
1999: Indonesia’s air force had grown from 70 combat aircraft (A-4F/F,
F-5E/F) to 91 combat aircraft (A-4E, F-16A/B and Bae Hawk);
Malaysia had grown from 58 combat aircraft (A-4, F-5E/F) to 87 com-
bat aircraft (F-5E/F, Bae Hawk, and MiG-29); Singapore had grown
from 151 combat aircraft (A-4SU, F-74 Hunter and F-5E/F) to 174
combat aircraft (A-4SU, F-16A/B/C/D, F-5S); Thailand had grown
from 143 combat aircraft (F-5A/B/E/F, other COIN platforms) to
162 combat aircraft (F-16A/B, F-5E/F); and Vietnam reduced from
250 combat aircraft (Su-20/22, MiG-21) to 189 combat aircraft (Su-22,
Su-27, MiG-21).
What makes this pattern all the more counter-intuitive is the fact that
for these states, the maritime environment has always been a significant
element of their respective national lives. The respective national histori-
cal narratives of these states have always had a strong maritime element,
whether by dint of their archipelagic nature or by the maritime trade that
has characterised the histories of these states, from pre-colonial to cur-
rent times.
From Relative Neglect to Naval

Modernisation: Explaining the Pattern
The challenge is to be able to explain these patterns of relative neglect in
some cases and “feast to famine” patterns in others, moving from relative
neglect that the navies of these states had to endure between the 1960s
and the 1980s on the one hand, to the relative largesse since the 1990s,
where investments in naval platforms across these states have increased
quite significantly.
To be sure, there almost certainly is a strategic-security rationale
for this surge in investments in naval platforms. Maritime security—
security of shipping routes from criminal activities, rival territorial claims,
access to fisheries or energy resources—became an increasingly impor-
tant focal point for these states from the 1990s onwards. Given the
rather antiquated or limited nature of naval systems and capabilities at
that time, it was therefore imperative that these navies be modernised
and expanded in capabilities. Furthermore, as suggested earlier, this phe-
nomenon ought not to be seen as constituting a naval arms race; rather
22 B.F.W. LOO
it constitutes a slow-motion development of more or less full-fledged

navies for these states. There is a simple reason for this: naval platforms—
especially larger naval platforms capable of at least green water, if not
blue water, operations—cost a lot more in absolute terms than combat
aircraft. Affordability therefore becomes a potentially significant consid-
eration when it comes to military modernisation writ large. When seen
in the context of gross domestic product (see “Appendix”), it becomes
clear that it is really in the 1990s that the respective GDPs for these
states begins to grow significantly. There is therefore some correlation
between arms acquisitions and economic affluence.15
At the same time, there are a number of country-specific explana-
tions for this surge in naval capabilities since the 1990s. For Vietnam, the
explanation for the relative neglect of naval investments throughout the
1960s into the 1970s is obvious: the Vietnam War was fought predomi-
nantly, indeed almost exclusively, in the air and land domains. The mari-
time domain was important in terms of the lesser known maritime Ho
Chi Minh Trail, but the operation of this maritime channel of supplies to
Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam required small private craft that
could avoid detection from US naval vessels. For much of the 1980s,
Vietnam was embroiled in the Cambodian conflict—otherwise known
as the Third Indonchina War—which resulted in a significant drain on
its already scarce economic resources, crippled by the years of fighting
against the USA in the Second Indochina War, and the economic embar-
goes placed on it as a result of its invasion of Cambodia on 25 December
1978. It is therefore not surprising that Vietnam’s investments in naval
platforms only began to surge in the 1990s onwards.
Indonesia ended the 1960s with the largest naval force in Southeast
Asia. However, the principal surface combatants that Indonesia’s navy
deployed—a Sverdlovsk-class cruiser, seven Skory-class destroyers and 13
frigates—were acquired from the former Soviet Union, during a period
of Indonesia’s history that saw the Sukarno government tilt towards the
Soviet Union. When Sukarno was subsequently toppled in a military coup,
the relationship with the Soviet Union consequently suffered. In any case,
these Soviet vessels were patently unsuited for tropical conditions—muddy
and high salinity tropical waters resulted in significant erosion for the hulls
of these vessels, and they were subsequently returned to the Soviet Union
or decommissioned. The human rights abuses of the military-led govern-
ment that replaced Sukarno resulted in arms embargos that also affected
the quantity and quality of the Indonesian navy throughout the 1970s and
1980s. The surge in principal surface combatants in the Indonesian navy

in the 1990s can be attributed to the acquisition of former East German
naval vessels by the former President Suharto.16 The decision was driven
principally by the then-Minster for Research and technology B.J. Habibie,
who was leveraging on his close ties with the newly unified Germany
in concluding this acquisition programme. However, the vessels were
acquired at over-inflated prices.17 The possibility that corruption was a key
element in this acquisition cannot be ruled out therefore.
For Singapore, the relative neglect that the Singapore navy had to
endure up to the decade of 2000–2009, in contrast to very significant
investments in air force capabilities, can be attributed to the influence
of the Israeli military advisors who had helped to build the Singapore
Armed Forces.18 These Israeli advisors, having arrived in Singapore in
the aftermath of Israel’s stunning victories in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war,
were convinced about the absolute necessity of ensuring that Singapore,
as a small state surrounded by much larger potential adversaries, had to
maintain a significant advantage in air combat systems over these poten-
tially hostile neighbours. This was in obvious detriment to the develop-
ment of the Singaporean navy. By the 1990s, however, as the Singapore
air force began to mature, this was when defence budgets could begin
to pay more attention to modernising or upgrading naval capabilities.
As the former Singapore Navy Chief Richard Lim noted in his speech
on 5 May 1997 at the Singapore Navy’s 30th anniversary, “We have
now reached adulthood, the product of a generation’s effort … Starting
from a small patrol force we have now a balanced navy with capabili-
ties to operate over, upon and under the sea”.19 Richard Lim noted
how the Singapore Navy had grown from providing “a basic coastal
defence capability” with patrol craft and missile gunboats to “missions
of seaward defence and safeguarding our sea lines of communications”
with maritime patrol aircraft, mine counter-measures vessels, and new
patrol vessels. In the twenty-first century, a submarine capability would
be added to that list of capabilities that such a “balanced” force would
require.
In the case of Thailand, the surge in numbers of principal surface com-
batants in the 1990s can be attributed to the acquisition of a helicopter
carrier from Spain and a number of Chinese Type 053 Jianghu-class frig-
ates in the 1990s by the Chuan Leekpai government. It was reported that
the Thai navy was less than impressed with the quality of the Chinese frig-
ates, which had been sold to Thailand at the so-called friendship prices.
24 B.F.W. LOO
As to why these Chinese frigates were acquired, therefore, explanations

have been few and far between. Ostensibly, the Thai navy had been wor-
ried about the insufficient numbers of such vessels.20 The acquisition of
the frigates also took place against a backdrop of warm Sino-Thai rela-
tions, although at the military to military level, relations have stalled
because of the Thai navy’s desire to acquire better quality platforms and
equipment.21 It is therefore possible to speculate that the frigates were
acquired from China despite the Thai navy’s objections and that these
acquisitions were part of a larger Sino-Thai political relationship.
Implications for Strategic Stability in Southeast Asia

This strategic rationale does not itself constitute a sufficient basis for a
naval arms race. For an arms race to exist, there must be, as Colin Gray
has argued, an existing mutually acknowledged antagonistic relationship
between the relevant strategic actors.22 Even if national interests in fish-
eries and energy resources collide with the rival territorial claims, these
do not suffice to constitute mutually acknowledged antagonism.
That is not to say that there are no concerns for strategic stability in
Southeast Asia today. To begin with, this study takes strategic stability
to refer to a situation where the likelihood of miscalculations resulting in
armed conflicts that policymakers neither anticipated nor wanted.23 The
worst-case scenario is one where two countries regard each other as likely
adversaries in a potential future war, and they are locked in a conflict-
ing geopolitical conflict over either territory or resources. At least one
side perceives its geostrategic conditions to be fundamentally unfavour-
able, thus increasing the attractiveness of preemptive military operations.
Finally, both countries possess the military capacities to project power
against each other; in other words, both countries possess the military
capacity to threaten the interests, possibly even the existence, of the state.
When strategic stability is understood in this light, it becomes clear
that this condition does not apply in the case of Southeast Asia. As stated
earlier, there are no overtly antagonistic relationships within Southeast
Asia; admittedly, there are issues of contention between specific states,
but these do not amount to overtly hostile relationships.
That being said, the potential for misunderstandings spiralling out of
control into armed conflicts cannot be ruled out entirely. The naval plat-
forms recently acquired or in ongoing acquisition programmes do con-
stitute a potential—but very limited—power projection and war-fighting
capability. To a certain extent, this introduction of power projection

capabilities in the naval domain can transform the strategic landscape
of Southeast Asia; nevertheless, as an earlier study suggested, this trans-
formation of the strategic landscape of their region has yet to happen.24
While regional navies are beginning to acquire power projection capa-
bilities, the numbers being acquired can only provide very limited power
projection, and this power cannot be projected in any sustained manner.
The positive tone thus far needs to be tempered, however. There is
one geopolitical issue that may, if not managed well, spiral out of control
into armed conflict, namely the territorial disputes in the South China
Sea. Robert Kaplan describes the South China Sea as Asia’s Cauldron,
the “throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans”.25 The recent
development of particular note in China’s construction of an airfield and
land reclamation activities in some of the other atolls and islets. While
it is tempting to see these activities as evidence of China attempting to
create a permanent manned military presence in the South China Sea,
it is also possible to argue that these activities are evidence of more than
purely military considerations.26 It is very likely that Vietnam’s recent
acquisitions of six Kilo-class submarines and four Gepard-class frigates
from Russia are meant to strengthen its naval capacity to at least interfere
with Chinese naval operations in the South China Sea. Malaysia’s acquisi-
tion of two Scorpene submarines and the Philippines’ espoused interest
in acquiring submarines are almost surely connected with these coun-
tries’ respective interests in the South China Sea disputes as well.
Further, given the absence of adequate incidents-at-sea and other cri-
sis management regimes beyond the scope of this study, the increasingly
crowded nature of the South China Sea may eventually create crises that,
if not managed properly, can spiral out of control into limited armed con-
flicts.27 As it stands, as Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan have noted, “The coun-
tries of South-east Asia have their own agendas and their own attitudes and
problems and these are reflected in their quite distinctive naval policies”.28
That being said, it is worth noting that the South China Sea has
become a potential flashpoint commanding international attention
principally because of China’s involvement. It is true that a number of
Southeast Asian states are rival claimants to the South China Sea islets
and rocky atolls. Given that these Southeast Asian countries possess only
rudimentary capacities to project naval power into the South China
Sea—but not the capacity to sustain this naval presence for a long time—
it is reasonable to argue that the respective interests in submarines and
26 B.F.W. LOO
principal surface combatants are driven more by China’s involvement

than targeted against other Southeast Asian claimants. This means that
the observations made earlier in this study about the absence of intense
rivalry between the Southeast Asian countries therefore remains valid.
Conclusions
Seen from this long-term perspective, this study concludes that naval
acquisitions by these countries since the 1990s ought not to be regarded
as evidence of anything even approximating an arms race in the naval
domain. Rather, the dominant pattern ought to be regarded as a
slow-motion development of more fully rounded naval forces. The
explanations for the respective national acquisition patterns range from
economic affordability as a result of economic growth, political develop-
ments peculiar to individual countries, to the delayed recognition of the
increasing importance of the maritime domain for the respective coun-
tries national security and economic outlooks. There is no naval arms
race in Southeast Asia, simply put.
That is not to say that the increasing numbers of green water-capable
naval forces in terms of both principal surface combatants and subma-
rines is a phenomenon that does not warrant some concern. As sug-
gested earlier, this proliferation of relatively advanced and capable
naval vessels is occurring in a maritime domain that is not only replete
with geopolitical tensions and potential flashpoints, it is also a domain
that lacks proper mechanisms for the management of these tensions
and potential crises that might emerge as a result of incidents at sea.
Southeast Asia has enjoyed a period of relative strategic stability; these
naval acquisitions contain the potential for upsetting regional strate-
gic stability. Certainly, without proper management of the respective
national acquisitions programmes, and without proper regional cri-
sis management mechanisms, strategic stability in Southeast Asia can
deteriorate.
Notes
1.
See, for instance: Richard Bitzinger, “A New Arms Race: Explaining
Recent Southeast Asian Military Acquisitions”, Contemporary Southeast
Asia, Vol. 32, No. 1, April 2010; Felix Chang, “A Salutation to Arms:
Asia’s Military Buildup, Its Rasons and Its Implications”, Foreign Policy
Research Institute, September 2013 (available online: http://www.

fpri.org/articles/2013/09/salutation-arms-asias-military-buildup-its-
reasons-and-its-implications, accessed 10 February 2015); Michael E
Wallace and Charles A Maconis, New Powers, “Old Patterns: Dangers
in the Naval Buildup in the Asia Pacific Region”, University of British
Columbia Institute of International Relations Working Paper 9, March
1995 (available online: http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/sites/liu/files/9Michael
WallaceandCharlesMeconis.pdf, accessed 10 February 2015).
2. Barry Buzan and Eric Herring, The Arms Dynamic in World Politics
(Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1998), p. 80.
3. In the 1990s, former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas noted
“rather disturbing reports of increased arms purchases by several coun-
tries in the region”, and the then Singapore Defence Minister Yeo
Ning Hong noted that “No country in Southeast Asia … has declared
a peace dividend.” Cited in: Amitav Acharya, “An Arms Race in Post-
Cold War Southeast Asia? Prospects for Control”, Pacific Strategic Papers
(Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994), p. 1. For the
regional arms race argument, see: Michael T Klare, “The Next Great
Arms Race”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 136–
152; Gerald Segal, “Managing new arms races in the Asia/Pacific”, The
Washington Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1992, pp. 83–101. For a rather
more nuanced reading of this issue, see: Desmond Ball, “Arms and
Affluence: Military Acquisitions in the Asia Pacific Region”, International
Security, Vol. 18, No. 3, Winter 1993–1994, pp. 78–112; Panitan
Wattanayagorn and Desmond Ball, “A Regional Arms Race?”, Journal of
Strategic Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1995, pp. 147–174.
4. Asian Defence Journal, August 1994, p. 86.
5. “Malaysia Chases Others in Refuelling Capabilities”, Jane’s Defence
Weekly, 22 January 1997, p. 12.
6. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 5 August 1998, p. 19.
7. Richard A Bitzinger, “A New Arms Race? Explaining Recent Southeast
Asian Military Acquisitions”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 32, No. 1,
April 2010, pp. 50–69.
8. An example of this one-upmanship is the Malaysian acquisition of F/A-18
and MiG-29 combat aircraft in the 1990s; when the decision was
announced, then-Defence Minister Najib commented that this acqui-
sition allowed Malaysia’s air force to catch up with its neighbouring
counterpart. See Bernard Fook Weng Loo, “Transforming the Strategic
Landscape of Southeast Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 27,
No. 3, December 2005, p. 396. Singapore unveiled its first AH-64D
Apache Longbow attack helicopters shortly after Malaysia announced its
own acquisition of PT-91 main battle tanks.
28 B.F.W. LOO
9. Robert Kaplan, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a
Stable Pacific (New York: Random House, 2014), p. 34.
10. Desmond Ball, “Arms and Affluence: Military Acquisitions in the Asia-
Pacific Region”, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3, Winter 1993–
1994, pp. 78–112. Ball was the first to posit the prestige argument
concering military acquisitions.
11. The concept of security community may be understood as a group of
states whose concepts of national security are “interdependent and that
excessively self-referenced security policies, whatever their jingoistic
attractions, are ultimately self-defeating.” See: Barry Buzan, People, States
and Fear (London: harvester Wheatsheaf, 1983), p. 208.
12. Data was obtained from the 1969–1970, 1979–1980, 1989–1990, 1999–
2000, and 2009 editions of The Military Balance.
13. Patrick Bright, “ASEAN—Naval Forces Overview”, in Naval Forces,
February 2001, p. 48.
14. Data was obtained from the 1989–1990 and 1999–2000 editions of The
Military Balance.
15. See Ball, “Arms and Affluence”.
16. Michael Richardson, “Indonesia to Acquire One-Third of Navy of Former
East Germany”, The New York Times, 5 February 1993.
17. Richard Robison and Vedi Hadiz, Reorganising Power in Indonesia:
The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets (London and New York:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), p. 139.
18. Amnon Barzilal, “A deep, dark, secret love affair”, Tha Haaretz, 16 July
2004 (accessed online: http://www.haaretz.com/a-deep-dark-secret-
love-affair-1.128671, 11 February 2015).
19. Speech by Rear Admiral, Richard Lim, Chief of Navy, at the Navy 20th
Anniversary Parade, http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/press_room/
official_releases/sp/1997/05may97_speech.html#.VOGDGCiVOfQ,
accessed on 10 February 2015.
20. See http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/thailand/chaophraya.
htm, accessed 12 February 2015.
21. Bronson Pecival, The Dragon Looks South: China and Southeast Asia in
the New Century (Westport and London: Praeger Security International,
2007), pp. 50–51.
22. Colin Gray defined an arms race as a situation where “two or more parties
perceiving themselves to be in an adversary relationship, who are increas-
ing or improving their armaments at a rapid rate and structuring their
respective military postures with a general attention to the past, current
and anticipated military and political behaviour of the other parties.”
Interestingly, later on, Gray would disown the concept, arguing instead
that the concept really described something that had never happened in
the history of international politics; see “Arms Races and Other Pathetic
Fallacies: A Case for Deconstruction”, Review of International Studies,
Vol. 22, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 323–335.
23. Bernard Fook Weng Loo, Middle Powers and Accidental Wars: A Study
in Conventional Strategic Stability (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press,
2005).
24. Bernard Fook Weng Loo, “Transforming the Strategic Landscape of
Southeast Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, December 2005, Vol. 27,
No. 3, pp. 389–405.
25. Kaplan, Asia’s Cauldron, p. 9.
26. See, for instance, Gwynn Guilford, “China’s Island Building Spree Is
About More Than Just Military Might”, DefenseOne, 22 February 2015
(accessed online: http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/02/
chinas-island-building-spree-about-more-just-military-might/105786/,
25 February 2015).
27. Sam Bateman, Joshua Ho and Jane Chan, Good Order at Sea in Southeast
Asia (Singapore: RSIS, 2009).
28. Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan, “Naval modernisation in South-east Asia:
nature, cause and consequence”, in Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan (eds.),
Naval Modernisation in South-East Asia: Nature, causes and consequences
(London and New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 4.
Appendix
30 B.F.W. LOO
32 B.F.W. LOO
Source http://www.tradingeconomics.com/, accessed 20 November 2014
Author Biography
Bernard F.W. Loo is Associate Professor and Coordinator, Master of
Science (Strategic Studies) degree programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He
completed his doctoral studies at the Department of International Politics at the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 2002. He is the author of Medium Powers
and Accidental Wars: A study in Conventional Strategic Stability (Edwin Mellen,
2005), and the editor of Military Transformation and Operations (Routledge,
2009). The latter title was translated into complex Chinese. His other publica-
tions have appeared in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Contemporary Southeast
Asia, NIDS Security Reports, and Taiwan Defense Affairs. He is a regular com-
mentator on defence matters, and his commentaries have appeared in The
Straits Times (Singapore), The Nation (Thailand), and The New Straits Times
(Malaysia). He has been invited to speak at a variety of defence-related institu-
tions and conferences, in China, Estonia, Finland, Japan, New Zealand, and the
Philippines. His research interests encompass war studies, strategic theory, con-
ventional military strategies, strategic challenges of small and medium powers,
and problems and prospects of military transformation.
CHAPTER 3
A Common Setting for Naval Planning

in Southeast Asia? Two Case Studies
in Divergence
YingHui Lee and Collin Koh Swee Lean
Abstract  Two examples of naval development (Thailand and the

Philippines) not treated elsewhere in the book are used to show that
although there are common threats and challenges in Southeast Asia,
especially growing competition between China and the United States
and the jurisdictional dispute in the South China Sea, each country’s
approach to them is distinctive.
keywords  Naval modernisation · Philippines · Thailand · Problems

Strategic Consequences · South China Sea
Y. Lee (*) 
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
e-mail: lee_yinghui@hotmail.com
C. Koh Swee Lean 
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School
of International Studies (RSIS), Blk S4 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798, Singapore
e-mail: ISCollinKoh@natu.ed.sg

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_3
34 Y. LEE AND C. KOH SWEE LEAN
Introduction
Many Southeast Asian navies are expanding their fleets while at the same
time also acquiring more advanced platforms, weapons and equipment.
This is in part spurred by a general increase in military spending in the
region. Data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI) shows that military spending by Southeast Asian countries
increased 50% over the last 10 years, from in US$ 25.8 billion in 2004 to
US$38.7 billion in 2014.1 This has sparked off debates about whether a
naval arms race is underway in this region.2
However, naval modernisation programmes in Southeast Asia are
driven by a multitude of domestic concerns as well as strategic rationales.
It would also be over-simplistic to assume a one-size-fits-all model for
naval capability development in the region. A 2008 Australia Strategic
Policy Institute study on military modernisation in Southeast Asia cor-
rectly noted that “many different motivations exist concurrently, and the
resources that various countries can bring to bear vary markedly, result-
ing in a many-faceted picture”.3
Naval modernisation in this region is in part driven by structural fac-
tors such as the provisions outlined under the 1982 United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as the enduring
importance of safeguarding the sea lines of communications (SLOCs)
so critical for national socioeconomic development. There are also com-
mon maritime security concerns, for example piracy and armed rob-
bery against ships in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore and the South
China Sea,4 which require responses from robust naval resources.
All these feature as important general considerations behind some
Southeast Asian navies’ quest for a “green-water” capability.5 However,
individual countries have different threat perceptions which determine
the amount of budgetary resources their governments are willing to
allocate to their navies. While the limelight has often focused on those
Southeast Asian navies—Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam—
which has to date embarked on significant modernisation programmes
by virtue of the sophisticated capabilities procured to date, the efforts
undertaken by other, so-called “lesser players” should not be overlooked.
The Philippines and Thailand present interesting case studies in this
respect. Each of them confronts a different variation of traditional and
nontraditional maritime challenges and this is reflected in their naval
capacity development priorities—despite both being military allies of
Washington and equally facing severe resource constraints. Using these
3 A COMMON SETTING FOR NAVAL PLANNING … 35
two Southeast Asian navies, this chapter shows how countries in Southeast
Asia approach and prioritise their naval capacity development differently
as a result of differing threat perceptions in the face of fiscal constraints.
There is no one-size-fits-all model for naval capacity development in
Southeast Asia despite sharing some common driving forces.
The Case of the Philippines
Myriad of Challenges
The Philippine case is interesting because the country faces a myriad
of both traditional and nontraditional challenges. Manila has tradition-
ally been preoccupied with internal security concerns, especially in the
restive southern provinces. As such, the Philippine Navy (PN) has not
given as much attention to external defence vis-à-vis supporting the
ground forces’ counter-insurgency operations. However, in the recent
years, tensions have brewed up in the South China Sea (SCS), where the
Philippines contests territorial and sovereignty claims, compelling Manila
to pay more attention to external defence.
This was especially following April 2012, when the PN engaged in
a standoff with Chinese coastguards over the Scarborough Shoal and
Beijing has since taken de facto control over the feature—the worst
Sino—Philippine standoff in the SCS since the Mischief Reef incident
in 1994–1995. About 3 months after, Beijing officially established the
Sansha city and a prefecture-level municipal government on Woody Island
to administer Chinese-claimed SCS features and adjacent waters, includ-
ing the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands, and the Scarborough Shoal.6
At the same time, Beijing also approved the formal establishment of a
military garrison in Sansha city.7 According to Rory Medcalf, the “pro-
nouncement of a garrison is symbolic” as it signifies that Beijing is “placing
a firm military marker on China’s claim in the South China Sea”.8 These
moves added onto the supposed mention of the SCS as one of China’s
core interests—on a par with Tibet and Taiwan—by some Chinese officials
during closed-door meetings with the US in 2010,9 further raised fears of
possible military confrontations over the disputed islands and sea.
Meanwhile, although Manila managed to sign a peace agreement
with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), there appears no relief
from its internal security concerns. Maritime terrorism has also become
a thorny issue, especially when militant organisations such as the Abu
Sayyaf Group (ASG) continue to be active, using waters bordering
Indonesia and the Philippines as gateways to travel within Southeast

Asia.10 The explosion of Superferry 14 which claimed almost a hundred
lives, on 27 February 2004 highlighted the ASG’s ability to carry out
acts of maritime terrorism.11 Most recently between late March and early
April, Indonesian and Malaysian seamen were abducted when their tug-
boats were boarded by ASG gunmen in two separate incidents.12
Too Few Resources

Notwithstanding the maritime nature of many of its traditional and non-
traditional security concerns, the PN lags behind many of its ASEAN
counterparts in terms of naval capabilities.13 Once hailed as the model
navy of the region during the 1950s and 60s,14 the PN quickly deterio-
rated in the 1970s mainly as a result of mounting internal security issues.
The American withdrawal from Subic Bay and subsequent termination
of the Military Bases Agreement in 1991 exacerbated this deterioration,
given that Manila has traditionally depended on the US security umbrella,
along with generous American military aid, for external defence.
The Philippines thus has to take up greater responsibility; despite an
alliance treaty still in force that obliges Washington to come to its assis-
tance should it ever come under external attack, including its territorial
seas and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).15 Manila recognised the need
for a modern navy capable of defending its sea in 1995 when the PN
was left defenceless against Chinese occupation of Mischief Reef. This
led to the first Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) modernisation
attempt through the passing of the AFP Modernization Act in Congress
in 1995.16 Specifically in response to the need for naval modernisation,
the Naval Modernization Office was established that same year.
At present, the bulk of the PN mainly comprises obsolete, ageing, vin-
tage equipment—including ships dating back to the Second World War.
Furthermore, the PN is essentially weak in all dimensions of naval war-
fare: no offensive anti-surface strike, anti-submarine and counter-mine
warfare capabilities, anti-air defences comprising just guns, an atrophying
amphibious sealift force, as well as just a tiny pool of obsolete, short-range
maritime patrol aircraft barely sufficient to cover the entire archipelago.
It does not help that counter-insurgency requirements in the 1990s and
early 2000s forced the government to prioritise the Philippine Army (PA),
which consumes a large proportion of the AFP annual budget.
Current modernisation plans are based on the Strategic Sail Plan
2020, formulated by the PN in 2006, which provides a roadmap for the
modernisation of the navy into “a credible navy that [the Philippines]

can be proud of” by 2020.17 This corresponds with President Benigno
Aquino III’s plan for the AFP to achieve a “minimum credible deter-
rent”, for which a total of US$ 1.8 billion has been earmarked over 5
years. The funding has to some extent enabled the PN to make some
improvements to its fleet using a mix of new-build and second-hand
equipment procured overseas. Additionally, Washington announced in
April 2016 a military aid package in excess of US$ 120 million.18
Under the Aquino Administration the navy has seen hardware
improvements with the limited funds available. So far, Manila has acquired
two ex-US Coast Guard Hamilton-class coast guard cutters under a grant
programme in 2011 and a third one to soon follow.19 A pair of Strategic
Sealift Vessels (SSVs), based on the Indonesian Navy’s Makassar-class
landing platform dock, are under construction in Indonesia; the first ship
is expected to enter service in May 2016.20 Talks are held with Japan to
lease Maritime Self Defense Force TC-90 planes, retrofitted for maritime
surveillance, to reinvigorate the Naval Air Group.21 The PN is also poised
to acquire two missile-armed frigates, with an Indian shipbuilder having
entered the post-qualification process.22 A pair of AW159 Wildcat anti-
submarine helicopters—the next significant naval helicopter deal following
the purchase of AW-109E light helicopters in 2012—was also ordered.
When based on board the new frigates,23 the Wildcat will confer upon the
PN a three-dimensional capability for the very first time.
Manila has also made significant steps to ease the procurement pro-
cess for high-tech military equipment. In May 2014, The Senate finance
committee approved a bill amending the 2003 Government Procurement
Reform Act to allow for major arms procurement without the need for
public tenders.24 Yet despite these measures, PN acquisitions thus far
remain modest at best, given the size of the Philippine maritime zone.
Funding for further enhancements remains limited for the time being.
To date, the PN’s budgetary allocations continue to pale in compari-
son to the PA’s, despite the worsening SCS situation following China’s
island-building and fortification activities. According to the 2015
national budget, the PA was allocated P41.2 billion, whereas the PN a
measly P13.4 billion.25 To compound the situation, there are outstand-
ing capability gaps the PN has yet to fill. For instance, Manila’s desire for
submarines26 will remain a pipe-dream for now. Given the slow, at best
uncertain, pace of PN modernisation (and for that matter, the AFP as a
whole), other alternative, austerity measures are needed.
Fortuitously, Manila could still count on its mutual defence treaty

with the US despite uncertainties regarding Washington’s commitment
to regional security,27 and its involvement in the event of war in the
Spratlys. In a way, this alleviates the pressure on Manila to fully bear the
external defence burden. The 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation
Agreement finally moved forward after almost of 2 years of delay
in implementation. This will see the US military stationing troops
and materiel in five AFP bases.28 The recent election of President
Duerte, however, seems likely to result in quite a substantial reset of
US–Philippine security relationships, and there is even talk of his con-
ducting a “pivot” towards China which could well result in the acqui-
sition of Chinese platforms, weaponry and sensors on economically
advantageous terms which would at once reduce the burden of both
commitments and of the resources needed to meet them.29
But Manila is certainly aware of the limitations of both its naval mod-
ernisation efforts and especially after President Duerte’s election of
the prospects of a military alliance with the US. To optimise its scarce
resources, it has attempted to rationalise and promote inter-agency
approaches to its maritime problems. Earlier, in late March 2016, Manila
had already formed a high-level task force comprising of several govern-
ment departments and security agencies to synchronize a “unified” gov-
ernment action towards the SCS.30
The Case of Thailand
A More Peaceful Context

Compared to the Philippines, Thailand faces a relatively calm strategic
maritime environment given the lack of territorial conflicts in the Gulf of
Thailand and the Andaman Sea, where Thailand has managed to delimit
overlapping EEZs with its neighbours through diplomatic negotiations.
Notably in October 1979, Thailand signed a treaty with Malaysia to
delimit their territorial seas,31 and in August 1997 Thailand again suc-
cessfully concluded a pact with Vietnam settling the maritime boundary
dispute in the Gulf of Thailand.32
Although Thailand still has existing sea borders which remain
undefined—notably with Cambodia—despite occasional skirmishes
in the 1990s, both countries managed to reach a Memorandum
of Understanding to establish a Joint Development Area (JDA).33
Meanwhile, Thailand being a non-claimant has little to be concerned

about in the SCS. Furthermore, despite being a traditional US ally,
Thailand has constantly maintained friendly relations with rising pow-
ers in the region, for example China. Therefore, unlike the Philippines,
Thailand does not feel as much pressure in external defence, at least in
the maritime realm even though it still confronts land-based border dis-
putes with, notably, Cambodia over the Preah Vihear Temple.
However, for Thailand nontraditional challenges have been of more
pressing security concern though many of these are terrestrial in nature.
For example, although the land border with Myanmar has mostly been
settled, Bangkok continues to face occasional refugee influx across
the border due to the ethnic conflict in north-eastern Myanmar. In
the South, Muslim-inspired insurgency has persisted since 2004. On
13 February 2013, a military base in Narathiwat province was assaulted
by some 60 insurgents.34 This prompted the deployment of a large num-
ber of army personnel in those provinces, thereby demonstrating the pri-
oritisation of landward defence in Thai strategic thinking.
Where nontraditional maritime challenges are concerned, an especially
thorny challenge stems from seaborne irregular migration/human traffick-
ing. Many Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, had to deal with
a large influx of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar at sea
in recent times.35 The boat refugee crisis began in 2015, with 25,000 peo-
ple undertaking the perilous voyage across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman
Sea in the first 3 months alone, twice as many in the same period in 2014.36
Many of them also fall victim to human trafficking and slavery.37 In addi-
tion, the use of naval forces by some countries to turn back those boats led
to accusations of mistreatment. This includes Bangkok’s new “push-out”
policy where refugees arriving on Thai shores are towed back into interna-
tional waters with little food and water, and alleged use of force.38
Also, Thailand has long struggled to deal with the issue of fish
slavery—concerning forced labour and exploitation aboard illegal fish-
ing vessels. Bangkok has since cracked down on human trafficking in the
fishing industry, leading to the arrest of more than 100 people in 2015
but slavery in the Thai fishing industry remains a serious problem.39
In Austerity Mode
The tough balancing act between controlling refugee influx and provid-
ing humanitarian assistance on the one hand, and curbing illegal fishing
on the other, constitute a major challenge for the Royal Thai Navy
(RTN). Moreover, in addition to protecting Thai territorial integrity
and enforcement against nontraditional maritime challenges, the White
Paper “Defense of Thailand 2008” tasked the RTN with the responsibil-
ity of assisting in international affairs.40 The navy has become a perma-
nent contributor to the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 counter-piracy
operations off Somalia, where Thai vessels were involved in some hijack-
ing incidents. This is in addition to RTN’s official involvement with the
Malacca Straits Patrol in September 2008.41
Since the 1990s, the RTN has endeavoured to shift from purely
coastal defence to limited blue-water capabilities. This was reflected in
the focus on bolstering the surface fleet including new Chinese-built frig-
ates and a Spanish-built light aircraft carrier HTMS Chakri Naruebet.
Commissioned in 1997, the carrier was equipped with Sea Harrier ver-
tical short take-off and landing fighters and Seahawk helicopters, and
intended to serve various roles including as an offshore base for disaster
relief missions. However, the Sea Harriers were already decommissioned,
leaving only helicopters on board.42
The 1990s was the RTN’s “golden era”, especially since it was the
only ASEAN navy with a carrier. However, funding constraints—a
problem that has afflicted the RTN since the economic crisis of 1997—
continue to persist. This limits acquisitions for the enhancement of its
blue-water capabilities.
In August 2013, it commissioned the first BAE Systems-designed
offshore patrol vessel, HTMS Krabi. In February 2016, the navy
announced the acquisition of a second vessel equipped with Harpoon
surface-to-surface guided missile system43—constituting an almost 3-year
gap. The purchase of a second frigate with Daewoo Shipbuilding &
Marine Engineering—some 2 years after the first ship was contracted in
2013—took place.44 But whether the deal will be struck remains a huge
question mark.
Although funding for the RTN has increased over the years, the Royal
Thai Army—given its dominance in Thai politics and domestic political
instability in recent years—has received a large proportion of the mili-
tary budget.45 For now, with the submarine project stalled and besides
the small, incremental additions to its surface fleet—mainly compris-
ing home-built patrol and combat vessels tailored for coastal duties46—
the RTN has to content itself with upgrading the Chakri Naruebet and
Chinese-built Naresuan-class frigates.
Conclusions
This brief discussion demonstrates that notwithstanding certain common
structural factors—for example the provisions of international maritime
law and general desire to safeguard access to SLOCs—there are dif-
ferentapproachestonavalcapacitydevelopmentinSoutheastAsia.ThePhilippine
and Thai case studies exemplify that, there is no “one-size-fits-all”
model, given each of them faces a different set of threat perceptions, even
as both countries share commonalities—facing significant resource con-
straints on the one hand and until recently at any rate being allies of the
US.
Notes
1. Data obtained from the SIPRI Military Expenditures Database. Figures
quoted are in constant 2014 USD. Southeast Asia here refers to the
countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Timor
Leste. Data from 1988 to 2015 is available for download online at:
http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database/
milex_database.
2. Read for instance, Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia: Patterns of Security
Cooperation, ASPI Strategy Series (Australia: Australia Strategic Policy
Institute Limited, 2010), 1–68; and Richard Bitzinger, “A New Arms
Race? Explaining Recent Southeast Asian Military Acquisitions”,
Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 32, No. 1 (April 2010), 50–69.
3. Andrew Davis, Asian Military Trends and Their Implications for Australia
(Australia: Australia Strategic Policy Institute Limited, 2008), 2.
4. There was an increase in the number of reported incidents (actual and
attempted) in recent years, with reported incidents increasing from 133
in 2012 to 200 in 2015, and a 7% year-on-year increase from 2014 to
2015. However, there was also a general downward trend since August
2015, except for a slight increase between December 2015 and January
2016. ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, Annual Report 2015
(Singapore: ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, 2016); ReCAAP
Information Sharing Centre, Monthly Report: Report for February 2016
(Singapore: ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, 2016).
5. Generally, navies can be classified into brown-, green-, blue-water and
global categories. A global navy can exert worldwide presence and oper-
ate independently on a continuous basis in more than one regional ocean
basin. A bluewater navy possesses open-ocean capability beyond the EEZ
with external support for short durations, and it is capable of extra-regional
deployments. A brownwater navy is a coastal defense force largely lim-

ited to territorial and inland waters. A greenwater navy falls in between
brown- and bluewater; primarily oriented towards EEZ operations while
possessing a limited, secondary ability to conduct “out-of-the-area” mis-
sions. Thomas J. Hirschfeld, Multinational Naval Cooperation Options
(Arlington, Virginia: Center for Naval Analyses, September 1993), p. 12;
James L. Lacy, Between Worlds: Europe and the Seas in Arms Control (Santa
Monica, California: RAND Corporation, August 1990), p. 22.
6. “China establishes Sansha City,” Xinhua, 24 July 2012.
7. “Sansha military garrison established,” China Daily, 27 July 2012.
8. “China’s Newest City Raises Threat of Conflict in South China Sea,”
Time, 24 July 2012.
9. Susan V. Lawrence and Thomas Lum, “U.S.-China Relations: Policy
Issues,” Congressional Research Service, 12 January 2011.
10. Senia Febrica, “Securing the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas from Maritime
Terrorism,” Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 8 No. 3, June 2014, 64.
11. Frederick Chew, “Piracy, maritime terrorism and regional interest,”
Geddes Papers, 2005, p. 75. Available online at: http://www.defence.gov.
au/ADC/Publications/Geddes/2005/PublcnsGeddes2005_310310_
PiracyMaritime.pdf.
12. “Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf abducts 10 Indonesian sailors,” Reuters News, 28
March 2016; “Suspected Filipino militants kidnap 4 Malaysian boat crew-
men,” Associated Press Newswires, 2 April 2016.
13. Sam Bateman, “Naval Balance in Southeast Asia: Search for Stability,”
IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, 11 May 2005.
14. For a discussion on the state of the PN in the 1950s and 60s, see Regino
Giagonia, The Philippine Navy (1898–1996) (Manila: Headquarter of the
Philippine Navy, 1997).
15. Because Washington takes no sides on the merit of competing SCS claims,
whether it will come to the Philippines’ rescue, should the latter be
embroiled in fighting over the dispute, remains uncertain. In December
1996, US military officials reportedly rejected Manila’s call to include the
Spratly Islands in a bilateral Mutual Defense Board meeting. “US refuses
to include Spratlys in defense treaty with Manila,” Agence France-Presse,
10 December 1996. Yet in 1997, Pacific Command Chief Admiral Joseph
Prueher said that Manila could rely on Washington’s help if war breaks
out in the disputed waters. Luz Baguioro, “US ‘will help Manila in case
of war’,” Straits Times, 19 June 1997. Then, in June 2011, doubt was
cast on whether Washington will indeed help Manila as per the 1951
treaty. “Philippine vice-president wants US to clarify help in case of
Spratlys war,” BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, 20 June 20 2011.
16. The Corpus Juris, “An Act Providing for the Modernization of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines and for Other Purposes,” Republic Act No. 7898,
Congress of the Philippines, 23 February 1995. Available online at: http://
www.thecorpusjuris.com/legislative/republic-acts/ra-no-7898.php.
17. Quoted from Rommel C. Banlaoi, Philippine Naval Modernization:
Current State and Continuing Challenges (Quezon City: Philippine
Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, 2012), 21.
18. Manila received USD50 million in military aid from Washington in
2015, but will be receiving USD79 million in 2016, and an additional
USD42 million from the newly-created Southeast Asia Maritime Security
Initiative that the US Government utilizes to assist in regional maritime
security capacity-building efforts. “Philippines gets U.S. military aid
boost amid South China Sea dispute,” Reuters, April 8, 2016.
19. “3rd US warship due this year to boost PH’s maritime security,” Manila
Bulletin, 15 March 15 2016.
20. “‘BRP Tarlac’ joins PH naval force in May,” Manila Bulletin, 23 January
2016.
21. Aurea Calica, “Government to lease 5 Japanese aircraft for maritime
patrol,” The Philippine Star, 10 March 2016.
22. Priam F. Nepomuceno, “Indian shipbuilder undergoing post-qualification
process for DND’s frigate program,” Philippines News Agency, 31 March
2016.
23. “PH eyes 2 anti-sub choppers, 2 frigates,” Manila Standard, 31 March
2016.
24. Senate, An Act Amending Sect. 53 of Republic Act No. 9184, Otherwise
Known as the ‘Government Procurement Reform Act,’ and for Other
Purposes, 16th Philippines Congress, Senate Committee Report No. 355,
28 May 2014.
25. Department of Budget and Management, “Appropriations and
Obligations: Department of National Defence,” in National Expenditure
Program 2015 (Manila: Department of Budget and Management 2015).
Available online at: http://www.dbm.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/
NEP2015/Volume%20III/DND/DND.pdf
26. Jaime Laude, “Noy mulls submarine force for Philippine defense,” The
Philippine Star, 31 March 2016.
27. For a discussion on US commitment to Southeast Asia, refer to:
Parameswaran Ponnudurai, “Obama’s Asia Trip Uncertainty Raises U.S.
Commitment Questions,” Radio Free Asia, 3 October 2013.
28. EDCA’s legality was upheld by the Supreme Court in January 2016, thereby
allowing the pact to be implemented. Jose Katigbak, “US, Phl agree on 5
base locations under EDCA,” The Philippine Star, 20 March 2016.
29. Mark J Valencia ‘Ties with South-east Asia: Can US put the genie back in
the bottle?’ and Prashanth Parameswaran, ‘China needs ‘lose-win’ diplo-
macy in Asean,’ The Straits Times, 3 Nov 2016.
30. The task force, as specified under Memorandum Circular No. 94 issued by
Aquino, is chaired by the National Security Advisor and comprises various
departments, in particular National Defense and Foreign Affairs, as well
as the AFP, Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine National Police-
Maritime Group. “PNoy creates task force for unified action on West
Philippine Sea issue,” Manila Bulletin, 25 March 2016.
31. “Treaty between the Kingdom of Thailand and Malaysia relating to the
Delimitation of the Territorial Seas of the two Countries 24 October
1979,” United Nations, 24 October 1979.
32. “Agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand and
the Government of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam on the delimita-
tion of the maritime boundary between the two countries in the Gulf
of Thailand, 9 August 1997,” United Nations, 9 August 1997. For fur-
ther information on the background to the dispute and negotiation
process, see: Nguyen Hong Trao, “Vietnam’s First Maritime Boundary
Agreement,” IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin, Autumn 1997,
74–78. Notably, Thailand has also signed various other accords with
Myanmar and Indonesia on the delimitation of maritime boundaries.
33. David A. Colson and Robert W. Smith, International Maritime
Boundaries Volume V, The American Society of International Law (The
Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005), 3742–3744.
34. Amy Sawitta Lefevre, “Thai insurgents attack southern army base, troops
kill 16,” Reuters, 13 February 2013.
35. Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Aubrey Belford, “Pressure mounts on
Myanmar over Asia ‘boat people’ crisis,” Reuters, 17 May 2015; “The
Rohingya boat crisis: why refugees are fleeing Burma,” The Week, 21 May
2015.
36. Tom Miles, “Bay of Bengal people-smuggling doubles in 2015:
UNHCR,” Reuters, 8 May 2015.
37. Beh Lih Yi, “Malaysia tells thousands of Rohingya refugees to ‘go back to
your country’,” The Guardian, 13 May 2015.
38. See for example, “Govt denies navy threatened migrant boat with gun-
fire,” Bangkok Post, May 21, 2015; Paul Chambers, “Thailand Must End
Its Own Rohingya Atrocity”, The Diplomat, 23 October 2015.
39. Thai authorities began a large-scale crackdown following the threat of
an EU-wide boycott on seafood imports from Thailand last year. Kate
Hodal, “Slavery and trafficking continue in Thai fishing industry, claim
activist,” The Guardian, 25 February 2016.
40. Ministry of Defence, Defense of Thailand 2008 (Thailand: Ministry of

Defence, 200), 33ff.
41. “Thailand embarks on maritime security cooperation,” The Nation, 6
October 2008.
42. Wassana Nanuam, “MILITARY - ‘Chakri Naruebet’ gets new lease of
life,” Bangkok Post, 24 December 2015.
43. Ridzwan Rahmat, “Thailand to arm second OPV with Harpoon missiles,”
Jane’s Navy International, 29 February 2016.
44. Jon Grevatt, “DSME discusses second frigate and submarine procurement
with Royal Thai Navy,” Jane’s Navy International, 3 November 2015.
45. Traditionally, the Army receives around 50% of the defence budget while
the Navy and Air Force receives around 22% each. Jon Grevatt, “Thailand
increase defence budget by 7%,” IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, 28 April
2015.
46. Mrityunjoy Mazumdar, “Marsun signs M58 contract with Thai navy, set
for more orders in 2014,” Jane’s Navy International, 24 January 2014.
Authors’ Biography
YingHui Lee is a Ph.D. candidate at Shanghai Jiaotong University. She took
her first degree at the University of Reading in the UK and her Masters at
Peking University, before working as a research analyst for the Maritime Security
Programme at the RSIS.
Collin Koh Swee Lean is a Research Fellow at the Maritime Security

Programme, part of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies which is a con-
stituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He is
especially interested in researching on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific, focusing
on Southeast Asia in particular, and generally issues related to naval technologies,
naval modernization, naval arms control, and the offence-defence theory. Collin
also taught at the Military Studies Programme and taught various professional mil-
itary education and training courses with the Singapore Armed Forces Training
Institute. Prior to joining the Maritime Security Programme, Collin worked at
the Military Studies Programme (2010–14) and the Centre for Non-Traditional
Security Studies (2008–10), also at RSIS.
CHAPTER 4
Naval Development in Singapore
Collin Koh Swee Lean
Abstract  This chapter provides analysis of the strategic context facing

Singapore which is dominated by growing competition between China
and the United States and the jurisdictional dispute in the South China
Sea. The chapter shows how the country’s foreign policy objectives
shape its naval plans and analyses the political, social, and economic fac-
tors which determine how those plans are implemented.
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Singapore · Problems · Strategic
Introduction
Southeast Asian navies have recently started attracting attention for sev-
eral reasons. First, the South China Sea (SCS) disputes have put the
limelight on the roles played by individual Southeast Asian claimants and
their maritime forces.
Second, there is greater coverage of emerging non-traditional mari-
time security problems in Southeast Asian waters, which have also
C. Koh Swee Lean (*) 

Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School
of International Studies (RSIS), Blk S4 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798, Singapore
e-mail: ISCollinKoh@natu.ed.sg

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_4
48 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
increased interest in the region’s naval capacities. For example, the

decline of piracy attacks off Somalia in the western Indian Ocean and
the reported spike in piracy and sea robbery incidents in Southeast Asian
waters—especially with high-profile ship hijacking episodes such as
the MT Orkim Harmony—up to the third quarter of 2015, and more
recently, the spate of “kidnap-for-ransom” attacks on shipping in the
Sulu Sea, have attracted no small amount of attention. Other recent
regional maritime incidents, such as the Malaysia Airlines MH370’s dis-
appearance and the loss of AirAsia QZ8501 in 2014–2015—have all put
the spotlight on the region’s naval capacities.
Finally, in the background of these maritime security challenges there
has been the region’s naval buildup, led foremost by China but also
highlighting the growing capabilities of its Southeast Asian counter-
parts. A recent report published by the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute has identified the Asia-Pacific, including Southeast
Asia, as having witnessed phenomenal spike in military expenditures.1
This increase is also significantly linked to the naval modernization pro-
cesses undertaken by Southeast Asian countries, for example the much-
discussed proliferation of submarines.
Amidst these evolving circumstances and contexts, Singapore’s naval
force capacity development is especially interesting. This acclaimed “best
little navy of Southeast Asia” has continued its own pathway in mod-
ernization, which has taken into account the country’s longstanding
and immutable geostrategic expectations, as well as, changes both in the
external and domestic environments. This chapter will analyse how, in
the process of its naval force capacity development, Singapore balances
strategic needs with both external and domestic realities and contin-
ues playing its pivotal role as a key institution of the country’s national
maritime interests.
What has Changed?

Where it comes to physical geography, everything remains constant.
Singapore remains a small island country, and there is a limit to how
much new land space it can acquire through reclamation works (this
constituted one of the sore points of bilateral relationship with Malaysia
in the past decade) while husbanding the already tight water-space that
falls under its national sovereignty. There is no Exclusive Economic
Zone, and even its territorial and contiguous waters overlap with those
4 NAVAL DEVELOPMENT IN SINGAPORE 49
of Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore remains “boxed in” by these larger

neighbors. These are immutable geostrategic realities that Singapore has
lived with since its independence, and will continue enduring.2
But even so, the immediate strategic environment has changed sig-
nificantly, fortuitously for the better. “Immediate” denotes Singapore’s
geopolitical relationships with Indonesia and Malaysia. Unlike back in
the Cold War decades and in the 1990s up until the early years of the
new millennium, Singapore’s relations with its neighbours (even down
to the personal level between the leaders of all three countries) have
improved tremendously. Despite some occasional hiccups,3 any conten-
tious issues have been addressed. For example, the dispute with Malaysia
over Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Putih) in the eastern Johor Strait was
successfully resolved through the International Court of Justice in May
2008, and in November 2013, both governments agreed to elevate bilat-
eral discussions over the delimitation of maritime boundaries at the islet
and its associated nearby features.4 With Indonesia, Singapore has pro-
gressed in its maritime boundary discussions and agreed to delineate the
eastern part of Singapore Strait in late 2014.5 These interstate territorial
and sovereignty disputes have become less likely a reason for armed con-
flict as was sometimes feared in the 1990s.
By contrast, the strategic environment has changed for the worse in
the waters beyond Singapore’s immediate area, revolving around the
SCS. At the most basic, while so far none of the SCS claimants or even
extra-regional parties have made any obvious attempt to interfere with
civilian freedom of navigation and overflight in the area, Singapore,
being a country reliant on maritime commerce and trade and hence
secure access to the vital sea lines of communications (SLOCs), has every
reason to be worried about the escalating SCS disputes, especially with
the island—and infrastructure—building works and the rising numbers
of incidents involving the contending maritime forces. The dimension
of Great Power rivalry dimension always looms in the background, and
Singapore being a longstanding security partner of the United States and
having an interest in sustaining Washington’s continued military pres-
ence in the region often finds itself in a peculiar situation in balancing
the expectations of those Great Powers. Beijing’s refusal to accede to the
Permanent Court of Arbitration award handed down on the Philippine-
filed lawsuit against its SCS claims on July 12, 2016 also became a cause
of concern for Singapore, a small country that has emphasized the
rule of law—an almost natural instinct for any typical small state. The
50 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
soothing of tensions since can only be a temporary respite, providing lit-

tle incentive for Singapore to let down its guard.
At the same time, existing maritime non-traditional security (NTS)
challenges have come to the forefront, demanding a response from
regional countries. The spate of piracy and sea robbery cases, in par-
ticular ship hijacks and oil cargo thefts, was a pressing concern in 2014–
2015. The situation in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS) and
the SCS has abated since September 2015.6 However, the Sulu Sea has
witnessed a worrisome trend of successful kidnap-for-ransom incidents
perpetuated principally by the Abu Sayyaf militant group, thereby lead-
ing to concerns about whether that part of Southeast Asia will become
the “next Somalia”—an unwelcome prospect given that Southeast Asian
governments have adamantly resisted direct external interference in the
name of safeguarding the global maritime commons. Washington back
in 2004, after all, reportedly sought to police the Malacca Strait and after
Lloyd’s classified the piracy and sea robbery-plagued waterway as a “high
risk war zone”. Additionally, there has been a perceptibly rising threat of
maritime terrorism, a danger that has been highlighted by Jakarta’s foil-
ing of a terrorist plot to lob rockets from Batam at Singapore’s prosper-
ous downtown south.7
Domestically, while the Singapore Government has always stuck to the
“tried-and-tested” prudent approach of sustaining military expenditures
instead of adopting a “feast and famine” strategy,8 clearly changing pub-
lic sentiments play a part, especially after the 2011 General Elections that
saw one of the biggest losses of votes for the ruling People’s Action Party
(PAP). The September 2015 general elections saw a comeback in elec-
toral fortunes for the party, but this could be attributed in no small part
to the gains reaped from recalibrated social welfare policies since 2011.
The PAP government, it can be assumed, will stick to this approach of
further recalibrating social welfare policies, thereby channeling more
resources to non-defense spending. In the long run, it may have some
effect on military expenditures—there is no way they can keep expand-
ing at the expense of other state priorities especially in times of economic
downturn. At the very least, the authorities must see that military expen-
ditures do not compromise social welfare spending despite healthy public
support for the government’s defense and national security policies.9
Alongside Singapore’s changed external and domestic environments
which have changed and immutable geostrategic circumstances (which
do not seem to have changed, or at least will take some time to do so
positively) have been Singapore’s demographical constraints. The contin-

ued low total fertility rate of this metropolitan country has for a long
time created a tremendous challenge for its defense planners. Thus,
until there is some positive upturn in the somewhat depressing birthrate
trends, the focus of Singapore’s defense planning will remain premised
on technologically based solutions. This approach not only mitigates
manpower constraints for the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) but also
continues to hone those “force multiplier” capabilities for an already
small military force that needs to maximize resources, emphasizing qual-
ity over quantity, to provide a conceivable edge over the country’s likely
adversaries.
Evolving Maritime Strategic Thinking?

Considering the geostrategic and demographic realities, as well as the
evolving domestic and external strategic circumstances, uncertainties
in the era of “troubled peace”, as described by Singapore’s Defense
Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen during his speech in parliament in April
2016,10 could be regarded as the “normal” for the country to cope
with where it comes to securing and furthering its long-term maritime
interests. There is unlikely to be significant change in the way Singapore
conceives of its security policies. There remains just one Defence White
Paper published in the early 2000s, which has never been updated.
There is no foreign policy document that clearly spells out Singapore’s
strategic priorities. As such, one can only surmise what these are from
the accumulated and varied scraps of information gleaned from official
sources and press remarks that Singapore’s security policies would remain
grounded on the following: (1) good neighborliness; (2) multilateralism;
(3) sense of community; (4) usefulness and relevance; and (5) deterrence
and defense.11 It seems safe to assume that this set of principles remains
relevant and even more so, to this day and for the foreseeable future.
Because of what has been happening in Singapore’s strategic mari-
time environment—the simmering SCS tensions and emergent maritime
non-traditional security challenges—the priority of the country’s national
maritime interests will remain in the immediate Southeast Asian waters.
There is no departure from the longstanding thinking. Even though
Singapore from 2008 onwards contributed forces to join multilateral
counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, at the height of piracy
attacks off Somalia, its defense planners have long stressed the continued
52 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
primacy of the country’s immediate region as the key defense and secu-
rity focus, whereas such “out-of-area” responsibilities remained second-
ary.12 This attitude will remain and even sharpen as piracy attacks off
Somalia have experienced a downward trend, whereas those incidents in
Southeast Asian waters have increased.
In fact, while Singapore will continue to fulfill its existing obligations
to international security, by and large revolving around the counter-
piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, there will be no horizontal and ver-
tical expansion of such commitments in the foreseeable future.13 While
maintaining its small naval task group in the Gulf of Aden, or even at
times taking up the command of Combined Task Force 151—for which
the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) has been acclaimed, some relief
from this commitment in view of the stabilized situation off Somalia
would be a welcome. This allows Singapore to devote its naval capacity
toward its immediate Southeast Asian maritime environment, including
hedging against uncertainties in the SCS. There is no room for compla-
cency in SOMS despite the decline of piracy and sea robbery incidents in
that area. And it remains necessary for the RSN and its Air Force breth-
ren to sustain contributions toward the Malacca Strait Patrols (MSP) sur-
face and aerial components.
Moreover, it remains the case that Singapore’s neighbors continue to
face the unenviable prospects of having to police vast maritime spaces
while still having to deal with persistent capacity shortfalls. Indonesia
for example might have bolstered its navy’s Western Fleet Command
since 2014 to deal with the scourge of piracy and sea robbery attacks
in SOMS, but overall these neighbors also have other pressing maritime
challenges to tackle. The Indonesian Navy’s force has not expanded at a
rate that is commensurate with the evolving strategic maritime environ-
ment, and it constantly having to overstretch its already limited capacity.
For example, ever since President Joko Widodo has espoused the
Global Maritime Fulcrum vision for Indonesia in November 2014, the
country has started to use illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU)
fishing as the centerpiece of its renewed maritime-oriented vigor. Dealing
with IUU fishing continues to be a key peacetime function of both the
navy and the civilian law enforcement agencies. Because of the more
recent SCS tensions and close brushes with the Chinese, Jakarta has
also started to devote naval capacities toward bolstering defences in the
Natuna Islands. Finally, a third new front has emerged in the Sulu Sea,
after Indonesian vessels were seized and crews kidnapped by the mili-
tants, requiring immediate attention from the Indonesian Government.
All in all, the situation is not a comforting one for Indonesia, when com-
pared to Singapore notwithstanding naval force capacity development
gains that were reaped, and which mainly originated from the efforts of
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Malaysia finds itself in an almost equivalent situation of having to
overstretch its forces across a wide maritime zone, dealing with multiple
fronts. Since 2013, Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZONE) has con-
tinued to be a premier security front for Kuala Lumpur. This threat has
not abated, especially since the militant challenge has extended to the
adjacent Sulu Sea, and that numerous “kidnap-for-ransom” attacks on
vessels took place in waters under ESSZONE jurisdiction. At the same
time, the Malaysian Government also has to contend with the emerg-
ing threat posed by the Islamic State—a common challenge faced in
Southeast Asia—and the evident extension of seaborne militant prob-
lem from East Malaysia to the metropolitan West Malaysia p eninsular.
Compounding Kuala Lumpur’s woes with respect to the militant threat
in both East and West Malaysia has been the emerging issue with China
in the SCS. Chinese coastguard and fishermen transgressions in waters
off Sabah and Sarawak, centering on the South Luconia Shoals also
claimed by Beijing, have risen to public attention, with the ability of
the Malaysian Government to deal with this sovereignty dispute under
increasing spotlight. Singapore thus seems to be in a better position than
Malaysia as well, in so far as maritime security is concerned.
All in all, it has become clear that the old formula, espoused since the
September 11, 2001 terror attacks, that no one single nation-state can
effectively tackle transnational security challenges continues to hold true.
And in view of the evolving NTS challenges and the persistent capacity
shortfalls of Singapore’s neighbors, it has become ever more necessary
for the island city-state to at least sustain, if not overtly expand, its com-
mitments toward regional maritime security. The foreseeable approach
for Singapore will therefore be to persist in prioritizing national maritime
interests in Southeast Asia, in particular the preservation of good order at
sea against non-state actors and destabilising actions by claimants in the
SCS, whereas involvement in “out-of-area” international security activi-
ties in distant waters such as the Gulf of Aden will remain a secondary
and arguably increasingly less important focus.
54 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
Force Development
Since the primary maritime security focus for Singapore will be still tied
to the immediate Southeast Asian waters with less interest in the far-
flung regions, the RSN’s force development has moved toward con-
solidation and away from radically increasing new capabilities. This was
unlike the case in the late 1980s and 1990s, when there was a concerted
effort toward a balanced navy that possesses three-dimensional warfight-
ing capabilities.14 This was done through systematically rectifying the
capability gaps.
The 1990s could be deemed the “golden era” for Singapore’s naval
force development, with many major programmes being implemented:
(1) complete induction of the six West German-origin Victory-class
missile corvettes; (2) four new Swedish-built Bedok-class mine coun-
termeasures vessels; (3) five ex-Swedish Sjöormen-class (renamed
Challenger-class) submarines; (4) 12 Fearless-class patrol vessels, six of
which oriented for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions; (5) four
Endurance-class landing platforms, dock (LPDs, which was designated
as landing ships, tank or LSTs by RSN); and (6) five Fokker-50 Maritime
Enforcer Mark-2S maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft (MPRAs).
These programmes survived the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997–1998,
reflecting Singapore defense planners’ approach toward consistent
defense investments.
This massive modernization process continued into the first decade of
the 2000s, which witnessed three key projects: (1) six Formidable-class
frigates that would constitute the mainstay of the RSN’s surface striking
force; (2) the associated helicopter capability in the form of American-
made S-70B Seahawks that give the fleet an organic shipborne over-
the-horizon naval aviation capacity for the first time; and (3) a pair of
Archer-class (former Swedish A17 Västergotland) submarines equipped
with Stirling Mk-3 air—independent propulsion—the first in Southeast
Asia.
Since 2010, given that all the capabilities are in place for an all-round,
balanced navy as originally desired, there is much less pressure to carry
out immediate new programmes than there was in the preceding two
decades. Even considering the life cycles of the assets in place and the
routine need for block replacements, the trend of force development for
the RSN in recent years has gravitated toward one more of consolidation
and incremental capability enhancements.
For example, the six corvettes have their ASW torpedo tubes removed
and an integral shipboard unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the form
of ScanEagle incorporated, in addition to modernization of the sensors
and superstructure modifications of the superstructure. And the plan is
to extend their service lifespan for at least another decade.15 This could
also mean that the RSN would have a new replacement class of surface
combatant, which is larger and more capable, tipped to enter service by
2025. However, with the removal of the corvettes’ torpedo armament
and phasing out of the six ASW-oriented patrol vessels, the RSN has con-
centrated ASW on the six frigates and associated Seahawk helicopters—
an evident effort in streamlining and consolidation.
The Fearless-class is in the process of replacement by eight
Independence-class Littoral Mission Vessels (LMVs) designed and built
locally. This new fleet features modular technology and would in due
time not just completely supersede the existing operational class of patrol
vessels but also the four serving mine countermeasures vessels (which
were modernized in 2009); in other words, eight multi-role vessels sup-
planting a total of 15 older and more “single purpose” ones—clearly also
signaling the desire to consolidate capabilities.16
As per the vision “The SAF—Protecting Singapore in 2030” first out-
lined in March 2014 by Defense Minister Ng during a parliament sit-
ting,17 the navy is also tipped to receive a new large amphibious landing
ship dubbed the Joint Multi-Mission Ship (JMMS) designed to provide
a much better aviation capacity than the existing Endurance-class LPDs
that have been in service since the late 1990s. This was inspired by expe-
riences during Super Typhoon Haiyan that wracked the Philippines in
November 2013.18 Such move is a clear sign that Singapore remains
keen to contribute to regional security through the provision of common
public goods, akin to the way it did by dispatching almost the entire fleet
of LPDs to assist in disaster relief in Aceh following the Indian Ocean
earthquake and tsunami in December 2004. However, it is possible that
the JMMS project may not come into fruition so soon, as suggested by
the decision to upgrade the LPDs to extend their lifespan by another
10–15 years.19
Likewise, arguably the most important recent purchase (in December
2013) of a pair of German-built Type-218SG submarines cannot be
deemed as a radically new addition to the RSN. This class is a custom-
ized variant of the baseline Type-214 (in turn an export model of the
Type-212 used by both German and Italian navies),20 and is certainly
56 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
larger than the Archer or older Challenger classes. But it will pro-
vide an AIP equivalent—fuel cell and diesel propulsion—and plausi-
bly unmanned off-board systems. In all, they would certainly be more
capable, stealthier, possess higher endurance compared to the preceding
boats, but the Type-218SG is still far from being a radically new technol-
ogy. At best, its technologies represent an incremental improvement over
what has been in place since the early 2000s. Once the two boats enter
service after 2020, the existing Challenger-class will all be retired.
Flown by Air Force crews combined with a RSN mission crew, the
ageing fleet of five Fokker-50 MPRAs has served since the mid-1990s,
still possess several serious shortcomings, one of which being the lack
of range for persistent, high-endurance surveillance missions. Because
it lacks an internal bomb bay, its weapons payload capacity is limited to
the exterior pylons. The plane has strong surface surveillance capabil-
ity using its inverse synthetic aperture radar and electro-optical systems
but its ASW capability is confined only to the exterior-mounted sono-
buoys and the rear-mounted magnetic anomaly detector. This ASW
weakness is the most serious of all flaws in Singapore’s MPRA capacity
in view of the proliferation of increasingly capable, quieter submarines in
regional waters. Yet this gap cannot be fully closed by the induction of
shipboard S-70B ASW helicopters since these rotary-winged assets have
limited range and can mostly only be operated when their mother ships
are out at sea. Recent reports about Singapore being keen on acquiring
second-hand American P-3C Orion or even the newer, more capable P-8
Poseidon have not yielded any concrete evidence thus far.21
The one other missing element of the RSN, a multiproduct fleet
replenishment or combat support vessel, is not in the pipeline despite
the local naval shipbuilder Singapore Technologies Marine having a
demonstrated ability to build such a type of warship. Even the Royal
New Zealand Navy, considered smaller than the RSN, has managed to
sustain its afloat logistics support capacity by purchasing a new, South
Korean-built replenishment vessel to replace the existing ship, HMNZS
Endeavour. The continued absence of an equivalent capability in the
RSN therefore exhibits the preoccupation of Singapore’s defense plan-
ners with the country’s immediate strategic maritime environment, less
on “out-of-area” operations which would have therefore required such a
ship.
Finally, Singapore’s naval force development continues to emphasize
self-reliance in niche technologies, notably in unmanned systems. While
UAVs continue to be a key stable horse of Singapore’s defense industry,

unmanned surface vessels (USVs) have risen to the fore. Following the
Venus, designed by ST Marine, local firm Zycraft unveiled the Vigilant-
class USV prototype in 2014.22 Autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUVs) would be another niche area Singapore is gearing toward as part
of this self-reliance, especially given the RSN’s significant contribution
of an AUV to the QZ8501 search.23 But more importantly, the drive
toward AUVs will be associated with Singapore’s desire to possess a fully
unmanned mine countermeasures force in the future.24
Conclusion
Singapore’s current approach to naval force capacity development has
exhibited continuity from its significant modernization approaches in the
1990s and early 2000s. The major modernization processes back then
were expedient in view of the need to recapitalize a fleet that was not just
ageing but also evidently suffering from crucial capability gaps. This per-
sisted despite the 1997–1998 Asian Financial Crisis, allowing Singapore’s
naval development to forge ahead of its neighbors in many respects.
As such, by the turn of the century, Singapore has the bulk of its
envisaged balanced naval capabilities in place, and the modernization
processes sustained until 2010. What is left for Singapore to do to sus-
tain and enhance its current naval capacity is to incrementally build on
the existing set of capabilities. Therefore, the projects implemented in
the recent years were not radically new additions to the force, but are
more accurately described as incremental enhancements or augmen-
tations. This reflects a more sustainable approach both from the fiscal,
operational and technical point of view, allowing Singapore to balance its
maritime defense and security requirements with the evolving domestic
and external circumstances, while not forgetting the need to keep in pace
with the latest naval technological trends.
Notes
1. Southeast Asia’s military expenditures amount to US$39.7 billion of the
US$436 billion for the whole of Asia and the Oceania. This represents
8.8% increase in 2015—the highest compared to the other sub-regions,
with Oceania ranked second at 7.7% and East Asia third at 5.7%. Dr Sam
Perlo-Freeman, Dr Aude Fleurant, Pieter D. Wezeman and Siemon T.
58 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
Wezeman, “Trends in world military expenditure, 2015,” SIPRI Fact

Sheet April 2016, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, p. 3.
2. Read for instance, Speech by Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating
Minister for National Security Mr Teo Chee Hean at the Launching
Ceremony of the Second Littoral Mission Vessel, Ministry of Defence,
Republic of Singapore, April 16, 2016.
3. For example, in early 2014 Singapore and Indonesia were mired in con-
troversy over Jakarta’s naming of a warship after a pair of Indonesian
marines who were convicted and hanged for terrorist bombing during the
Confrontation period in the 1960s. Despite the tense period of exchange
in barbs (including the alleged “uninvite” of an Indonesian military del-
egation to the Singapore Airshow that year, ties stabilized soon after. See
for instance, “Naming ship after MacDonald House bombers reflects
“callousness”, “disrespect”,” Channel NewsAsia, February 7, 2014, Zakir
Hussain, “Indonesia downplays withdrawal of invitations,” Straits Times,
February 11, 2014.
4. Both countries have engaged in talks since the ICJ judgement of May
2008, through the Malaysia–Singapore Joint Technical Committee, and
the decision was made in November 2013 to progress from the com-
mittee to a new phase, through setting up a new sub-committee tasked
with looking at delimitation of the boundaries. “S’pore, M’sia to form
sub-committee to look into maritime boundaries,” Channel NewsAsia,
November 30, 2013.
5. “RI, S’pore agree on borders,” The Jakarta Post, September 2, 2014.
6. The number of incidents have declined from 25 in August 2015 to 18 the
following month, with this downward slide continuing into early 2016.
Data obtained from the 10th Governing Council Meeting of the ReCAAP
ISC, Shangri-La Hotel, 17 March 2016.
7. Arlina Arshad, “Plot to attack Marina Bay with rocket from Batam foiled,”
The Straits Times, August 6, 2016.
8. Speech by Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean, at Committee of Supply
Debate 2009, Ministry of Defence, Republic of Singapore, February 12,
2009.
9. Prior to the general election in September 2015, a public opinion sur-
vey conducted by an independent consultancy highlighted overwhelm-
ing support amongst Singaporeans for the PAP government’s defense
and national security policy performance. It was rated at 97%, even
higher than crime levels (94%) and education (90%). “Satisfaction with
Government since GE 2011 at high level, survey shows,” Channel
NewsAsia, August 22, 2015
10. Speech by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Committee of Supply
Debate 2016, Ministry of Defence, Republic of Singapore, April 8, 2016.
11. See for instance, Speech by Mr. Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for National
Development and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, on “The Challenges
to Small Nations’ Foreign Policies” at the Ministry of National
Development (MND) Auditorium on Saturday, 29 July 1995 at 3.00
PM, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Singapore; and Speech by
Senior Minister Professor S Jayakumar at the S Rajaratnam Lecture at
Shangri-La Hotel on Wednesday 19 May 2010, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Republic of Singapore.
12. Former Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean remarked in 2010 that the SAF
remains preoccupied with national defence and security. “S’pore com-
mitted to playing its part in international security operations,” Channel
NewsAsia, 30 September 2010.
13. When he handed over the command of CTF151 to the South Korean
Navy in June 2016, Rear Admiral Cheong Kwok Chien remarked that
Singapore “will continue to play our part to ensure freedom of navigation
and safety of shipping,” thus signalling the intent to maintain the RSN’s
presence in the Gulf of Aden, even if there is no plan to expand this com-
mitment. “Singapore Completes Fourth Command of Multinational
Counter-piracy Task Force,” Ministry of Defence, Republic of Singapore,
June 30, 2016.
14. Felix Soh, “New hardware will help Navy to be ‘balanced force’,” Straits
Times, May 5, 1993.
15. Kelvin Wong, “Singapore completes missile corvette life extension pro-
gramme,” Jane’s International Defence Review, September 28, 2015. See
also, Chung Kam Sam, Wibawa Martin Sulaiman, “Making a Difference
through Innovation: Missile Corvettes Upgrade Story,” DSTA Horizons,
2016, Defence Science and Technology Agency, Singapore, pp. 48–53.
16. Compared to the older Fearless class patrol vessels, the LMV has more
than double the displacement. While the PVs are mounted with
the MBDA Mistral/SIMBAD very short-range air defense system
(V-SHORAD), the LMV is equipped with a 12-cell vertical launch sys-
tem (VLS) that fires MBDA’s VL-MICA point defense missile, thus
giving the RSN a second working anti-missile capability following the
Formidable class frigates armed with the same company’s Aster missile.
Ridzwan Rahmat, “ST Marine lays keel for Singapore’s third Littoral
Mission Vessel,” Jane’s Navy International, January 24, 2016.
17. Speech by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Defence, at Committee of Supply
Debate 2014, Ministry of Defence, Republic of Singapore, March 6, 2014.
18. “S’pore may buy large ship for use in disaster zones: Dr Ng,” Channel
NewsAsia, June 30, 2014.
19. Jermyn Chow, “RSN beefs up older ships with modern muscle,” The
Straits Times, February 23, 2015.
60 C. KOH SWEE LEAN
20. Kelvin Wong, “TKMS starts construction of Singapore’s Type 218SG

submarines,” Jane’s Navy International, June 28, 2015.
21. “Singapore Interested in Ex–US Navy P-3 s,” Flight Global, December
15, 2010; “P-8A patrol plane draws broad interest among US allies—
Pentagon,” Reuters News, April 8, 2016.
22. Kelvin Wong, “Parting shot: Vigilant-class USV,” Jane’s International
Defence Review, November 19, 2014.
23. “QZ8501: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle takes off to join the search,”
Channel NewsAsia, January 1, 2015.
24. Kelvin Wong, “Singapore Navy aims for a fully unmanned future mine
countermeasure force,” Jane’s International Defence Review, June 30,
2016.
Author Biography
Collin Koh Swee Lean is a Research Fellow at the Maritime Security Programme,
part of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies which is a constituent unit
of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He is especially inter-
ested in researching on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific, focusing on Southeast Asia
in particular, and generally issues related to naval technologies, naval moderniza-
tion, naval arms control, and the offence-defence theory. Collin also taught at the
Military Studies Programme and taught various professional military education
and training courses with the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute. Prior to
joining the Maritime Security Programme, Collin worked at the Military Studies
Programme (2010–14) and the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies
(2008–10), also at RSIS.
CHAPTER 5
Naval Development in Indonesia

Indonesia which is dominated by growing competition between China
shape its naval plans and analyses the political, social and economic fac-
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Indonesia · Problems · Strategic
With the announcement of a maritime vision by President Joko Widodo,

how ready is Indonesia to build that vision? Why is it important for
Indonesia to become a maritime power? What are the potentials and
challenges in implementing President Widodo’s maritime vision? This
chapter will address these questions by looking at Indonesia’s decision-
making processes at all levels of government.
R. Atriandi Supriyanto (*) 
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University,
Acton, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
e-mail: arasfor145@yahoo.co.id

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_5
62 R. ATRIANDI SUPRIYANT
As a Maritime Country
Indonesia’s capacity to harness its maritime power shows what being
‘maritime’ is all about. As has been said there is a difference between
‘being maritime’ and ‘being a maritime power.’ The first is simply a
measure of a country’s geography and dependence on the sea. Indonesia
is obviously maritime in the sense that it is an archipelago of almost
18,000 islands and has a great number of maritime economic interests.1
Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state with a total maritime
area of around 5.9 million square kilometres (sq. km); water comprises
roughly two-third of the country’s total extent (7.9 million sq. km). Its
coastline is the world’s second longest after Canada. Population cen-
tres are spread across the five largest islands of the archipelago: Sumatra,
Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Papua and Java. Despite being the smallest among
the five, Java is home to around 60% of Indonesia’s population, where
the national capital, Jakarta, is to be found. Some of these islands are
shared with other countries such as Kalimantan (Malaysia and Brunei),
Papua (Papua New Guinea) and Timor-Leste in the Island of Timor.
What makes the archipelago strategically important is its position
relative to global seaborne trade routes. Located astride the Indian and
Pacific Oceans, the Indonesian archipelago includes the vital maritime
choke points of the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok-Makassar Straits, which
roughly account for half of the world’s total volume of seaborne trade.
However, being maritime can be at least as much a source of weak-
ness as of strength if a country cannot defend those interests. Poor
inter-island sea communications, maritime crimes at sea, uncertain and
disputed maritime boundaries and the proximity of other more powerful
maritime states could imperil Indonesia’s integrity, security and prosper-
ity. The more relative maritime power (political, economic, constabulary
and military) Indonesia has, however, the less likely those threats are to
materialise. This helps explain Indonesia’s push to be a stronger maritime
power.
An Aspiring Maritime Power

In the 2014 East Asia Summit, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo
(Jokowi) introduced the concept of Poros Maritim Dunia (PMD), vari-
ously translated as the ‘World Maritime Axis’,2 ‘Global Maritime Nexus’3
‘Global Maritime Axis’,4 and ‘World Maritime Pivot’.5 It views the sea
5 NAVAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA 63
as Indonesia’s national asset and a source of strength, and to take advan-

tage of Indonesia’s archipelagic geography. Underpinned by five pillars,
the PMD is aimed at: rebuilding maritime culture, enhancing the mari-
time ‘blue’ economy, improving maritime infrastructure and connectiv-
ity, advancing maritime diplomacy and strengthening maritime defence
(see Fig. 5.1).6
So, how can Indonesia implement the PMD concept to become a
stronger maritime power?
Tier 1: Deciding National Security Policy

Adopting the policy-making model outlines in Chap. 1, two factors seem
especially important in helping to shape Indonesia’s maritime policy: sea-
blindness and external concerns.
Seablindness
Despite its archipelagic nature, Indonesia has been suffering from sea-
blindness. During the colonial period, Dutch seapower divided the
archipelago into separate kingdoms and sultanates. While Europeans’
divide-and-rule policy was common throughout colonial Asia, it left
enduring physical and psychological legacies in Indonesia. It physically
divided various ethnic groups and islands across the archipelago by deny-
ing them effective control of the sea, while it psychologically implanted
Maritime Maritime 'blue' Maritime Maritime Maritime

culture economy infrastructure diplomacy defence
• Improve quality of • Increase revenue • Expand port • Tougher approach • Continue
maritime from fishing infrastructure against IUU implementing the
governance industry • Apply 'sea fishing 'minimum
• Maritime • Promote marine highway' (tol laut) • Promote maritime essential force'
professional tourism concept to reduce initiatives in plan by 2024
education high-cost regional • Focus on naval
(colleges, economy architecture and air force
academies, etc.) (IORA, EAS, etc.) modernisations
Fig. 5.1 The concept of Poros Maritim Dunia

the notion of ‘otherness’ when different islanders viewed each other.

Thus, the way the Javanese viewed the Buginese of Sulawesi, or the
Malays of Sumatra viewed the Balinese, was not so much different from
how indigenous Indonesians viewed the Europeans, Chinese, Arabs or
other groups of foreign descent. This sense of mutual distinction and
alienation prevented the formation of a common identity and purpose.
In response to this colonial legacy and in order to unite the country,
Indonesia formed the concept of Wawasan Nusantara or Archipelago/
Archipelagic Outlook in seeing the sea as inseparable from land,
expressed through Indonesia’s term for homeland, Tanah Air (Land–
Water). Officially introduced on 13 December 1957 by Prime Minister
Djuanda, the concept envisions the seas being an integral part of national
territory. While the concept was initially seen as highlighting the impor-
tance of the sea, it later evolved and implemented in a land-centric and
inward-looking manner. Instead of making Indonesia’s maritime inter-
ests a priority, the concept upholds ‘the prevailing concern over national
disintegration; the resulting emphasis on unity; the need for economic
development particularly in the less-developed provinces; economic
nationalism; an emphasis on political stability; the sanctity of national
borders, and finally, the importance Indonesia attaches to the Law of the
Sea as the means by which to ensure the Wawasan Nusantara.’7
The Archipelago Outlook is implemented through the Ketahanan
Nasional (National Resilience) strategy to develop economic self-
sufficiency of each island within the archipelago, so as to build its
own individual ‘resilience’ against secessionist temptations from
within and against foreign influence from outside. While each island
is expected to be self-sufficient, a lack of assistance from compara-
tively wealthier islands, such as Java and Sumatra, is not an excuse
for lax implementation. In turn, national resilience is guaranteed by
the resilience of individual islands. Consequently, both Archipelago
Outlook and National Resilience killed the incentive for a vigorous
development of seapower. Both concepts reinforced Indonesia’s ‘sea
blindness’ and encouraged seeing the sea as a source of vulnerabil-
ity rather than strength, because of the expectation for each island to
be independent and self-sufficient. This resulted in a lack of incen-
tives for building robust inter-islands shipping networks and the naval
means to protect these networks.
Following the democratic transition of the late 1990s, Indonesia
is still not immune to such pressures. There is still disunity and a lack
of concerted efforts to engage different policy stakeholders. While not

unique to Indonesia, various decision-making bodies, including the
President and his inner circle of ministers and advisors, the parliament,
the military and police, the civilian bureaucracy and the general public,
can compete with each other in order to dominate policy-making, mak-
ing it seem disorganised and less coherent.
Even under President Joko Widodo (or ‘Jokowi’ (as he is commonly
known), for instance, there is no common understanding for terms such
as maritim (maritime), kelautan (marine/oceanic affairs), bahari (nau-
tical), which Jokowi’s ministers and advisers use liberally and at times,
interchangeably. Unsurprisingly, this has led to confusion especially
among the members of the bureaucracy who must articulate the PMD
and turn it into practical policies.
External Concerns
While Indonesia’s threat orientation remains inward, especially the
worry about potential separatism, it has nonetheless been concerned
about boundary disputes with neighbouring countries. Despite the fact
that China and Indonesia maintain they have no disputes (including no
Chinese claims over the Natuna Islands located at the southern part of
the South China Sea), Jakarta has rejected (as expressed by its UN note
in 2010), and protested against China’s U-shape or 9-dash line. At the
centre of the area of concern is the Natuna D-Alpha block, estimated to
contain the largest gas reserves in the region.
Debates about this are raging among Indonesian foreign and defence
decision-makers. The defence community, i.e. the Indonesian National
Defence Force (TNI), believe that China has become more aggressive in
pursuing its claims. Two senior military officers have spoken against the
U-shape line. While Air Commodore FahruZaini believed he was mis-
understood when saying that ‘China has claimed Natuna waters as their
territorial waters,’ his statement was similarly echoed by Indonesia’s mili-
tary chief, General Moeldoko, who is dismayed…that China has included
parts of the Natuna Islands within the nine-dash line.’8
On the other hand, the Indonesian diplomatic community is more
restrained and conciliatory in its approach, though views are not uni-
form. One senior diplomat even described the U-shape line as ‘incom-
plete, inaccurate, inconsistent and legally problematic.’9 Efforts are
focused on implementing the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of
Parties in the South China Sea (DoC) and on formulating a Code of

Conduct (CoC), which is claimed to be binding. But Beijing believes a
CoC is applicable only after the DoC is already effectively implemented,
and urges ASEAN to be equally objective in ‘disciplining’ its member-
claimants accused of violating the DoC.10
Other boundary disputes and geopolitical concerns include the
standoff with Malaysia over the Ambalat block in the Sulawesi Sea and
maritime ‘intrusions’ by Australia. The Ambalat standoff led to brief skir-
mishes between the navies of Malaysia and Indonesia, and rise of nation-
alist sentiments in the latter. Both countries have agreed to reduce force
deployments and avoid provocations pending boundary negotiations.
Meanwhile, Indonesia has also taken exception to Australia’s policy of
sending incoming asylum-seekers back to Indonesia. In the course of
turning back the asylum-seekers’ boats, Australia has on a few occasions
entered into Indonesian waters by mistake. While Australia had apolo-
gised, the refugee issue has become a political hot potato in Indonesia,
as exemplified by a recent comment from an Indonesian minister about
sending 10,000 illegal immigrants in Indonesian detention to Australia.11
Tier 2: National Defence and Security Strategy Making

Under Jokowi, Indonesian maritime development has recently been
authorised at the highest level, and the objectives of a substantial govern-
ment investment in the maritime industries, a greatly increased rate of
foreign investment and the intention to increase the defence vote from
0.9 to 1.5% have been clearly articulated. Whether these initiatives can
succeed at the cabinet and legislature levels remain to be seen.12 There
were, however, clear moves in the same direction before President
Jokowi took over, which included making the ‘empowerment’ of the
defence industry one of eight national priorities for the state budget,
alongside such high priority areas as infrastructure investment.13
Nevertheless, with a slim election victory, Jokowi might face stiff
resistance from other policy stakeholders, especially the Indonesian par-
liament. Dominated by the opposition, the parliament might challenge
the PMD concept in practice, if not in principle, and limit Jokowi’s
freedom of action to implement his pillars of action, such as building
maritime infrastructure and connectivity through the ‘sea highway’ (tol-
laut) project. Jokowi’s tougher approach towards illegal, unreported,
and unregulated (IUU) fishing, with around US$10 billion loss per
annum, was also criticised as it could provoke tensions with neighbour-
ing countries.14 Critics also quarrelled with Jokowi’s choice of ministers,
including the ex-Army Chief Defence Minister, Ryamizard Ryacudu
and Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Indroyono Soesilo. The
former was criticised for his conservative Army-oriented views, thus was
considered unsympathetic to a maritime-focused defence policy. Despite
having served as the Director of Fisheries Resources and Aquaculture at
the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the latter was criti-
cised for his lack of experience in national security policy-making, and
for putting too much emphasis on non-security aspect of the maritime
dimension.15
Tier 3: Defence Policy-Making at the Ministry Level
Ministry Apparatus
While Ryacudu has repeatedly fended off rumours surrounding his views
and appointment, concerns nonetheless linger that he might seek to
entrench the institutional dominance of the Army within the Ministry
of Defence (KEMHAN), and would thus be seen as a hindrance to
Indonesia’s military reforms and defence transformation. More impor-
tantly, he might cause concerns among the navy and air force who only
until recently gained greater clout in shaping Indonesia’s military mod-
ernisation plan called ‘Minimum Essential Force’ (MEF), which started
in 2010.
Implemented in three phases to be completed by 2024, The MEF
aims to achieve a sufficient capacity for the Indonesian military to prepare
against two ‘flashpoints’ simultaneously, which include territorial and
boundary disputes, foreign-assisted separatism and terrorism. While the
last two flashpoints might be classified as low-intensity conflict, territorial
and boundary disputes such as the South China Sea, can escalate into a
high-intensity, albeit limited, conflict. Consequently, military modernisa-
tion must encompass both dimensions of traditional and non-traditional
security. This could be challenging for KEMHAN as it competes with
other ministries vying for similarly urgent priorities, particularly health
care, education and infrastructure development.
As KEMHAN cannot afford to engage in broad-based military mod-

ernisation, a list of priorities must be set with a focus on ‘maritime
defence’ as per PMD’s fifth pillar. Even this can still be challenging as
Indonesia’s defence expenditure struggles to meet the government’s tar-
get. Although it has risen considerably since 2010, defence expenditure
is comparably lower than that of the city-state of Singapore in real terms,
and of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in relative GDP per-
centage (see Figs. 5.2 and 5.3).
Despite Jokowi’s reiterated pledge to increase defence vote to 1.5%
GDP, expenditure in real terms falls short of that figure due to inflation
and other economic pressures, such as building maritime infrastructure
required of PMD’s third pillar. One analyst concludes that this would
mean Indonesia could only afford piecemeal military modernisation in
certain capability areas.16 Without priorities being set for the navy and air
force, there is a risk that the resources for modernisation may be spread
thinly across the three armed services; this which would not be reflective
of a maritime—focused defence. This problem is compounded by inter-
service rivalry, which has resulted in incompatibility issues between the
newly acquired platforms and systems in the MEF plan.
12,000
10,000
current US$ million
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Thailand Vietnam
Fig. 5.2 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in real terms

5
4.5
4
3.5
GDP Per cent
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Thailand Vietnam
Fig. 5.3 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in GDP terms
Inter-Service Relations
While inter-service rivalry is natural, the problem in Indonesia is arguably
an acute one. Little evidence exists of real ‘jointness’ in defence policy
formulation, command arrangements, materiel acquisitions and profes-
sional military education that would better facilitate a maritime rather
than a terrestrial approach to national defence. For example, joint mili-
tary exercises, such as YudhaSiaga 2008, remain fixated on countering
a sea-based enemy determined to occupy some terrestrial parts of the
archipelago. In addition, they are reactive in nature with an intention to
flush out the enemy only after the latter has managed to occupy parts of
Indonesia’s land territory.
Reforms have been urged and President Jokowi has talked about the
‘empowerment of an integrated system of armed forces’ but what that
will entail remains to be seen.17 At least, there have been proposals from
within the military to draw up a maritime-focused defence strategy, such
as the Indonesian Maritime Defence Strategy proposed in 2005.18 The
plan stipulates that the Navy and Air Force will form the spearhead for
pre-emptive strikes, such as maritime interdiction, against the enemy as
far from Indonesia’s territory as possible. But the plan did not take off
according to initial expectations for it was not clear how the Army would
play a substantial part.
A more recent proposal is the establishment of Joint Regional Defence
Command (Komando Gabungan Wilayah Pertahanan, Kogabwilhan).
The plan is for Kogabwilhan to be established in three command areas,
each of which would be led by a three-star officer. While KEMHAN is
generally supportive of this initiative, there is still reluctance from the
military. First, Kogabwilhan is thought to limit the current authority of
Commander-in-Chief (Panglima) as Kogabwilhan commanders would
be given more authority to carry out initiatives according to their local
command requirements. Second, the geographical distribution of each
Kogabwilhan’s command has still to be drawn and agreed upon by each
services. Below the surface, however, the Kogabwilhan initiative is more
about solving turf battles among the services than improving real integra-
tion. Additionally,the establishment of Kogabwilhan establishment will
improve career prospects and reduce promotional log-jams for the mili-
tary since new posts and positions would be created.
Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy Making
Navies and the Maritime Scene

In Indonesia, inherent coordination problems exist between the navy
and other maritime security agencies. First, there are differing views on
the nature of the maritime security threats facing the country and this
leads to mismatch and overlaps in roles and tasks of the responsible agen-
cies. For example, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries look at
fishing as primarily a commercial problem, although recently the issue of
IUU fishing has come more into the security sector. However, the Navy
views dealing with IUU fishing as low-intensity, low priority operations,
despite that fact IUU fishing loses Indonesia around US$25 billion
annually—larger than Indonesia’s annual defence budget! Second, the
turf battle among maritime security agencies can stymie proper division
of authorities and responsibilities. Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency
(BAKAMLA) establishment was meant to overcome this problem, but
suspicions linger that BAKAMLA might become a naval ‘proxy’ to
dominate Indonesia’s maritime security governance against the interests
of similarly entitled agencies, such as the Marine Police and Transport

Ministry’s Sea and Coast Guard Unit.19
Intrinsic Procurement Problems

Indonesia is not immune to this problem. First, naval modernisation
under MEF is taken under a ‘buyer’s market’ environment at the same
time when the Asia-Pacific has surpassed Europe as the world’s larg-
est defence spender.20 With European countries reducing their defence
expenditures, the Asia-Pacific region is awash with offers of new and
second-hand platforms and equipment. Under financial constraints,
Indonesia exploits this situation to get with whatever its money can buy.
One example was the purchase of 100 Leopard A2 main battle tanks
(MBT), which drew much criticism, including from Indonesia’s former
President B. J. Habibie, since the purchase was alleged to be not in keep-
ing with the original MEF plan.21
Second, there is a tendency to equate platforms with capabilities.
Modernisation tends to be interpreted, erroneously, as primarily increas-
ing and/or replacing the number of platforms. The MEF document is
full of shopping lists of aircraft, ships, vehicles and tanks, but contains
very little discussion on command, control, computer, communication,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This is not to
say that Indonesia ignores the C4ISR dimension altogether. For exam-
ple, the Navy and Air Force have made some acquisitions in radar and
surveillance systems. Separately, the US-funded Integrated Maritime
Surveillance System (IMSS) was also established along some parts of
Malacca and Makassar Straits to augment the Navy’s main coastal radar
systems.22 But a lack of funding and interest for the maintenance and
refits of these systems undermined their operational effectiveness.23
Corruption
Nor can the problem of corruption, in which procurement decisions
are made for entirely the wrong kind of reasons, be safely ignored. In a
June 2012 research, the Transparency International identified Indonesia
as scoring ‘E’ or very high in level of corruption risk, with corruption
‘known to be heavy, lifting prices and creating uncertainty on the validity
of procurement process,’ while ‘the remit of the Corruption Eradication

Commission does not extend to security.’24
Clashes with Maritime Defence Industrial Base

Additionally, there could be problems in the industrial capacity of the
country to produce the equipment the navy needs in terms of time,
number and quality. Indonesia’s critical defence industries such as PT.
Pindad and Surabaya-based PT-Pal are underfunded and underequipped,
although they are actively seeking new markets.25 More than 70% of
ship components are imported with little indigenous contribution apart
from the provision of labour. The country’s development of high-tech-
nology capabilities will be a major challenge, but there is nonetheless
clear evidence of a government initiative to develop them, in both the
creation of a naval ship design centre and an offset policy intended to
require foreign suppliers to return 85% of the value of particular deals
back to Indonesia through countertrade and offsets of which 35% must
be directly in the defence sector.26
The implementation of MEF is strongly related to the development
of national defence industry, so as to reduce overdependence on foreign
arms suppliers, as per National Law No. 16/2012. A Defence Industry
Policy Committee (Komite Kebijakan Industri Pertahanan, KKIP) was
established to ensure that arms imports are allowed only if local suppliers
cannot fulfil the military’s specifications to provide strict offset require-
ments, including technology transfer. Through this scheme, local defence
industries managed to fulfil some MEF projects. For example, the state-
owned aerospace PT. Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) and shipyard PT.
PAL Indonesia companies managed to secure orders from the Navy to
license-build CN235MPA maritime patrol aircraft and KCR-60 patrol
vessels, respectively. Local private companies such as PT. Lundin shipyard
and PT. Palindo Marine are also involved in constructing the Navy’s first
trimaran warship and patrol boats.
For the time being, however, any substantial upgrade in the capacity
of local defence industries will remain dependent on continuing acqui-
sitions from abroad, such as the Chinese C-705 anti-ship missiles that
Indonesia is fitting into its KCR-40 fast attack craft.27 While Indonesia
seems clearly willing to contemplate an extensive divesification of it
sources, amongst more than a dozen significant suppliers, and to multi-
ply the development of external political relationships in a way which can
serve Indonesia’s foreign policy, this could as well introduce significant,

maintenance and logistical challenges together with system integration
problems.28
Conclusion
This chapter has sought to tease out a number of questions about
Indonesia’s maritime aspirations and derived objectives and about the
challenges it faces in achieving them. Clearly, it is far too early to try to
come to definitive answers to these questions, some speculations about
Indonesia’s alternative maritime futures seem possible. The first specula-
tion is based on the proposition that the drive towards maritime power
will succeed. Here a healthy maritime economy, defence-industrial base
and a capable navy and coastguard will provide the conditions for the
general economy to grow, for national integrity to be strengthened and
for the country to be able to both preserve national interests and to con-
tribute to the safety or regional even global maritime security. The sec-
ond speculation, based on an anticipation that the maritime programme
will fail, produces the reverse of all these things. Instead of the sea being
a source of strength, peace and prosperity for Indonesia and indeed for
its immediate neighbours too, since they have a substantial stake in the
security of shared waters, it will be a source of threat and of national
limitations—and one that might well push the country into the side-
lines in a maritime area where countries with the maritime capabilities to
match their maritime interests will play a much greater role in deciding
the rules of the game. Of course, these two perspectives are stark alterna-
tives at either end of a spectrum of possibility. What is much more likely
to happen is something more nuanced, somewhere between them, but
for what form it might take and what its consequences might be, we shall
simply have to wait and see.
Notes
1. The exact number of Indonesia’s islands is uncertain. The CIA World
Factbook puts it at 17,508 of which around 6000 islands are inhab-
ited. Ed Davies, “Indonesia counts its islands before it’s too late,”
Reuters, May 16, 2007. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/05/15/
environment-indonesia-islands-dc-idUKJAK7973020070515. accessed
December 30, 2014; the Central Intelligence Agency, “Indonesia,” The
World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-

factbook/geos/id.html. accessed December 30, 2014.
2. Joko Widodo, ‘The seas should unite, not separate us,’ The Jakarta Post,
14 November 2014. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/11/14/
the-seas-should-unite-not-separate-us.html. accessed 11 November 2014.
3. Adelle Neary, ‘Indonesia under Jokowi: A Foreign Policy Driven by a
“Global Maritime Nexus”,’ cogitAsia¸ 23 October 2014. http://cogi-
tasia.com/indonesia-under-jokowi-a-foreign-policy-driven-by-a-global-
maritime-nexus/. accessed 11 November 2014.
4. Vibhanshu Shekhar, Joseph ChinyongLiow, ‘Indonesia as a Maritime Power:
Jokowi’s Vision, Strategies, and Obstacles Ahead,’ Brookings Institute,
November 2014. http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2014/11/
indonesia-maritime-liow-shekhar. accessed 11 November 2014.
5. Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, ‘Jokowi calls for national healing in victory
speech,’ The Straits Times¸ 23 July 2014. http://www.straitstimes.com/
news/asia/south-east-asia/story/jokowi-calls-national-healing-victory-
speech%C2%A0-20140723. accessed 11 November 2014.
6. Joko Widodo.
7. Leonard C. Sebastian, Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, I. Made Andi Arsana,
“Beyond the Archipelagic Outlook: The Law of the Sea, Maritime
Security and the Great Powers,” in Christopher Roberts, Ahmad Habir,
and Leonard Sebastian, ed., Indonesia’s Ascent: Power, Leadership, and the
Regional Order (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 310.
8. “China included part of Natuna waters in its map,” Antara, March 13,
2014. http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/93178/china-includes-part-
of-natuna-waters-in-its-map. accessed December 6, 2014; Moeldoko,
“China’s Dismaying New Claims in the South China Sea,” The Wall Street
Journal, December 6, 2014.
9. Arif Havas Oegroseno, “Indonesia, South China Sea and the
11/10/9-dashed lines,” The Jakarta Post¸ April 9, 2014, http://m.the-
jakartapost.com/news/2014/04/09/indonesia-south-china-sea-and-
11109-dashed-lines.html (accessed December 6, 2014).
10. Shangri-La Dialogue, “The Challenges of Maintaining and Managing
Open Seas,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, May 31,
2014, http://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20la%20dialogue/
archive/2014-c20c/special-sessions-b0a1/copy-of-session-1-bd62
(accessed December 6, 2014).
11. Peter Alfrod, “Indonesia’s doomed convicts in final appeals for life,” The
Australian, March 11, 2015.
12. Vibhanshu Shekhar and Joseph Chinyong Liow, “Indonesia as a

Maritime Power: Jokowi’s Vision, Strategies, and Obstacles Ahead”
Brookings, November 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/research/arti-
cles/2014/11/indonesia-maritime-liow-shekhar.
13. Jon Grevatt, “Indonesia increases defence budget by 14%,” Jane’s Defence
Weekly, August 27, 2014.
14. Muhammad Akbar Wijaya, ‘DPR KritikPerintah Jokowi
TenggelamkanKapalAsing Illegal’ [Parliament criticise Jokowi’s order to
sink illegal fishing boats], Republika Online, 25 November 2014. http://
nasional.republika.co.id/berita/nasional/politik/14/11/25/nfl5wm-
dpr-kritik-perintah-jokowi-tenggelamkan-kapal-asing-ilegal. accessed on
11 November 2014.
15. Author interview with an Indonesian defence analyst, Jakarta, 17
November 2014.
16. Benjamin Schreer, ‘Moving beyond ambitions? Indonesia’s military mod-
ernization,’ ASPI Strategy (Canberra: the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, 2013), p. 18.
17. Jon Grevatt, ‘Indonesian intent.’
18. TNI Angkatan Laut, Strategi Pertahanan Maritim Indonesia [Indonesian
Maritime Defence Strategy] (Jakarta, 2005).
19. Jun Honna, “Instrumentalizing Pressures, Reinventing Mission:
Indonesian Navy Battles for Turf in the Age of Reformasi,” Indonesia, 86
(October, 2008), p. 65.
20. Myra McDonald, “Asia’s defense spending overtakes Europe’s:
IISS,” Reuters, March 14, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/arti-
cle/2013/03/14/us-security-military-iiss-idUSBRE92D0EL20130314
(accessed December 10, 2014).
21. Ihsanuddin, “Habibie Kritik Rencana Pembelian Leopard” [Habibie criti-
cised Leopard’s purchase], Kompas, March 24, 2014.
22. Office of the Spokeperson, “DoD-funded Integrated Maritime Surveillance
System,” U.S. Department of State, November 18, 2011. http://www.state.
gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/11/177382.htm. accessed December 27, 2014.
23. Author discussions with a defence analyst, Jakarta, 17 November 2014.
24. International Defence & Security Programme, “Indonesia,” Transparency
International, June 2012. http://government.defenceindex.org/results/
countries/indonesia#more. December 28, 2014.
25. Jon Grevatt, ‘Myanmar eyes stronger collaboration with Indonesia,’ Jane’s
Defence Weekly¸May 7, 2014; Jon Grevatt, ‘Vietnam, Indonesia discuss
potential collaboration’ Jnae’s Defence Weekly, June 5, 2014; Jon Grevatt,
‘Indonesia’s PT PAL signs contract to supply strategic sealift vessels to

the Philippines,’ Jane’s Defence Industry, July 16, 2014.
26. Jon Grevatt, ‘Indonesia announces offset programme,’ Jane’s Defence
Weekly, April 16, 2014; Jon Grevatt, ‘Indonesia plans indigenous naval
ship design centre,’ May 7, 2014.
27. Jon Grevatt, ‘China, Indonesia mull improved ties,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly,
August 6, 2014.
28. Kenneth Conroy, ‘Indonesia sends delegation to Russia for sub talks,’
Jane’s Defence Weekly, January 15, 2014.
Author Biography
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is an Indonesian Presidential Ph.D. Scholar with
the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.
He is also a former associate research fellow with the Maritime Security
Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore.
CHAPTER 6
Naval Development in Malaysia
Geoffrey Till and Henrick Z. Tsjeng

Malaysia which is dominated by growing competition between China
shape its naval plans and analyses the political, social and economic fac-
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Malaysia · Problems · Strategic
Although every country is unique in its geostrategic setting, cultural

expectations, economic requirements and resources, they all face similar
challenges. Malaysia’s experience in the process of becoming a maritime
power should be of general interest and should help us understand the
issues confronting Southeast Asian naval development as a whole.1
G. Till (*) 
H.Z.Tsjeng 
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_6
78 G. TILL AND H.Z. TSJENG
Developing maritime power would seem to require an enhanced will-

ingness and capacity to respond actively to one’s circumstances. This in
turn demands a clear sense of what is at stake and what needs to be done.
Setting the Maritime Agenda

A country’s context will do much to establish its maritime interests and
their relative importance. Malaysia’s long-term geostrategic circum-
stances, most obviously its geographic position and conformation, help
to shape the country’s maritime interests. Unsurprisingly, these circum-
stances have over the years produced a maritime element into Malaysia’s
cultural identity and image of itself. After all, the areas comprising what
is now Malaysia were governed by various kingdoms and sultanates with
maritime interests. In medieval times, the Malay Peninsula was ruled by
maritime empires such as Srivijaya and Majapahit. As John Miksic has
shown, maritime trade routes also ran from the Middle East and India
through the area and into China, bringing into play a complex sea-based
system that profoundly affected the whole of Southeast Asia.2 It was
from the sea that Indian trade brought Indian culture to the kingdoms
and empires in the region,3 and it was also through the maritime trade
routes that Islam spread to the region from the Middle East and India in
the thirteenth century.4
But for all that and despite the continuing maritime influence of the
Bugis, the Malay Peninsula has never seen itself or been seen by others
as a maritime power. None of the kingdoms on the Malay Peninsula have
had any significant naval force, nor have they ever engaged in any major
naval battle. The maritime community of the Strait of Malacca has been
relatively fragmented, with different groups moving between the penin-
sula and Sumatra at different times. When these communities settled on
the Malay Peninsula, they became effectively land bound. The European
arrival led to the various kingdoms on the Malay Peninsula losing power
and brought the diasporic movement of peoples between Sumatra and
the Malay Peninsula to a halt. Afterwards indigenous maritime develop-
ment on the Malay Peninsula was minimal.
However, with the end of the colonial era, these residual maritime
interests have re-asserted themselves. First and most obviously, for
Malaysia even to be a unitary country now requires the capacity suf-
ficiently to control events in the waters that divide the Malaysia penin-
sula and East Malaysia, together with its islands. Comprising parts of
6 NAVAL DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA 79
the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, the Sulu Sea, the Sulawesi
Sea, and parts of the Straits of Singapore and the Gulf of Thailand,5 this
amounts to a very extensive maritime area that is almost double the size
of Malaysia’s land mass. According to the Hydrographic Department
of the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN), the total area of Malaysia’s ter-
ritorial water is 65,023.4 km2 with an exclusive economic zone of
450,233.0 km2.6
Control of these waters is not just a matter of sovereignty—they
have considerable economic significance for Malaysia too, both for their
resources in oil, gas and fish, and their role in national and international
trade. Accordingly, when criminal activity (piracy, illegal fishing, drugs
and people smuggling, and international terrorism) threaten the good
order at sea on which trade and the country’s enjoyment of its marine
resources depend, the economy suffers.
Second, as is all too common in the region, Malaysia has to deal with
the fact that much of this extensive maritime estate is contested with the
country’s immediate neighbours, most especially with China, Vietnam,
Indonesia and the Philippines. Malaysia’s claimed Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ) and extended continental shelf incorporates significant sec-
tions of the South China Sea and gives Malaysia a very real interest in
the peaceful resolution or at least management of that dispute. Although
the Malaysian public appears more relaxed about its maritime integrity
than, say, that of Vietnam or the Philippines, a government’s capacity
to defend national territory is inevitably seen as a performance indicator
since this, along with the provision of essential services, is what justifies
government—and the taxes that pay for it.
Third, Malaysia occupies a pivotal position between two oceans, the
Indian and the Pacific. A third of the world’s shipping and 2500 LNG
tankers pass through these waters every year. Although, Malaysia’s lead-
ers do not speak of the country being a global maritime axis or fulcrum
as do their Indonesian counterparts, many of the points now being made
in Jakarta apply to them too. They also have a strong interest in seek-
ing the ‘value added’ by encouraging international shipping to call in
Malaysian ports rather than pass them by or just make use of Singapore.
They too accept that being more closely integrated into the world trad-
ing system will develop the country’s potential and improve life for its
inhabitants. Hence Malaysia’s keen interest in Chinese investment on the
Malacca Gateway concept.
Fourth, the fact that the sea routes skirting Malaysia are of global
significance means that outsiders are hugely interested in the waters
off Southeast Asia. The most notable current expression of that exter-
nal interest is China’s controversial concept of the ‘Twenty first Century
Maritime Silk Road’ aspects of its ambitious ‘One Belt One Road’ pro-
ject, which aims to link China to the outer world through the Indian
ocean. This raises urgent issues about how Malaysia should respond
to the notion. Should it be welcomed as a potential source of financial
investment in Malaysia’s maritime infrastructure or feared as a potential
source of strategic domination? Given the wariness of India, the US and
other countries to China’s maritime vision, Malaysia’s reaction to the
new Maritime Silk Road concept will be of considerable significance.
Here though, there may be something of a conflict of interest
between Malaysia’s very evident desire to maintain close relations with
China whilst upholding what it considers to be its rights in the South
China Sea. To the extent that they compete, these maritime concerns
add complexity to the identification of the relative priority of the coun-
try’s maritime interests and to the task of developing an all-round policy
designed to protect them. Balancing these maritime interests may prove
increasingly difficult in the face of what many see as China’s increasing
determination to secure what it considers its maritime rights to be in the
South China Sea and elsewhere. Indeed, a slow toughening of its South
China Sea policy seems to be in process with Malaysia publicly protesting
what it regards as the intrusion of a Chinese Coast Guard ship into its
EEZ—an unusual move on its part.7
This issue has also to be set alongside much broader strategic currents
in the Asia-Pacific Region such as the developing relationship between
China and the U.S. and between north and Southeast Asia—and indeed
the slow development of an ASEAN political and economic community.
In broad terms, Malaysia’s response to this aspect of its international
context is to maintain options and sources of insurance through a policy
of all-round restrained engagement.
In such a maritime area as the Asia-Pacific region, this and indeed all
other of these contextual developments have significant maritime con-
sequences; therefore they too help set Malaysia’s maritime agenda. But
there is the danger that the requirements of hedging and the desire not
to ‘rock the boat’ with powerful neighbours might lead to an underem-
phasis of the importance of the maritime dimensions of national interest.
If this is the context within which Malaysia’s maritime policy must

operate, the next question is to look at what Malaysia would need to do
in order to shift from simply having maritime interests to the defence
of those interests, by becoming a maritime power in the sense discussed
earlier. Following on from that, what challenges and problems would a
country like Malaysia face in implementing such a policy? We shall adopt
the model outlined in Chap. 1.
Tier 1: Deciding National Security Policy

Like Indonesia, Malaysia has drafted an ocean policy and is in the midst
of upgrading its maritime economic infrastructures. The ‘Malaysia
Ocean Policy 2011–2020’, partially released in 20108 by the Ministry
of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) reportedly advocates
a national ocean policy to concert effort in better managing Malaysia’s
maritime resources. The policy has since been withdrawn in order to
allow further consideration of the extent to which it should include
defence interests. This has reinforced the criticism that the country still
lacks a proper Oceans Policy and also the institutional arrangements that
would best support one. Hence, perhaps, Malaysia’s continuing failure
to ratify the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, while NGOs com-
plain about lack of policy co-ordination. Neither, some say, is it clear
that the Government’s focus on developing Malaysia’s economy is prop-
erly reconciled with the desire to build up the RMN and the Malaysian
Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA). Shippers likewise complain of
a lack of support for their struggling industry.
To the extent these criticisms are justified, they may reflect a ‘maritime
vision’ which, compared to Indonesia’s, appears diffused, disaggregated
and spread around the many ministries and stakeholders that have signifi-
cant maritime interests. These ‘sub-visions’ are inevitably sectoral ones
advanced lower down in the hierarchy by stakeholders such as the Navy,
the MMEA or particular industrial interests. The Prime Minister’s Office
and Malaysia’s National Security Council (NSC) system seemingly sets
the tone and direction but not the level of operational detail to be found
at this level in Indonesia. But this kind of sectoral rather than holistic
policy and strategy making tends to be on operational rather than strate-
gic aspects of maritime policy making.
In sum, Malaysia may only have what might be called a ‘recessed’
vision of itself as a maritime power, strongly held in some quarters, but
largely ignored in others and without the top-down impetus that seems
currently to be making the difference in Indonesia. There may well,
though, be good reasons for a country not making a bigger and more
directive ‘splash’ in maritime policy at the very top decision-making
level. The government may not be in a position politically to launch such
a grand vision. Its current preoccupations may preclude clear, unambigu-
ous and authoritative decisions from on high about the determination
of national priorities together with clear articulations of programmes to
attain them in the near to mid-term future. In the Malaysian case, issues
such as the development of ASEAN and the Economic Community,
developing relations with China and preparing for the next election in
2018 would seem likely to take precedence. For this reason, a ‘top-down
push’ in Malaysia seems less likely than would appear to be the case in
Indonesia. Additionally, putting a greater public emphasis on the devel-
opment of the country’s maritime interests may make it more difficult
for Malaysia to maintain the all round policy of ‘back-up insurance’ and
all round engagement alluded to earlier. Sadly, maritime issues have
become controversial, internationally. Explicitly pushing their priority
may cause more problems than it solves.
There may be institutional constraints as well. Malaysia, in com-
mon with many other countries, has introduced a NSC System, having
reflected upon Singapore’s experience. The Malaysian NSC operates
rather like the latter’s National Security Coordination Secretariat in mon-
itoring threats and making recommendations to government but also
works with the National Security Division in the Prime Minister’s Office,
which aims to provide the whole-of-government approach, including its
military/security aspects. But this integrative policy-making system is rel-
atively new and still being developed.
Another common reason for policy hesitancy is the sheer difficulty
of the task of coping with uncertain futures. Wide consultation with
non-military sources of expertise may help articulate policy alterna-
tives and faster and more effective responses to unexpected develop-
ments. Malaysia’s position record here would seem promising with the
foundation of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) in 1993 and
the centrality of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies
(ISIS) Malaysia, a leading independent think tank, and a member of
the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP),
which also includes a Study Group on Maritime Security.9 In fact, the
agreement to forge CSCAP was reached in Kuala Lumpur in June
199310—testament to Malaysia’s desire to lead the policy debate on

security-related issues in the region. Malaysia also seeks to take a lead in
regional maritime forums and institutions and to generate the conceptual
momentum that will help it do so. However, ‘sea-blindness’ amongst the
media and political establishment remains a problem.
Tier 2: National Defence and Security Strategy Making

When it comes to identifying and resourcing national priorities, the
fact that, as reported in 2012, around 95% of Malaysia’s international
trade was carried by sea, and that the four main sectors of the maritime
economy contributed about 20% of Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) in 200811 would seem to make sustaining the maritime economy
a high priority.
Accordingly, there is substantial investment in the sector. There
will be major infrastructural development in Malaysian ports such as
Westport of Port Klang, Selangor, and Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Johor,
amounting to more than RM 6 Billion which includes spending about
RM 1 billion12 for the capital dredging of port channels to cater for big-
ger vessels and upgrading works at to provide additional capacity for
import and export of goods. Alongside that, Malaysian’s shipping indus-
try will also experience substantial growth. Massive maritime develop-
ments are also planned for the ‘Malacca Gateway’ and southern Johore.13
But, perhaps inevitably, there are problems too. Fishing is not
hugely important in Malaysia and fishermen often make more money
by not going to sea. Illustrating the point, Malaysia has sought to build
up a tuna industry—but without success.14 That so much of govern-
ment revenue is derived from oil exports moreover makes it vulnerable
to price volatility. The oil price drop of early 2015 had a savage effect
on the country’s future budgetary planning, the defence sector planning
included.15 To the extent that maritime development is dependent on for-
eign investment, further complications can ensue. This appears to be the
case with Chinese investment in the Kuantan and the Malacca Gateway
projects since these have generated operational concerns on the one hand,
and worries that they might compromise Malaysia’s position in the South
China Sea on the other.16 This tension was highlighted in November
by Prime Minister Najib’s visit to Beijing in November 2016, in which
he secured $10 billion from China for investment in a port at Kuantan
and billions more for a major railway project. During the meeting Najib
praised China for its ‘peaceful, productive rise’ and warned against out-
side intervention in the South China Sea dispute and dismissed the
charges of his predecessor that he had ‘hurt Malaysia’s sovereignty.’17
All this together with concerns about possible threats to trading con-
ditions at sea caused, for example, by piracy, other forms of maritime
crime or international tensions shows the extent to which maritime
dependency can so easily become a source of weakness and vulnerability
rather than of strength, and tends to complicate the maritime case in the
quest for resource priority. For Singapore, a threat to free sea-based trade
is an existential threat. It is not clear that Malaysia sees things the same
way, however.
More complexity is added by the fact that not everyone in the mari-
time community sees things the same way either. While each area of a
maritime economy (fishing, shipping, naval and constabulary, for exam-
ple) may have characteristics in common, they also have others which are
not. They may even compete with one another in a manner that makes
it more difficult to construct an overall narrative that justifies devoting
resources to the maritime economy rather than to something else. A
brief look at the complexities involved in the establishment of a national
defence industrial base as an example illustrates this well. With its rela-
tively small force structure, the RMN offers manufacturers few oppor-
tunities for economies of scale. At the same time it is not clear that local
industries have the skills or the resources to meet the RMN’s needs with-
out substantial investment and technology transfer from foreign firms,
who will naturally have their own investment agendas. Malaysia’s capac-
ity to design naval equipment is currently limited.18
Accordingly it is difficult to reconcile the Navy’s needs with the aspi-
ration to develop a national defence industrial base. From the RMN’s
point of view, it would often be cheaper and quicker to buy what is
needed straight from foreign suppliers. But this would certainly not con-
tribute to the desire to increase the industrial skills and capabilities in the
national workforce needed for the advanced economy Malaysia require
that is intrinsic to the Bumiputra policy.19 Nor would it offer so much in
terms of constituency support for national and local politicians. Finally,
excessive reliance on foreign suppliers of key equipment can easily reduce
a country’s independence of strategic decision.
Such problems have badly disrupted the Navy’s plans to acquire new
Offshore Patrol Vessels, while at the same time failing to deliver enough
of the hoped for industrial benefits. One Malaysian official has apparently
admitted in 2011 that the country’s offset policy had so far had not
much of a positive effect on the development of an indigenous defence
industry.20 Over the period of 2000–2004, only about a hundred
defence industry related jobs were created and the majority of them were
in low-end technological activities. The effect on technology transfer had
been even more disappointing as the majority of Malaysian companies
have failed to reinvest in local research and development and these com-
panies have yet successfully to apply for a single patent. These problems
are by no means unique to Malaysia, but also make it more difficult for
the maritime case to get the priority and the resources it deserves.
Tier 3: Defence Policy Making at the Ministry Level

The narrower interests of the navy need to be gauged against the back-
ground of the country’s defence policy. Malaysia published the ‘National
Defence Policy’ in 2010, its first comprehensive defence paper.21 Some
speculate that there is also a classified version with more detailed infor-
mation,22 but, if so, this is not accessible to the public for analysis.
The paper stated that that the main objective of the National Defence
Security is to protect and secure Malaysia’s three area of interest from
any threats either from abroad or domestic. The areas of interest are,
(1) The core areas; (2) Offshore economic interests; and (3) Strategic
airspace and waterways, which include all inland waterways and territo-
rial waters, the EEZ and Sea Lines of Communication. Self reliance with
Malaysia depending on its own resources and capabilities to safeguard
sovereignty and independence is said to be a core underlying principle of
defence.23 This links with the search for a national defence industrial base
discussed earlier. Another clearly enunciated principle is total defence
(HANRUH), which calls for a whole-of-country approach involving the
government, the private sector, NGOs and general public to commit to
national defence.
Despite its major focus on internal security, Malaysia claims to pur-
sue the strategy of deterrence and forward defence, first raised in 1986
by then Vice Admiral Abdul Wahab bin Haji Nawi in the context of
the South China Sea.24 He envisioned the aggressive use of submarines
against a far more powerful foe with surface and air superiority. Overall,
though, defence planning is capability not threat based. The long-term
aim is to have a general purpose balanced military/naval deterrent capa-
bility by 2030.
Defence policy (and the implementation strategy that goes with it)
therefore not only clearly needs to be in tune with the intentions of the
political leadership, but also sufficiently resourced by them. As elsewhere
the professional military frequently feel the latter is not the case, given
their allotted tasks, but are less able to push for improvement. Defence
only accounts for a small portion of government expenditure—7.12%
as of 201225—with a declining percentage of GDP26 and the resultant
programme delays (such as the replacement of Malaysia’s MIG-29s)27
and budgetary cuts, along with defence industry issues,28 have made the
strategy of deterrence and forward defence aspired to in the Defence
White Paper problematic.29 It is doubtful, critics argue, that Malaysia
possesses the capability to offer effective deterrence against major con-
ventional threats.30 However, the October 2014 budget envisaged a
year-on-year increase of 10%,31 with the RMN being given a larger allo-
cation than was previously the case. This reflected the shock of the Sabah
incident of 2014 and perhaps growing concerns about what some see
as increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and a new
requirement to ‘shadow’ Chinese vessels operating in what is regarded as
Malaysian waters.
Other procedural matters can also complicate the defence strategy
making process. It is commonly assumed in Europe and the US that
external analysis and conceptual challenge provides a means of rigor-
ously testing the formulation of national defence policy. In common
with most other countries in the region, though, this process in Malaysia
appears relatively opaque; although defence white papers are at least pub-
lished, their level of detail is not high. The same is true of important
budgetary statements. The Defence Budget of October 2014, for exam-
ple announced the establishment of a new base and a Marine Corps but
there has been no indication of any specific budgetary allocation towards
these two purposes.32 Likewise parliamentary analysis of government
defence policy through the Parliamentary Defence Committee does not
appear to be as searching as it is in the United States for example.33
Defence also needs to be a ‘joint’ affair involving the effective inte-
gration of the efforts of all three services. But alongside this imperative
for cooperation, there is a very real element of competition since the
three services are vying for the same defence resources, especially when
times are relatively hard. Because of its greater size and the historic
centrality of the concern for internal security, the Army has reportedly
tended to dominate the defence decision-making process in the Ministry
of Defence not least when it comes to the allocation of resources.

Nonetheless, the Malaysian services do not seem to be as ‘siloed’ as
are their equivalents in Indonesia and the increased maritime focus of
Malaysia’s defence concerns already mentioned may accelerate the pro-
cess of re-balance. Malaysia’s National Defence Policy underscores the
importance of combined structure and inter-service cooperation. In the
organisational structure of the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Joint Forces
Commander sits at the same level as the respective service chiefs who
reports directly to the Chief of Defence Force,34 and the current chief of
navy, Vice Admiral Dato’ Seri Panglima Ahmad Kamarulzaman bin Haji
Ahmad Badaruddin, was formerly a Joint Forces Commander.35
This is important because the Navy’s standing within the political,
institutional and the joint arenas helps in shaping the maritime con-
sciousness of the nation and to advance the maritime case.
Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy Making

In identifying and prioritising their operational roles, and developing the
capabilities needed to perform them to the required degree, the RMN
has to decide ends, ways and means but face constraints in addition to
the intrinsic difficulties of naval acquisition. Corruption, cronyism and
patronage are problems here as elsewhere. In 2014, Malaysia was ranked
50 out of 175 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index and it has
been suggested that the accumulation of a highly dissimilar, and often
incompatible, set of weapons systems may be the ‘…direct consequence
of corruption as a variety of individuals involved in the acquisitions pro-
cess receive kick-backs from various arms suppliers.’ Nonetheless, it was
admitted that this is’difficult to document’36 and that this is much more
a problem for the political than the military establishment. The greater
the substance of such charges in this murky area, the greater the diffi-
culty in maintaining a coherent procurement strategy.
Finally the limitations of the Malaysian defence industrial base and the
complexities of arranging foreign supply on equitable and cost-effective
terms complicate the issue too. As elsewhere, indigenously produced
platforms will cost more and their quality will be less than those bought
‘off the shelf’ so the Navy will typically get less for its money if required
to buy locally.37 Like other small-medium navies, the RMN finds it dif-
ficult to generate the economies of scale that help make such procure-
ment problems more manageable. Malaysia’s two Scorpene submarines
illustrate the problem. Moreover, the iron law of necessary refits will
mean that it will be extremely difficult to extract a continuous and
cost-effective capability out of such small numbers and this complicates
the kind of overall mission planning which assumes such availability.
Getting the ‘smart’ personnel needed to contribute to the naval policy
and decision-making system while also operating and maintaining the
equipment acquired demands heavy investment in professional military
education and training. But again, this is more difficult for small and
medium navies than large ones, because lower personnel numbers make
economies of scale in the management of human resources more prob-
lematic. This problem may in some cases be aggravated by policies which
may shape personnel policy by favouring some groups at the expense of
others for other nation-building reasons and which result in personnel
policy being less ‘defence strategy led’.
Conclusion
While many aspects of the naval modernisation process in Malaysia
remain intrinsically opaque, this partly reflects considerable uncertainty in
the decision-making system about the threats on which the RMN should
concentrate. Should this be China’s apparent assertiveness in the South
China Sea, or internal security concerns as exemplified by the Sabah inci-
dent, or ‘non-traditional’ maritime security issues such as piracy or ille-
gal fishing? Partly because of these very basic strategic uncertainties, there
is an apparent absence of consensus about the kind of capabilities that
Malaysia should develop and this difficulty is compounded by the fact
that the drop in the price of oil, the much-reduced buying power of the
Malaysian currency and consequent budgetary constraint has raised very
real problems of what capabilities Malaysia could in any case acquire.
At the moment, the RMN has opportunistically to pick items from a
long-term list of the capabilities needed for general deterrence largely on
the basis of what could be afforded in the current circumstances. This has
led to a naval defence acquisition system that, despite the best efforts of the
naval leadership, is much less coherent in practice than in theory—although
overall there is a clear intent to increase the cost-effectiveness of the fleet by
training the smart user and rationalising a fleet inventory that is seen as too
diverse in its support and operational requirements. The RMN now operates
about fifteen classes of ship and aims to reduce this to five by 2030, while at
the same time dealing with an overall fleet that is 40% obsolescent.38 In the
current circumstances, this is indeed quite a challenge.
Notes
1. We would like to acknowledge the help we have received in discussions with
colleagues, especially Dr Farish Noor (RSIS Singapore) Dzirhan Mahadzir
and Ridzwan Rahmat (Janes’s), Drs Ian Storey, Tang Siew Mun and Daljit
Singh (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute), and with the invaluable help of Colonel
Ramli Nik, innumerable colleagues in the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, the
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, the Malaysian Institute of Defence
and Security, the Royal Military College, the National Defence University
of Malaysia and the Royal Malaysian Navy. We would stress though that the
interpretations (and the mistakes!) are our own.
2. John N Miksic, Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea 1300–1800,
(Singapore: NUS Press, 2013); also “Malaysia: Country Study Guide.”
Washington, DC: International Business Publications, 2008, p. 21.
Accessed on 27 December 2013 at http://books.google.com.ph/books
?id=vBm2b0BwU9EC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
3. Ibid., p. 21.
4. Ibid., p. 41.
5. Mohd Nizam Basiron. “The search for sustainability and security: Malaysia’s
maritime challenges and opportunities.” In Ho, Joshua, & Bateman, Sam
(Eds.), Maritime Challenges and Priorities in Asia: Implications for regional
security (pp. 72–82). London and New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 72.
6. Hj. Sutarji bin Hj. Kasmin. “Maritime Law Enforcement Agencies and
Auxiliary Security Agencies of Malaysia.” In Abdul Razak Baginda (Ed.),
Malaysia’s Defence and Security Since 1957. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian
Strategic Research Centre, 2009, p. 188.
7. Ridzwan Rahmat, ‘Malaysia despatches missile corvette to monitor
Chinese “intrusion” ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly, 17 May 2015; John Ng and
Tefor Moss,’ Malaysia toughens stance with beojing over South China
Sea’ Wall Street Journal, 8 June 2015.
8. The actual Malaysian National Ocean Policy is not publicly available.
However, for information on the rationale behind the National Ocean
Policy, see Mohd Nizam Basiron and Cheryl Rita Kaur, “A National
Ocean Policy for Malaysia: Rationale and Proposed Components,” pres-
entation at the East Asian Seas Congress 2009, Manila, the Philippines,
23–27 November 2009, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.pemsea.org/
eascongress/international-conference/presentation_t1-1_basiron.pdf.
9. “Member Committees,” CSCAP Website, accessed 17 July 2015, http://
www.cscap.org/index.php?page=member-committees-page.
10. “About us,” CSCAP Website, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.cscap.
org/index.php?page=about-us.
11. Nazery Khalid, “Measuring the contribution of the maritime industry
to Malaysia’s economy,” Maritime Institute of Malaysia, 2 December
2012, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.mima.gov.my/mima/
wp-content/uploads/Contribution%20to%20economy%20FINAL%20
%28Dec2012%29%281%29.pdf, p. 3–4.
12. Ministry of Finance, Economic Report 2010/2011, p. 49.
13. For further details, see “Our Development Plan,” Iskandar Malaysia web-
site, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/our-
development-plan; and “Creating Port Centres of Excellence through the
Johor Port Development Policy,” MIMA website, accessed 17 July 2015,
http://www.mima.gov.my/v2/mobile.php?m=posts&c=shw_details&
id=453&slug=latest-post.
14. See “Local tuna industry falls short,” The Star, 17 December 2010,
accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.thestar.com.my/story/?file=%2f201
0%2f12%2f17%2fnorth%2f7636414&sec=north; and Errol Oh, “Fishing
for the right answers,” The Star, 15 February 2014, accessed 16 July 2015,
http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2014/02/15/
Fishing-for-the-right-answers/?style=biz.
15. Jason Ng and Tom Wright, ‘Malaysia takes Ax to Budget Amid Oil-Price
Jolt,’ Wall Street Journal, 20 Jan 2015.
16. Khor Yu Leng, “The Significance of China-Malaysia Industrial Parks,”
ISEAS Perspective #37, 17 June 2013, accessed 16 July 2015, http://
www.iseas.edu.sg/documents/publication/iseas_perspective_2013_37_
the_significance_of_china_malaysia_industrial_parks.pdf.
17. Kor Kian Beng, ‘Growth in ties validates trust in China: Najib’ and ‘Najib
has hurt Malaysia’s sovereignty: Mahathir,’ The Straits Times, 3 Nov 2016
and Shannon Teoh, ‘Najib: deals with China don’t hurt sovereignty,’ The
Straits Times, 5 Nov 2016.
18. Discussions with industry representatives, Kuala Lumpur Feb 2016.
19. Balakrishnan, Kogi, & Matthews, Ron. “The role of offsets in Malaysian
Defence Industralisation.” Defence and Peace Economics, Vol. 20 No. 4,
2009, p. 348; Jon Grevatt ‘Malaysia outlines new offset policy,’ Janes
Defence Weekly, 12 Oct 2011.
20. Grevatt, Jon, “Malaysia’s new offset policy to boost self-sufficiency and
oversight.” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 6 Oct 2011.
21. See Ministry of Defence (Malaysia), “Malaysia’s National Defence Policy,”
2010, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.mod.gov.my/phocadown-
load/DASAR-PERTAHANAN/ndp.pdf.
22. Marhalim Abas, “The National Defence Policy; Dasar Pertahanan
Malaysia.” Malaysian Defence, 12 November 2010, accessed on 30
October 2013 at www.malaysiandefence.com/?p=1279.
23. Ministry of Defence (Malaysia), “Malaysia’s National Defence Policy.”
2010, p. 15.
24. J.N. Mak, citing 11 April 1990 interview with Admiral Wahab, in “the
Royal Malaysian Navy in a changing maritime world: The challenges
ahead,” Naval Forces Vol. 11 No. 3, 1990, p. 73, cited in James Goldrick
and Jack McCaffrie, Navies of South-East Asia: A Comparative Study,

New York: Routledge, 2013, p. 101.
25. See data on Malaysia in “Military expenditure (% of central government
expenditure),” World Bank, accessed 31 July 2015, http://data.world-
bank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.ZS/countries.
26. See data on Malaysia in “Military expenditure (% of GDP),” World Bank,
accessed 31 July 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.
XPND.GD.ZS.
27. Leithen Francis, “Malaysia to keep some MiG-29s, delay choice on replace-
ment fighters,” Flightglobal, 25 February 2010, accessed 30 July 2015,
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/malaysia-to-keep-some-
mig-29s-delay-choice-on-replacement-338765/.
28. For issues in Malaysia’s defence industry development, see Ron Matthews
and Tracy Yip, “The Push and Pull of Offset in the Development of
Malaysia’s Defence and Security Technology Park,” Defence Review Asia,
28 January 2013, accessed 31 July 2015, http://www.defencereviewasia.
com/articles/203/The-Push-and-Pull-of-Offset-in-the-Development-of-
Malaysia-s-Defence-and-Security-Technology-Park; and Kogila Balakrishnan,
“Defence Industrialisation in Malaysia: Development Challenges and the
Revolution in Military Affairs,” Security Challenges, Vol. 4 No. 4 (Summer
2008), pp. 135–155, accessed 31 July 2015, http://securitychallenges.org.
au/ArticlePDFs/vol4no4Balakrishnan.pdf.
29. See remarks by Richard Bitzinger in “Tight budget hampers Malaysia’s
defence ambitions,” Today, 20 March 2015, assessed 31 July 2015,
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/tight-budget-hampers-malay-
sias-defence-ambitions?singlepage=true.
30. See Goldrick and McCaffrie’s chapter on the Royal Malaysian Navy for
Malaysia’s past problems in developing a modern navy.
31. Jon Grevatt and Dzirhan Mahadzir, “Malaysia increases 2015 defence
budget by 10%,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 14 October 2014.
32. See also Ministry of Defence (Malaysia), Annual Report 2013, 2013,
accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.mod.gov.my/en/publication/
category/81-annual-reports.html?download=724:year-2013.
33. For further details on some of these issues, see Jitkai Chin, Chin-Tong
Liew and Nur Jazlan Mohammad, “Role of Parliament in Defence
Budgeting in Malaysia,” paper presented during the 4th Workshop of
the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Forum on Security Sector Governance,
Phuket, Thailand, 23–24 May 2008, accessed 17 July 2015, http://ipf-
ssg-sea.net/4th_WS/Chin_et_al.pdf. This paper states, for example, that
“According to the Malaysian government’s policy, defence procurement
details are protected by the ‘Official Secret Acts’ (OSA) and may not be
discussed publicly.” (p. 5) It also makes the following observation: “The
classification of defence documents resulted in MPs lacking sufficient
information to engage actively in debate, or, in the rejection of MPs

questions by the House on different grounds.” (p. 6).
34. Malaysia’s National Defence Policy, p. 1–2; “Organisation”
(Organisational Chart in Malay), Malaysian Armed Forces Headquarters
website, last updated 16 July 2015, http://www.mafhq.mil.my/index.
php/en/about-us/organization.
35. ‘Ahmad Kamarulzaman is new chief of Navy’, Malaysiakini, 19 November
2015, accessed 26 April 2016, https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/320166.
36. Beeson and Bellamy, Securing Southeast Asia, op cit, p. 94.
37. Julian Kerr, ‘Report on Australian ship-building finds 30–40% cost pre-
mium,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly, 22 April 2015.
38. Discussions with RMN and Ministry of Defence personnel, February
2016.
Geoffrey Till is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s

College London and Chairman of the Corbett Centre for Maritime
Policy Studies. Since 2009, he has also been a Visiting Professor and
Senior Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
Singapore. His Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar
to the Falklands was published by ABC Clio in 2014 and he is currently
working on a fourth edition of his Seapower: A Guide for the 21st Century.
Henrick Z. Tsjeng is Associate Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam

School of International Studies (NTU, Singapore), where he focuses
on defence diplomacy in ASEAN as well as geopolitics and security in
East Asia. He has published numerous commentaries on these issues
on local and international platforms, and has also contributed and co-
authored a number of papers and articles in an Asian journal as well
as in books. From 2011 to 2013, he was a researcher at the Singapore
Institute of International Affairs, where he conducted research and
analysis on topical issues such as the South China Sea disputes, ASEAN
politics, US-China relations and environmental concerns. Before join-
ing the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, Mr Tsjeng took on
various positions in the United States after graduating from Columbia
University’s School of International and Public Affairs with a Master
in International Affairs in 2010, including brief stints at the National
Committee on American Foreign Policy, the United Nations, as well as a
carbon finance and project advisory company.
CHAPTER 7
Naval Development in Vietnam
Truong-Minh Vu and Nguyen The Phuong

Vietnam which is dominated by growing competition between China
shape its naval plans and analyses the political, social, and economic fac-
Keywords  Naval modernization · Vietnam · Problems · Strategic
Introduction
The Vietnam’s People Navy (VPN) has been currently attracting attention
not only from foreign observers but also from the domestic commentators.
Understanding the development and modernization of the armed forces
and of the VPN in particular is essential in order to understand the future
T.-M. Vu (*) 
Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
e-mail: truominhhuyvu@gmail.com
N.T. Phuong 
University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: ntpro99@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_7
94 T.-M Vu and N.T. Phuong
maritime strategy of Vietnam, in the context of increasing Chinese encroach-

ment and assertiveness in the South China Sea. For a nation with limited
resources like Vietnam, an effective navy becomes a tool of both defense
and deterrence, a guarantee for security and prosperity in a new century
where most of the country’s wealth is being derived from maritime trade
and resources. In recent years, the VPN has received more and more capi-
tal to improve its capabilities and combat readiness. One of the first military
branches to be modernized, the VPN together with the Vietnam’s People Air
Force and Air Defense Force are considered to be at the forefront in protect-
ing the country’s sovereignty against turbulence and uncertainty at sea.
This chapter is divided into two separate sections. In the first section, the
authors aim to shed light on the modernization process of the VPN since
2006. This process officially took off after the contract of two Gepard-class
frigates was signed as a historic move to turn the VPN into a more capable
seafaring navy. This news attracted much attention from the domestic audi-
ence and debates broke out on which kind of armaments would possibly be
built into the two new frigates. Before 2006, the VPN had in its service just a
few patrol boats, torpedo boats, and minesweepers which could only operate
near the coastline. Their combat quality was also poor and insufficient as the
VPN lacked appropriate equipment as well as investments. The 10-year mod-
ernization process which started from 2006, however, has transformed the
VPN from one of the most outdated and incapable navies locally to that of a
relatively modern and redoubtable naval force.
The second section tells another story, and this is a story which is
rarely discussed sufficiently deep or comprehensively. The authors aim, to
develop some insights about the obstacles the VPN is currently facing in
its modernization efforts. Those hurdles are both subjective and objec-
tive, and thus require careful consideration and discussion from which
meaningful solutions can be drawn out. This section also deliberately
does not discuss in detail the weaknesses in the current force structure of
VPN, as it could distract us from other fundamental and more important
impediments hindering the modernization process.
The Modernization Process of the Vietnam’s People

Navy
This section will deal with the modernization process brought for-
ward by the VPN, starting with the contract in which Vietnam decided
to buy two Gepard-class frigates from Russia in 2006. This contract is
7 NAVAL DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAM 95
considered to be the first modern arms deal within a decade and marked
a turning point where Vietnamese navy officially began to modernize
its force. Since then and up to 2016, the process was characterized by
two major changes in the overall capabilities and strategic thinking of the
VPN.
The first change was when the navy began trying to improve both the
size of its fleet and the quality of its personnel through acquiring warships
from foreign contractors, improving its domestic shipbuilding capability
as well as restructuring and creating new naval branches which had never
existed before, such as submarines or naval aviation. The second change
goes toe to toe with the first one in which Vietnamese naval strategists
begin to redefine their approaches toward a new and robust regional
security environment, as how to make use of its limited resources against
the threat posed by the presence of a much more powerful navy.
Before 2011, the VPN was purely a “brown water” navy, having in
service dozens of outdated Soviet frigates and patrol boats only capable
of operating near the country’s coastline. The most modern warships
of VPN until that time were 5 Petya-class anti-submarine frigates trans-
ferred by the Soviet Union at the end of 1970s (2 Petya-III) and 1980s
(3 Petya-III) and a KBO-2000 class fast attack craft (FAC). Besides,
there were several other classes of patrol boats, torpedo boats, and mine-
sweepers which simply deal with defense matters in shallow waters near
Vietnam’s main ports.
The first attempt of the VPN to modernize its surface fleet was a joint
KBO-2000 project with Russia, in which the Russian Northern Project
Design Bureau (SPKB) was in charge of conceptual design while the
actual building of the ship was conducted in Ba Son Shipyard in Ho
Chi Minh City.1 Unfortunately, the first and only ship of this class (des-
ignated HQ-381) failed to meet the navy’s expectations. Following this
attempt, Vietnam also acquired for the first time a modern type of anti-
ship missile: Kh-35 Uran.
Later on, the VPN switched its attention to another class of FAC,
Project 1241.8 or Molniya-class FAC, fitted for hit and run tactics. Up
to 2016, six Molniya-class FACs were commissioned (for an overall total
of eight) and deployed in different naval regions across the country. The
first two were built in Russia and the last four in Vietnam with techno-
logical support from Russian experts. It’s worth noting that the VPN
is currently negotiating with Vympel for the license to build additional
four more Molniya-class FACs possibly equipped with advanced Kalibr-N
96 T.-M. VU AND N.T. PHUONG
or Brahmos missiles.2 The increasing number of this FAC class to be

built (up to at least 12 in total before 2020) reflects the thinking of the
VPN about developing operational advantages in sea battle against larger
opponents by using swarm tactics in an asymmetric scenario.
The decision to purchase two Gepard-class frigates in 2006 empha-
sized for the first time in the decades after the Vietnam War that the
VPN was seriously pursuing the elevation of its surface fleet. It also
marked the first time that the VPN possessed its own modern warships
that were capable of operating throughout the vast areas of Vietnam’s
sovereign waters. These two 2000-ton frigates, although not equipped
with any ASW capabilities, on the one hand help the VPN to strengthen
its capabilities in securing the country’s sovereign rights and building
up deterrence in South China Sea; on the other hand it contributed to
the VPN’s effort to improve its “military diplomacy” through a num-
ber of port calls to China, India and Singapore and exercises with other
regional navies.3 Additionally, two more Gepard-class frigates are being
built with advanced ASW capability. They are expected to be delivered
in 2016 and 2017. The VPN is also considering the procurement of two
more frigates of this class, and possibly to be built in Vietnam when the
construction of the new Ba Son Shipyard is officially completed.
The approach of the VPN is gradually to absorb the necessary ship-
building technique through various joint projects with other foreign
contractors, especially those from Russia and the EU. The building of six
Molniya-class FACs in Ba Son Shipyard is one typical example. Another
would be a significant effort from two of the biggest military shipyards
in Vietnam, Z-189 and Z-124 (Sông Thu Shipyard) with support from
the Damen Group, to build up to four 2000-ton DN-2000-class patrol
vessels and the future 4000-ton DN-4000-class patrol vessel, the biggest
vessel in service that Vietnamese Coast Guard would ever deploy.4 Yet
another example is the success of Z-173 (Hồng Hà Shipyard) in intro-
ducing the TT-400TP-class gunboat, a 400-ton “made-in-Vietnam”
patrol gunboat which is totally built domestically though based on a for-
eign design.5
Shipbuilding capability in Vietnam, especially that of warships, is
improving as the VPN tries to garner as much experience as it can by
cooperating with experienced partners in the field. In 2007, Vietnam
continued to improve its patrol capabilities by purchasing four Svetlyak-
class patrol boats, increasing its current Svetlyak fleet to six boats in total.
This move was considered as a transition as the VPN had to fill the gap
in its patrol capability, especially in the water along its northern and
southern coastline where many of Vietnamese fishermen are active while
waiting for the TT-400TP project.
Vietnam also purchased, in 2006, two K-300P coast defense systems
using an advanced type of supersonic anti-ship cruise missile: SS-N-26
“Strobile” (Yakhont). Dubbed as a “carrier killer”, K-300P is not the
first coast defense missile system in the VPN’s arsenal, but it is consid-
ered the most modern. The latest add-on, K-300P together with 4K51
Rubezh (using SS-N-2 Styx missiles) and 4K44 Redut (using SS-N-3
Shaddock missiles) make up the triad “shield system” in protecting the
country’s 3000-long coast against any aggressive amphibious attacks.
These missiles are perhaps the most feared deterrent tools not only
because they have various operative ranges (varying from 50 km up to
550 km), but also due to the fact that the VPN successfully negotiated
for licenses for domestic production of the latter two missiles.6 It is also
worth noting that Vietnam has also acquired the rights to produce its
own versions of the Kh-35 Ural-E missile (SS-N-35 Switchblade) which
is currently the main armament of various weapon platforms of the VPN
such as the Molniya-class FAC or the single BPS-500 corvette. This
license agreement covers three versions, not one, of the domestic Ural-E
missile which includes an air-to-sea variant launched from Su-30MK2,
a coastal defense variant which is possibly equipped in a future Bal-E
coastal defense system, and an anti-ship variant known in its Vietnamese
codename as KCT-15.7
The biggest defence deal came in 2009, when Vietnam surprisingly
announced a two-billion contract to purchase six Kilo-class submarines
from Russia, its traditional arms-export partner. The last submarine was
to be delivered in 2016. This contract also stipulated the training of
Vietnamese submarine crews in Russia as well as including an additional
1 billion dollars in building of all necessary infrastructures and the deliv-
ery of armaments and other equipment. The VPN’s Kilo submarines are
an updated version featuring better stealth technology, extended combat
range, and ability to strike land, surface, and underwater targets.
Reports from SIPRI stated that Vietnam also at the same time ordered
50 3M-54 Klub missiles, 80 Type 53–65 and 80 TEST-71 torpedoes all
used in its new Kilo-class submarines. The presence of these submarines
in the VPN’s arsenal creates a unique opportunity for Vietnam to possess
a credible naval deterrent to China in the South China Sea, in the form
of a so-called area denial operation off Vietnamese coast and around
its military bases in Spratly Islands.8 In a recent development, Izvestia

reported that the VPN intended to order the newest Russian search-and-
rescue vessel of Project 21300S “Dolphin” in consequence of its large
submarine fleet.9 This kind of vessel “not only can conduct rescue opera-
tions, but also can carry other important tasks, for example researching
of the seabed, oceanographic or hydrographic works”.
In 2013, for the first time the Navy Aviation branch was established
when the Ministry of Defense transferred the 954th Air Brigade from the
Air Force to the Navy. This brigade is mostly commissioned with Kamov
Ka-27/28 helicopters, which could possibly engage in ASW. Those heli-
copters had also been sent to Sevastopol, Crimea for maintenance and
upgrade in 2013 and 2014.10 With six DHC-6 Twin Otter reconnais-
sance aircrafts purchased from Canada together with the support of two
CASA C-212 patrol aircrafts from the Vietnamese Coast Guard, the
VPN until now can deploy relatively modest and limited ASW and ISR
capabilities.
The most recent modernizing effort came from the purchase of sev-
eral EXTRA/ACCULAR rocket batteries from Israel, which were actu-
ally deployed on Vietnamese islands in the Spratly archipelago. The
contracts also highlight another small trend in Vietnam’s current defense
trajectory: turn into other foreign supporters for its naval equipment
and weapon platforms, especially Israel. Those rocket batteries are really
high-tech in nature and can boost the defense of Vietnamese outposts in
the South China Sea, which until now still operate outdated and inac-
curate coastal guns. Additionally, in order to increase the effectiveness
and accuracy of the newly acquired EXTRA/ACCULAR batteries, the
VPN also purchased several Obiter-2 UAVs and intends to order extra
Obiter-3 UAVs systems as well from Israel.11 Another example was the
surprising project from VPN to arm several of its elite marine brigades
with TAR-21 assault rifle and other modern equipment from Malaysia.
Not only has Israel become an important partner in Vietnam’s defense
market, but other partners are also increasing their footholds. The pur-
chase of the first sail training vessel from Poland is an interesting contract.
HQ-286 Lê Quý Đôn as it was named, marks the first time that the VPN
has in its service a vessel dedicated only for training purposes.12 Future
VPN personnel definitely could benefit from the new training method-
ology as well as new curriculum, thus increasing their combat readiness
and seafaring experience. Other notable examples of cooperation were a
deal with the French Thales company in purchasing Coast Watcher 100
air-and-surface surveillance radars deployed for early warning or the
recently robust defense relationship between Vietnam and India, in which
Ha Noi received a $500-million defense credit from New Delhi.13
Additionally, the two sides also discussed the prospect of Vietnam
buying a new anti-submarine torpedo, the Varunastra, and upgrading the
current fleet of Petya-class ASW frigates for VPN.14 Yet another example
was the surprise order of Pluto Plus UUV from Gaymarine Electronics in
Italy, in which VPN has integrated these UUVs alongside its own Sonya
and Yurka-class minesweepers.15
Challenges of the Vietnam People’s Navy

The VPN’s modernizing efforts took off aggressively since 2009 at the
time when China officially announced its “nine-dashed line,” although
there is evidence that, the exact plan for this process was on the table
rather earlier. Although the overall strength of the VPN has been increas-
ing significantly since the last decade, several challenges are still in place
slowing down the modernizing process and showing a huge gap in capa-
bilities compared to those of other navies in the region. This section is
intended to shed light on this little-discussed topic.
Vietnam has never been truly a maritime power even it is definitely a
coastal state. There were several well-known battles celebrated in history
about how ancient Vietnamese army could defeat much stronger war
fleets from its northern neighbor, but most of them actually took place
on rivers and coastal areas. The first true “naval battle” between Vietnam
and a foreign naval power probably took place in 1643, in which a naval
force mostly comprising of small vessels with high mobility led by Lord
Nguyen Phuc Lan and his son Nguyen Phuc Tan successfully defeated
three warships from the Dutch East India Company assisting the force
of Trinh Lord at that time. The Nguyen Dynasty later developed a small
but modern navy of around 300 warships but their role was just defen-
sive in nature.
The VPN was established in 1955. During the Vietnam War, the
primary mission of the navy was to patrol coastal areas and inland
waterways. Apart from patrolling, the VPN also had the mission of
transporting military supplies from the North to their allies in the
South during the Vietnam War. A naval clash with the Chinese navy
over controlling of Johnson Reef in Spratly Islands in 1988, which left

64 Vietnamese dead, highlighted the picture of a VPN lacking modern
warships and suitable tactics in dealing with more capable enemies. This
event prompted the VPN to seriously consider modernizing its naval
weapons and its overall capabilities.
Budget constraint has always been one of the most enduring chal-
lenges to the efforts of the VPN in modernizing its outdated arsenal.
Impressive economic growth after Đổi Mới encouraged the state to
engage actively in seeking for modern weapon platforms, but because
of the budget issue as well as other development priorities, little efforts
had been made to actually modernize the VPN until around 2005.
According to SIPRI statistics, Vietnam’s defence budget has increased
dramatically since 1988 to 2015. Between 2005 and 2015, the coun-
try’s military spending went up 115%, considered the largest amongst
Southeast Asian states, but the percentage of this budget accounted for
just around 2% of total GDP at the same period. The latest figure in
2016 shows that total spending could reach nearly $US5 billion.16
Unfortunately, the exact amount of money allocated to the VPN
has always been shrouded in mystery, as well as those budgets for other
military branches. Analysts and experts, even inside Vietnam, are facing
immense difficulties in trying to figure out this data. It is not clear at
the moment whether or not there is competition between different mili-
tary branches for budget allocation, but one thing for sure: the VPN is
not the only branch of the armed forces that will “proceed directly to
modernization”. Former Minister of National Defense Phung Quang
Thanh stated on August 2011 that the air force and air defense force,
signal corps, technical surveillance, and electronic warfare units also join
the same direction.
In 2015, Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan, Deputy Chief of the
General Staff, announced that in the next 5 years the army will also be
the focus of modernization.17 More guests joining the party means less
resources for all and it is very likely that the VPN has to compete with
others such as the coast guard or the air force to gain its necessary funds.
Additionally, Vietnam’s economy after the 2007/2008 global financial
crisis has not been fully recovered. The Vietnamese government is still
struggling with mountainous tasks to restructure the economy, thus any
large-scale military buildup will require carefully consideration, as to how
it can be balanced in given account sheets. As a consequence, the future
modernization scenario of the VPN is not only dependent on China’s
ongoing assertiveness in the South China Sea, but also on how strong
the economy will become and how much budget it would possibly get.
Budget constraint has also made the VPN’s leaders overcautious in
seeking new weapon platforms. Reasonable prices of one platform as well
as a good post-purchase policy are often considered essential. This also
largely explains why most of Vietnam’s newest weaponry (93% accord-
ing to SIPRI in 2015), especially of the navy, comes from Russia. Only
7% was imported from other markets, namely Ukraine, Romania, Czech
Republic and Israel.18 It is definitely understandable that Vietnamese
armed forces has a long and successful tradition of utilizing Russian
weapons, not only in real combat situations but also in maintenance and
building spare parts. However, over dependence on one source of weap-
onry supply creates several risks affecting the VPN’s capabilities in fully
making use of its power.
• First, the supply may be interrupted if some particular problems

take place from the side of supplier, both objectively and subjec-
tively. One example was such a delay in delivering the second pair
of Gepard-class frigates due to current conflict between Russia and
Ukraine, from which the turbines for those frigates, which made in
Ukraine, could not be delivered on time. Delaying in the transfer
of weapons has the potential to slow down the pace of exploiting
new capabilities and ultimately affects other real-time defensive and
offensive calculations on the ground.
• Second, Russia is also trying to make similar weapon sales, such
as those of the Kilo submarine or Su-30 fighter jets, or even more
superior platforms to China. In 2015, for example, Russia signed a
$2 billion contract to sell 24 Su-35 aircrafts to Beijing. In that same
year, Moscow also reached an agreement to sell four to eight S-400
air-defense systems to China. Through the possession and deploy-
ment of similar or even more advanced weapon systems of the same
source by China, the country that has serious territorial disputes
with Vietnam, could pose serious risks, as Chinese technical experts
can figure out the strengths and weaknesses of Vietnamese weapon
systems, from which they can come up with effective counter-meas-
ures. Diversifying supply will minimize this risk.
• Third, several Russian defense technologies, such as automation
control, unmanned aerial vehicle, or advanced electronic warfare,
lag behind that supplied by Western countries. These technologies
are necessary for the VPN in ways that they could significantly
improve its command and control, computers, communications,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities.
The American decision to fully lift a decades-old ban on sales of
lethal arms to Vietnam was a major policy shift and certainly the
VPN could make use of this opportunity to expand its supply on
advanced naval weaponry.
• Another challenge arises from the lacking of an open-debated
naval strategy. Although Vietnam has its own maritime strategy
announced in 2011 pointing out some orientations for developing
the country’s marine future, little detail about how to particularly
develop a sufficient navy was actually mentioned other than “to
fully integrate economic and maritime national defense measures”.
So far, no truly naval strategy has been publicized and the public
seems highly unlikely to get any knowledge of such strategy due
to its secrecy. Experts and analysts, even inside Vietnam, have been
able to gather no more than fragmented information. Therefore,
incomplete b analyses are made only by observing the VPN’s for-
eign contracts and through several of its leaders’ statements. This
thick fog of secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding the mak-
ing of naval and related strategies limits the participation in the pol-
icy-making process of other intellectuals outside the military realm,
thus creating unnecessary restrictions on how to make comprehen-
sive and effective comments or providing feedback.
Unlike the Vietnamese ground force which has been praised as well
trained and highly experienced in combat, the VPN has almost never
engaged in a large naval battle since its foundation. Lacking proper
training in modern naval warfare tactics and strategies is considered the
most serious challenge for VPN, as its seamen are incapable of getting
sufficient knowledge and experience about the new weapon systems
themselves and how to operate them in a real combat situation. Naval
exercises with live ammunition are rarely organized due to budget con-
straints. To overcome this hurdle, the VPN has been recently purchased
several simulation training systems from Russia for some of its naval
systems such as the Gepard-class frigate and Molniya-class FAC.19 The
deployment of VPN’s first sail training vessel could also help the Naval
Academy to improve its training curriculum. However, the prospect of
a qualified and well-organized training programme totally depends on
future budget allocation as well as a clear policy setting in which naval

training would play an important part in modernizing efforts.
The quality and quantity of the fleet is another major concern. The
VPN’s surface fleet still has in its ranks mostly outdated and small ves-
sels from the Soviet-era. With a vast exclusive economic zone and an
increasing encroachment of much more advanced Chinese forces into
its sovereign waters, the capabilities of the VPN to protect the country’s
interests at sea are put at risk. The recent military buildup is apparently
not enough to ensure sufficient deterrence against naval conflicts break-
ing out in the South China Sea. As said, the VPN needs both time and
other resources to train its seamen in getting used of new weapon sys-
tems and tactics related to them.
The final challenge arises from the lack of an openly debated naval strat-
egy. Although Vietnam has its own maritime strategy announced in 2011
and pointing out some orientations for developing the country’s marine
future, little detail about how to particularly develop a sufficient navy was
actually provided other than “to fully integrate economic and maritime
national defense measures”.20 So far, no truly naval strategy has been pub-
licized and the public seems highly unlikely to get any more knowledge of
such strategy due to its secrecy. Experts and analysts, even inside Vietnam,
have been able to gather only fragmented information. Therefore, incom-
plete analyses are made based only on observation of the VPN’s foreign con-
tracts and through several of its leaders’ statements. This thick fog of secrecy
and lack of transparency surrounding the making of naval and related strat-
egies limits the participation in policy-making process of other intellectuals
outside the military realm, thus creating unnecessary restrictions on how to
make comprehensive and effective comments or providing feedback.
Notes
1. Kienthuc.net.vn, 2014, Giải mật thiết kế tàu chiến KBO-2000 Nga
dành cho Việt Nam (Declassified the KBO-2000 design Russia made for
Vietnam), http://kienthuc.net.vn/quan-su-viet-nam/giai-mat-thiet-
ke-tau-chien-kbo-2000-nga-danh-cho-viet-nam-307402.html. Accessed
November 2016.
2. Baodatviet.vn, 2016, Hình ảnh nghiệm thu tàu tên lửa Molniya
(Acceptance into service of Molniya-class missile boats), http://baodat-
viet.vn/video/hinh-anh-nghiem-thu-tau-ten-lua-molniya-3317144/.
Accessed November 2016.
3. Thanhnien News, 2016, Vietnamese Navy frigate leaves for Singapore,

India visits, http://www.thanhniennews.com/politics/vietnamese-navy-
frigate-leaves-for-singapore-india-visits-58439.html. Accessed November
2016; News.zing.vn, 2013, Hai tàu hộ vệ tên lửa Việt Nam thăm Trung
Quốc (Two Vietnamese frigates visit China), http://news.zing.vn/hai-
tau-ho-ve-ten-lua-viet-nam-tham-trung-quoc-post329633.html. Accessed
November 2016.
đại và khi nào? (When and How many modern DN-4000 vessels will
4. Soha.vn, 2016, Cảnh sát biển VN nhận bao nhiêu tàu DN-4000 hiện
Vietnam Coast Guard receive?), http://soha.vn/canh-sat-bien-vn-nhan-

bao-nhieu-tau-dn-4000-hien-dai-va-khi-nao-20160412173801248.htm.
5. Nld.com.vn, 2012, Việt Nam chế tạo tàu chiến hiện đại (Vietnam con-

structs modern warships), http://nld.com.vn/thoi-su-trong-nuoc/viet-
nam-che-tao-tau-chien-hien-dai-20120117103811553.htm. Accessed
November 2016.
6. Zachary Abuza, 2014, Vietnam’s Naval Upgrades Likely Will Limit but
not Deter China in the South China Sea, cogitASIA, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, http://cogitasia.com/vietnams-naval-
upgrades-likely-will-limit-but-not-deter-china-in-the-south-china-sea/.
7. Douglas Barrie and Tom Waldwyn, 2016, Vietnam paddles its own Kayak,
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, http://www.iiss.org/
en/shangri-la%20voices/blogsections/2016-588c/vietnam-paddles-its-
own-kayak-46c1. Accessed November 2016.
8. Reuters, 2014, Vietnam building deterrent against China in disputed seas
with submarines, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-subma-
rines-china-insight-idUSKBN0H20SF20140907. Accessed November
2016.
9. Izvestia, 2016, Bьeтнaмy пoнaдoбилcя poccийcкий « Дeльфин » (Vietnam
needs a Russian “Dolphin”), http://izvestia.ru/news/639738. Accessed
November 2016.
10. Thanhnien.vn, 2014, Nga nâng cấp xong trực thăng săn ngầm cho Việt Nam
(Russia finished its upgrade for Vietnam’s AWE helicopters), http://
thanhnien.vn/thoi-su/quoc-phong/nga-nang-cap-xong-truc-thang-san-
ngam-cho-viet-nam-513147.html. Accessed November 2016.
11. Baodatviet.vn, 2016, Việt Nam muốn mua thêm UAV Obiter-3 của Israel
(Vietnam wants to buy more UAV Obiter-3 from Isreal), http://baodat-
viet.vn/quoc-phong/quoc-phong-viet-nam/viet-nam-muon-mua-them-
12. Vnexpress.net, 2016, Hải quân đưa tàu buồm huấn luyện hiện đại vào sử
uav-orbiter-3-cua-israel-3235216/. Accessed November 2016.
dụng (The Navy commissions modern sail training vessel), http://vnexpress.

net/tin-tuc/thoi-su/hai-quan-dua-tau-buom-huan-luyen-hien-dai-vao-su-
dung-3367622.html. Accessed November 2016.
13. Reuters, 2016, India offers $500 million defense credit as Vietnam seeks
arms boot, http://in.reuters.com/article/vietnam-india-narendra-modi-
idINKCN11905Y. Accessed November 2016.
14. The Economic Times, 2016, India firming up military ties with Vietnam,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/india-firming-
up-military-ties-with-vietnam/articleshow/53014998.cms. Accessed
November 2016.
15. Baodatviet.vn, 2016, Hải quân Việt Nam bất ngờ hé lộ robot quét mìn
(Vietnamese Navy surprisingly reveals its minesweeper robot), http://
baodatviet.vn/quoc-phong/quoc-phong-viet-nam/hai-quan-viet-nam-
bat-ngo-he-lo-robot-quet-min-3317652/. Accessed November 2016.
16. Zachary Abuza and Nguyen Nhat Anh, 2016, Vietnam’s Military
Modernization, The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/viet-
17. Soha.vn, 2016, Được ưu tiên hiện đại hoá, Lục quân VN sắp thay đổi lớn về
nams-military-modernization/. Accessed 2016.
chất (Prioratizing in modernization, Vietnam’s Ground Force boosts its

quality), http://soha.vn/quan-su/duoc-uu-tien-hien-dai-hoa-luc-quan-
vn-sap-thay-doi-lon-ve-chat-20151222003129668.htm. Accessed 2016.
18. Strategic Defense Intelligence, 2011, The Vietnamese Defense Industry-
Market Opportunities and Entry Strategies, Analyses and Forecasts to 2015,
http://www.zbop.sk/files/Vietnamese-Defense-Industry.pdf. Accessed
November 2016.
19. Soha.vn, 2013, Hệ thống mô phỏng tàu hộ vệ Gepard 3.9 của Việt Nam
(Gepard 3.9 Control Simulation System of Vietnam), http://soha.
vn/quan-su/he-thong-mo-phong-tau-ho-ve-gepard-39-cua-viet-
nam-2013080308223311.htm. Accessed November 2016.
20. McDevitt, Miechel, “Small Navies in Asia: Small navies in Asia: the stra-
tegic rationale for growth,” in Michael Mulqueen, Deborah Sanders and
Ian Spell, Small navies: strategy and policy for small navies in war and
peace, Routledge, 2014, pp. 88.
Truong Minh Huy Vu is the Director of the Center for International Studies
(SCIS) at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities—Ho Chi Minh City
National University. As a specialist on Southeast Asia political economy, ASEAN,
global power shift (finance), Vietnam foreign policy he has published article in
numerous academic and policy journals, including The National Interest, Revista
Brasileira de Política Internacional, East Asia Policy, Global Asia, E-International
Relations, ASIEN, The Diplomat, among other leading international
publications. He is co-editor of the book “Power Politics in Asia’s Contested

Waters—Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea” (Springer, 2016). Vu
got his Bachelor Degree from University Siegen with the major in European
Studies in 2008. In 2010, he earned his Master of Arts in International Political
Economy (IPE) from Ruhr University Bochum. He has been pursuing his Ph.D.
study in IPE about the politics of international leadership and global power shift
at the university Bonn (2010–2014). Dr. Vu is associate fellow of the research
group “Economy and Finance” at the Center of Global Studies (Bonn) and serve
as coordinator of the various development projects, covering areas such as men-
toring and training programmes (funded by German Government).
Nguyen The Phuong is a master’s candidate in the Institute of East Asia

Studies of the University of Duisburg-Essen, where he focuses on Southeast Asia
defence and regional security and strategy.
CHAPTER 8
Conclusions
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto and Geoffrey Till
Abstract  In this concluding, the editors review the causes, process and
possible consequences of naval development in Southeast Asia. They
seek to set this against the broader strategic environment in the Western
Pacific and to compare the experience of these small–medium powers
with that of China and the United States and to review its wider conse-
quences for the Asia-Pacific region.
Keywords  Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems · Strategic

consequences · South China Sea · US–China strategic competition
This book deals with two related issues. The first concerns the process of
naval modernization in Southeast Asia and the second its consequences.
The first major theme of the book, one that is less familiar and on which
we have concentrated is the process of naval modernization—how do
countries do it and what challenges do they face in attempting to grow
R. Atriandi Supriyanto 
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University,
Acton, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
e-mail: arasfor145@yahoo.co.id
G. Till (*) 

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5_8
108 R. ATRIANDI SUPRIYANTO AND G. TILL
their naval power. In Chap. 1 we offered a tentative overview of some

of these challenges by teasing out some of the issues commonly faced at
each level of decision ranging from the grand strategic vision at the top
and tactical implementation at the bottom.
The chapters related to particular countries that followed were
attempts by our contributors to illustrate the way that particular coun-
tries in the region had tackled these challenges and generally showed
that the process of naval modernization is intrinsically more complex and
more difficult that might appear at first glance. Few countries here or
anywhere else have perfect success in translating visions into reality—or
in some cases even having an overall vision in the first place. Nor is it
easy to match resources to commitments and ends to means; these are
arts that few countries can perfectly master.
Southeast Asia is no exception. While the nature and pace of naval
modernization between the countries of the region may vary widely
partly because of the differing international contexts in which they oper-
ate, there do seem to be some common patterns. One of these is the
extent to which the processes of modernization have been influenced,
if not dominated, by the domestic rather than the international context.
Internal factors, such as the state of the economy, the standing of the
government, the drive to improve domestic defence industrial capac-
ity, the urgency of the task of countering transnational maritime crime
in national waters often appear preeminent when deciding the objectives
and priorities in naval modernization.
This focuses on navies being essentially the product of the domestic
and international scene. The context in short produces the navy. But the
reverse is equally true for if having a navy does not have an impact on the
context there would be little point in having one. This is the starting point
for those who worry that the greatly expanded increase in naval invest-
ment characteristic of the last couple of decades could change the context
and make it much less stable than it was. Hence, the concern is that the
consequence of such naval investment might be greater instability.
Naval development then becomes not simply a tool of diplomacy and
national policy, but something that drives it. It has been well said that
diplomacy, ‘operates through the perceptions of others’ and that these
can be both uncontrollable and unpredictable.1 One’s naval develop-
ment may well create misperceptions in the minds of others leading to
responses being based on either over—or under—estimations of one’s
aggregate naval strength. Both these can be de-stabilizing.
8 CONCLUSIONS 109
But given the caveats in the example of naval modernization noted

above and in earlier chapters, it seems hard to argue that the current
naval modernization process within the region constitutes an arms race
as traditionally understood. Bernard Loo explains that what is happen-
ing instead is a ‘slow-motion development’ toward a ‘full-fledged navy’
with a balanced force able to operate over, on, and under the surface.
While the allocation resources for the naval capabilities required to oper-
ate effectively in each domain may not be exactly balanced, the overall
shape of naval modernization within the region seems broadly consistent
with the regional procurement trend starting in the 1990s. During the
Cold War, Southeast Asian navies generally focused on developing their
armies and air forces owing to the nature of security threats they urgently
faced: subversion, separatism, and terrorism. Indeed defence expenditure
as a whole, and naval expenditure in particular appears quite low by his-
torical standards when measured as a proportion of national GDP. With
the exception of Singapore, none of the other Southeast Asian countries
aspire to the levels of defence expenditure typical of arms racing behavior.
A nation seeking a ‘fully-fledged’ or ‘balanced fleet’ navy accordingly
reflects a procurement trend that falls somewhere between an arms race
and mere arms maintenance. The trend exemplifies a mild competition
in response to acquisition policies in other states and may be influenced
by the ‘politics of envy’ and yet, they fall short of a mutual antagonism
that characterizes a genuine arms race of the traditional sort. Simply put,
regional countries are not just replacing old and obsolete platforms to
restore their correlations of force that existed before—the status quo.
Rather, they have unprecedentedly acquired new forms of capabilities
and platforms, such as land attack cruise missiles, diesel attack subma-
rines, and amphibious vessels.
The number of conventional submarine operators, for instance, has
increased. During the Cold War, only Indonesia maintained a fleet of
submarines from the Soviet Whiskey to German U-209 boats. By 2015
Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam had joined the club, while Thailand,
Myanmar, and the Philippines have declared their intent to follow suit.
For these countries, submarines offered them an unprecedented platform
for enhanced strategic effect in underwater combat capability, and in
their naval strength more generally.
Furthermore many of the acquisitions and indeed the way they are
used on a day-to-day basis would appear to aim not at the characteristics
of other putative state adversaries in the region, but at non-state actors

like illegal fishermen, people–, and drugs smugglers and international
terrorists. It is much easier to find examples of ASEAN countries work-
ing together at sea with their new modernized equipment against com-
mon adversaries like the Abu Sayyaf group in the Sulu Sea between the
navies of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines than to find them
working against each other.
Nor should the impact of ‘non-strategic’ factors such as corruption,
inter-service rivalry, national pride, and prestige, as well as domestic and
bureaucratic politics be discounted. To the extent that a ‘balanced fleet’
is the ultimate aspiration of all regional navies, the necessary integra-
tion of capabilities acquired without the necessary strategic reasoning
may lead to a fleet that is less than a sum of its parts. In a 2013 study,
Benjamin Schreer, for example, argues that Indonesian naval moderni-
zation does not, it appears, reflect a desire for a ‘balanced fleet’ since it
‘lacks investment in critical capability areas such as maritime surveillance,
ASW and mining/countermining.’2
Even so the introduction of submarines has inevitably created a sense
of anxiety.3 An emerging concern is the future of regional strategic sta-
bility, for these platforms would give these nations the ability, at least
theoretically, to act more aggressively on the basis of misunderstandings
over contentious issues, such as jurisdictional disputes especially in the
South China Sea, causing incidents, possibly unintended, which might
well spiral out control into armed conflicts. This situation is also exacer-
bated by the lack of effective mechanisms to defuse geopolitical tensions.
One of the most perplexing questions when considering the mitigation
of arms races is in estimating the extent to which defence needs are to be
accepted as legitimate.4 Of late, tensions with China in the South China
Sea have given an added momentum to, even if it did not precipitate,
current processes of naval modernization in Southeast Asia.
Although Chinese maritime assertiveness is not a common concern
throughout the region, some countries especially in maritime Southeast
Asia do have a real interest in securing their coastal estates and upholding
their interpretations of the principles of international maritime law. The
South China Sea disputes illustrate the problem by which regional coun-
tries have sought to defend such abiding maritime interests, regardless of
whether they are threatened or by whom.
The requirement to protect maritime interests does not, however,
result in a uniform approach. As Lee and Koh observe in their chapter,
8 CONCLUSIONS 111
there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that explains the purpose and

shape of naval modernization in the region. A comparison of the
approaches of the Philippines and Thailand illustrates the point. Both
possess a long coastline, depend their national lifelines on the ocean, and
are US treaty allies. Despite these similarities, their naval development
has followed very different paths. Manila used to operate one of the
most modernized navies in the region. Subsequent concerns over subver-
sion, terrorism and separatism diverted Philippine attention away from
the ocean to its terrestrial domain. As a result, the Philippines maritime
(naval and air) capabilities have gradually deteriorated since the 1960s.
Party due to Chinese growing encroachment into its territorial waters in
the South China Sea, Manila has begun building its naval and coastguard
forces since 2010. Thus far, it has only acquired two ex-US Coastguard
cutters and Indonesian-built Makassar-class amphibious vessels. Since
both are lightly armed and commissioned as naval vessels, they may be
seen as strategically provocative and tactically unsuited to be deployed
for law enforcement operations. Meanwhile, the Philippines also lack
the aerial capacity to patrol its vast swathes of territorial waters. Aware
of its weakness, the Philippines under President Duterte now appears
likely to pursue a more conciliatory approach with China and may harbor
less confidence in the use of force, including through its alliance with
the United States. In this context too, the results of Manila’s implemen-
tation of its ‘minimum credible defence’ military modernization plan
remain to be seen.5 The American withdrawal from Subic Bay and subse-
quent termination of the Military Bases Agreement in 1991 exacerbates
this problem, given that Manila has traditionally depended on the US
security umbrella, along with generous American military aid, for exter-
nal defence. How this historic linkage will develop in the future under
the country’s new, very different, and quite sceptical President is likely
to have significant naval consequences and to have considerable effect on
future South China Sea dynamics.6
Thailand, on the other hand, is much less concerned with complex
jurisdictional interests in the South China Sea, seems more consistent.
Like the Philippines, the Thai military have long focused on the threat to
their land borders with Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as terrorism and
insurgency in the south since 2004. Consequently, Thailand has relied
heavily on its army and air force while relegating its navy to a second pri-
ority. This did not however imply that Bangkok would neglect its mari-
time frontiers. Since the 1990s, the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) upgraded its
capabilities from brown-water to a limited blue-water capability with the

acquisition of Chinese-built frigates and the ex-Spanish light aircraft car-
rier, HTMS ChakriNaruebet.
Thai naval modernization has continued apace, but this does not
mean that the defence of Thailand has become maritime orientated. Due
to strategic and political considerations, the Thai military remains an
army-dominated institution. The lack of conventional maritime threats,
such as those faced by the Philippines, normally acts against the motiva-
tion to build a large and effective navy and hence raises the question of
why, then, did Thailand embark on big-ticket maritime platform like an
aircraft carrier when its defence and military strategy remained essentially
land centric? Could any one or more of the ‘non-strategic’ factors out-
lined in Bernard Loo’s chapter account for the decision?
To some extent, the Thai situation is similar to Vietnam’s. Land-based
threats from China and Cambodia, together with the legacy of its long-
drawn-out civil war, imposed on don Vietnam the imperative of maintain-
ing a large standing army, while limiting its naval capability to a coastal
and riverine defence. This policy did not change until the China ‘threat’
had gradually shifted from Vietnam’s northern border to the South China
Sea, where Hanoi is competing with Beijing over the ownership of some
islands in the Spratly and Paracel Groups. Comprised entirely of torpedo
boats and fast attack craft, Vietnam’s naval capabilities increased substan-
tially with the acquisitions of Russian-built Gepard-class corvettes and six
Russian Kilo-class submarines. The submarines have introduced Vietnam
to the realm of undersea warfare. At least in theory, submarines would
give Vietnam the ability to challenge China’s sea control in the South
China Sea asymmetrically during a conflict, while enabling it to conduct
surveillance activities against Chinese maritime forces in peacetime.
Having the platforms is one thing; operating and maintaining them
effectively is another. The ambitions of Thai, Vietnam, and Myanmar to
acquire and operate naval platforms in general and submarines in particu-
lar must thus be seen in this context. After-sales support and training can
cost the purchasing country a lot more than the initial payment for the
platforms themselves. Sustaining naval effectiveness would be as much a
political as a strategic decision considering the amount of political atten-
tion and financial investment that must be devoted to them. This is
where the role of political leadership matters most. Without the politi-
cal and economic sustenance to ensure consistent, continuous and ade-
quate funding support, it is hard to see how submarines and other naval
8 CONCLUSIONS 113
platforms can remain operationally deployable and strategically effective.

Indeed, one recent analyst has concluded that most submarine operators
in Southeast Asia have yet to convincingly demonstrate they have both
the capability and strategy to operate their submarine fleets as an effec-
tive deterrent.7
This may reflect a reluctance to accept the full overall costs of a major
acquisition project. Instead it seems quite common for navies to focus on
getting the platform, in the hope that the overall support and training
package and the through-life costs can be negotiated successfully after-
wards once the platforms are in place and their support needs tangibly
evidenced. If subsequent economic or political developments fail to make
that possible, then the project will tend to run into trouble.
This has sometimes been the case with Indonesia and Malaysia. Built
from various European (primarily Russian) sources, the Indonesian Navy
maintained the largest fleet in Southeast Asia by the mid-1960s. Its fleet
became ‘balanced’ with an apparently sufficient variety of surface, aerial,
and subsurface units. With a regime change and economic depression in
the late 1960s, the government could not afford to maintain and repair
the fleet and consequently, was forced to scrap most of them. The new
regime decided to focus on internal security and only began rebuilding
the navy significantly a decade later. Yet it never recovered the fleet size
once achieved.8 A new phase of modernization had begun since 2010,
but this too proceeded incrementally and haphazardly. The rigid imple-
mentation of Indonesia’s foreign policy of nonalignment that seeks to
avoid overreliance on a single supplier came at the expense of a stand-
ardized system of weapon platforms, maintenance, and logistics. While
such measures may incrementally contribute toward improving the local
defence industry, this policy has resulted in a disjointed variety of arma-
ments that the industry is barely able to integrate. Notwithstanding
President Jokowi’s maritime vision to reinvigorate Indonesia’s maritime
consciousness, the vision’s lack of clarity and vigor beyond its rhetoric
may cast doubt on Indonesia’s future maritime development, including
its navy.9
A similar problem is reflected in Malaysia. Political indecision on
adopting a ‘top-down’ maritime vision has led to confusion at the
lower levels of decision making. The strategy of deterrence and forward
defence appears to exist only on paper, since the agencies tasked to do it
are underfunded and under resourced. Defence planning, including pro-
curement, is accused of corruption, cronyism, and patronage, at least by
the political opposition. Naval procurement is taken opportunistically on

the basis of what could be afforded in the current circumstances rather
than on the basis of long-term capability planning. The good news is
that there is a clear intent to increase the cost-effectiveness of the fleet
and to rationalize a fleet inventory that seems too diverse in its support
and operational requirements.
This leaves us with Singapore which has by far maintained the most
modern fleet in the region. Lacking strategic depth, deterrence, and
forward defence becomes Singapore’s only viable strategy. During
the Cold War, this strategy was implemented through a major invest-
ment in air power. Not until the 1990s did Singapore begin to upgrade
its naval capacity from coastal defence into more extensive capabili-
ties. The country’s growing reliance on maritime trade and its need for
unfettered access to the rest of the world through the global maritime
commons seems to have been the main reason for this shift in empha-
sis. Consequently, naval modernization appears to be accorded a high
priority and has sustained support from Singapore’s highest political
leadership. It seems that what remains a potential problem is only the
collaborative management and application of air and sea power during
the conduct of external defence. In addition to multipurpose frigates,
Singapore has acquired Swedish-built submarines to give its navy a sub-
surface capability.
In conclusion, most Southeast Asian nations surveyed here do not
maintain a clear political objective that prioritizes the maritime sector.
Naval modernization in the region sometimes seems to be an incremen-
tal, if not ‘incidental,’ or even ‘accidental’, process as a consequence of
better (or worse!) economic conditions instead of a well-organized and
well-planned endeavor with consistent support and facilitation from their
highest political leadership.
Accordingly the notion that regional naval modernization reflects the
dynamics of a traditional naval arms race seems unconvincing. There
are, as yet, no mutual antagonisms of the sort that were seen in the
early twentieth century or the 1930s, or the Cold War period on which
naval planners and their political masters could legitimately base their
procurement strategy. On the other hand, the process is not limited
to mere ‘arms maintenance’ either. Clearly, regional states have intro-
duced, or are introducing, new capabilities. In consequence the overall
naval status quo is shifting. The key question for the continued naval
8 CONCLUSIONS 115
stability of the region is whether the introduction of these new capa-

bilities proceeds at a uniform rate between the maritime countries of
the region. If major asymmetries are allowed to develop and strategic
advantage thereby gained, stability may be more at risk.
Two more issues seem relevant to this basic issue. This first is to go
back to the basic point that the navies of the region are in what would
generally be regarded as the small to medium category. As such they suf-
fer the limitations that are commonly attached to that state. Their basic
concerns are effectively local. They generally lack the platform numbers
that provide sufficient economies of scale in their acquisition, mainte-
nance, and operation. If a country only has two submarines or one small
aircraft carrier, how can planners be sure the capability they represent
will be available when needed? Basic operational limitations of this sort
encourage cautious operation and risk aversion. They discourage desta-
bilizing adventurism, although they do not of course rule out accidental
incidents that can sometimes inflame the international scene.
The problem of a lack of economy of scale in small and medium
navies extends into the personnel aspects of naval development as well
as to the materiel world of platforms, sensors and weapons. Investment
in training, and in the creation of systems of professional military edu-
cation which provide enough staff officers to run ‘smart’ procurement
systems or to be seeded through the decision-making hierarchy in order
to ensure that the ‘naval case’ gets sufficient policy attention all become
much more difficult, and again will inhibit maritime growth, probably to
levels well below that of traditional naval arms races.
Such limitations have another effect, however, and that is that they
tend to increase dependence on other countries, very possibly outside
the immediate region, and their involvement through the easy provision
of significant new capabilities, for example, could lead to the develop-
ment of local naval asymmetries that could in turn have destabilizing
effect. Moreover, these outside powers may have their own interests in
Southeast Asia and consequently their own agendas and their involve-
ment could introduce new factors of possible instability into the regional
equation.
This illustrates the close connections between the processes of naval
modernization and their consequences. It also brings in another factor
of possible concern, namely, the extent to which the domestic or inter-
national context may change. There may not be a de-stabilizing naval
arms race at the moment, but current developments may mean that there
could be in the future. Certainly we cannot assume that current trends
will simply continue indefinitely.
Changes in political and economic circumstances could alter the pace,
or even the continuity, of naval modernization. It should be remembered
that the economic miracle that originally had enabled regional countries
expand their armies and air forces in the early 1990s but shortly after-
wards policy-makers were confronted by the 1997 Asian financial crisis
which undermined their ability to sustain their then expanded militar-
ies. Naval policy-makers in this region as elsewhere are indeed ‘seeing
through a glass darkly.’
Here the biggest uncertainty must surely be that relating to the
overall strategic situation in the Western Pacific, most notably, though
far from exclusively, between the United States and China, because this
could have major military consequences. The extent to which Chinese
assertiveness in the South China Sea drives naval modernization may—
or may not—become much clearer in the future. In 2015 and much of
2016 when the sheer scale of the Chinese island-building campaign in
the South China Sea became clear, all the talk and expectation was about
this fueling concerns amongst other countries, galvanizing their incen-
tives to push back especially with the acquisition of more platforms,
weapons, and sensors from outside non-Chinese sources and to encour-
age the United States to play a bigger role in the area. The ruling of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration on the illegitimacy of China’s ‘9-Dash
dash Line’ in the South China Sea seemed seminal in dictating future
maritime relationships in the area.
But then came the election of President Duerte in the Philippines
which seemed to transform the nature of the debate, presaging a much
softer line toward Chinese policy in general and claims in particular. The
new leadership, tired of years of lecturing on human rights by American
politicians, still resentful of past colonial attitudes and probably doubtful
about the extent to which the US would actually back it up in any future
conflict over the South China Sea, seems to have pivoted toward China.
As a reward, the Philippines has been provided with $US9 billion in soft
loans and $15 billion in economic deals and its fishermen have been
allowed to return to the disputed Scarborough shoal. Similarly Prime
Minister NajibRazak has been already rewarded with a $US4 billion dol-
lar buy-out of his own Malaysia Development Berhad and the offers of
8 CONCLUSIONS 117
more such economic support. In return, Mr. Najib has showered Beijing
with praise and agreed that ‘external’ (that is, US) intervention in the
South China Sea dispute is unhelpful.10 The maritime consequence of
this, presumably will be less immediate pressure on Malaysia’s sensitivi-
ties in the South China sea, the acquisition of four new littoral combat
ships (two to be built in Malaysia) and further investment in Malaysia’s
defence and ship-building industries. The naval consequences of these
two developments are obvious and quite unexpected.
This may be seen as a Chinese response to what it sees as US pol-
icy toward the area, which has resulted in recent years in a greater naval
presence, the conduct of freedom of navigation exercises, a much-
increased level of engagement with the navies of Southeast Asia and a
greater willingness to invest effort and resources into their develop-
ment. Under President Obama, the United States indeed made great
progress in involving itself with ASEAN affairs and in influencing local
policy.11 Naval engagement was a key element in this. Typically, Defence
Secretary Ash Carter chose to make the point that the US rebalance
toward Asia was here to stay on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl
Vinson in October 2016.
Uncertainties about the future course of American interest in
Southeast Asia and the reliability of its security guarantees, together with
concerns that the Trans Pacific Partnership appeared abandoned by both
candidates in the long-drawn-out and weakening presidential election
campaign of 2016 have combined to undermine at least some of this
progress. By the same token, US ability to deter Chinese maritime asser-
tiveness in the South China Sea, even with the Trump administration’s
pledge to build a 350-ship navy from the current 274, remains suspect.12
For the US Navy, in short, the international context has recently seemed
to have become a good deal less promising.
That there should have been such an unforeseen contextual turn
around in the course of a few months in 2016 and that it should have
such immediate naval and maritime consequence illustrates the difficul-
ties that naval planners face in predicting the future and in basing their
plans on those cool assessments. It also suggests that the only rational
way forward is to shift away from threat-based planning based on mak-
ing preparations against putative adversaries, and toward engaging in
capability-based planning designed to create more options for an uncer-
tain future. If this is indeed what the naval planners of Southeast Asia are
actually doing, as best they can, then the prospects that naval moderniza-
tion will destabilize the situation in the foreseeable future would appear
yet more remote.
Notes
1. Ken Booth, Navies and Foreign Policy (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 46.
2. Benjamin Schreer, “Moving Beyond Ambitions: Indonesia’s military mod-
ernization?” Strategy (Canberra, Australian Strategic Policy Institute,
2013), 22.
3. The causes and possible consequences of submarines acquisition in par-
ticular is the major theme of the companion volume to this book,
Submarines; Issues for Small and Medium Navies.
4. Geoffrey Till, Asia’s Naval Expansion: An arms race in the making?
(London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2012), 57.
5. Alexis Romero, “AFP confident in attaining minimum credible
defense,” Philstar, July 22, 2015. http://www.philstar.com/head-
lines/2015/07/22/1479857/afp-confident-attaining-minimum-credi-
ble-defense-posture.
6. Raul Dancel, ‘Duterte nurses old grudges against US,’ The Straits Times,
6 November 2016.
7. Jan Joel Andersson, “Submarine Capabilities and Conventional
Deterrence in Southeast Asia,” Contemporary Security Policy, 36:3
(2015), 490.
8. James Goldrick and Jack McCaffrie, Navies of South-East Asia: A
Comparative Study (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013), 72–73.
9. Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, “Developing Indonesia’s Maritime Strategy
under President Jokowi,” ASAN Special Forum, February 22, 2016.
http://www.theasanforum.org/developing-indonesias-maritime-strat-
egy-under-president-jokowi-1/.
10. Mark J Vanencia ‘Ties with South-east Asia: Can US put the genie back in
the bottle?’ and Prashanth Parameswaran, ‘China needs ‘lose–win’ diplo-
macy in Asean’ The Straits Times, 3 Nov 2016. Chong Koh Ping, ‘KL,
Bejing call for restraint in S. China Sea,’ The Straits Times, 4 Nov 2016.
Najib Tun Razak, ‘Fruits harvested from seeds of trust,’ China Daily, 2
Nov 2016.
11. ‘Obama’s legacy in South-east Asia,’ The Straits Times, 4 Novmeber 2016.
12. Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro, “Donald Trump’s Peace Through
Strength Vision for the Asia-Pacific: How the Republican nominee will
rewrite America’s relationship with Asia,” Foreign Policy, November 7, 2016.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/07/donald-trumps-peace-through-
strength-vision-for-the-asia-pacific/.
8 CONCLUSIONS 119
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is an Indonesian Presidential Ph.D. Scholar with
the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.
He is also a former associate research fellow with the Maritime Security
Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang
Technological University.
Geoffrey Till is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s College

London and Chairman of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies. Since
2009, he has also been a Visiting Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. His Understanding
Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands was published by ABC
Clio in 2014 and he is currently working on a fourth edition of his Seapower: A
Guide for the 21st Century.
Index
A B
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 35–36, 50, Badaruddin, Ahmad, 87
110 ‘Balanced fleets’ , 109–110
AirAsia QZ8501, 48, 57 Bangladesh, 39
Air Independent Propulsion of subma- Bay of Bengal, 39
rines (AIP), 56 Bitzinger, Richard, 17
Ambalat block, 66
Andaman Sea, 38–39
Anti-submarine warfare (ASW), C
54–56, 96, 98–99, 110 Canada, 9, 62, 98
Aquino, Benigno III, 36–37, 44n30. Chien, Cheong Kwok, 59n13
See also Philippines China
Area Air Defense and Command and India and, 7
Control, 9 Indonesia and, 64–67, 72
Armed Forces of the Philippines land reclamation, 25, 37
(AFP), 36–38, 44n30. See also Malaysia and, 78–80, 82–86, 88
Philippines Philippines and, 35–40
Asian Financial Crisis (1997-1998), sea-blindness and, 4
54, 57, 116. See also Financial Singapore and, 48, 52–53
Crisis (2007/2008) South China Sea and, 25–26,
Association of South-East Asia Nations 110–112, 116–117
(ASEAN), 36, 40, 66, 80, 82, Thailand and, 23–24
110, 117 Vietnam and, 94, 97–101, 103
Australia, 10, 34, 66 Chuan Leekpai, 23
Autonomous underwater vehicles Code of Conduct for the South China
(AUVs), 57 Sea (CoC), 66
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 121

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58406-5
122 Index
Cold War, 49, 109, 114 F

Combined Task Force (CTF), 40 Fast attack craft (FAC), 95–97, 102
Command, Control, Communications, Financial Crisis (2007/2008), 100.
Intelligence, Surveillance and See also Asian Financial Crisis
Reconnaissance (C4ISR), (1997-1998)
71, 102. See also Intelligence, Frigates
Surveillance, Reconnaissance Chinese-built, 23–24, 40, 112
Corruption Indonesian navy, 22
Indonesia and, 71–72 Philippine navy, 37
Malaysia and, 87, 113 Singapore navy, 54–55, 59n16, 114
naval acquisition and, 9–10, 110 Thai navy, 23–24, 40
Singapore and, 23 Vietnamese navy, 25, 94–96, 99,
Council for Security Cooperation 101
in the Asia Pacific (Council for
Security Cooperation in the Asia
Pacific), 82 G
Gray, Colin, 24, 28n22
Green-water capability, 16–17, 22,
D 26, 34
Decision making Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 22,
grand strategy/national security 69–69, 83, 86, 100, 109
policy, 3–6 Gulf of Aden, 51–53, 59n13
implementing/resourcing grand Gulf of Thailand, 38, 44n32, 79
strategy, 6–7
military policy and strategy making,
7–8 H
naval policy and strategy making, Habibie, B.J., 23, 71
8–11 Hean, Teo Chee, 59n12
Declaration of Conduct in the South
China Sea (DoC), 66
Defence Industrial Base (DIB), 6–7 I
Đổi Mới, 100 Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported
Duterte, Rodrigo, 38, 111, 116 (IUU) fishing, 52, 67, 70
Dutch East India Company, 99 India
China and, 80
Civil-Military Co-operation, 5
E DIB and, 6–7
Eastern Sabah Security Zone IONS and, 8
(ESSZONE), 53 Maritime Agenda (2010-2020), 4–5
Enhanced Defence Cooperation military policy and strategy-making,
Agreement (2014), 38 7–8
European Union (EU), 44n39, 96 naval development, 2, 4
EXTRA/ACCULAR rocket batteries, naval policy, 9–11
98 Philippines and, 37
Index 123
Vietnam and, 96, 99 See also Command, Control,

Indian Ocean Naval Symposium Communications, Intelligence,
(IONS), 8 Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Indochina Wars, 22 International Court of Justice, 49
Indonesia Island-building, 37, 116. See also
Air Force, 69, 71 China
growth of fleet, 54–57, 113 Israel, 23, 98, 101
Maritime Security Agency Izvestia, 98
(BAKAMLA), 70
Minimum Essential Force (MEF),
67–68, 71–72 J
Ministry of Defense (KEMHAN), Japan, 37
67–68, 70 Johnson Reef, 100
National Defence Force (TNI), 65 Johor Strait, 49
naval development; Joint Development Area (JDA), 38
as aspiring maritime power, Joint Multi-Mission Ship (JMMS), 55
62–63 JokowiSee Widodo, Joko
corruption, 71–72
Defense Ministry apparatus,
67–68 K
defense policy-making, 67–70 Kaplan, Robert, 19, 25
external concerns, 65–66 Kargil campaign, 5
inter-service relations, 69–70 KBO-2000 class FAC, 95
intrinsic procurement prob-
lems, 71
as maritime country, 62 L
overview, 61 Landing Platforms, Docks (LPDs),
national defence and secu- 54–55
rity strategy making, 66–67 Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs), 54
national security policy, 63–66 Law of the Sea, 34, 64
naval policy and strategy mak- Lean, Collin Koh Swee, 33–41, 45,
ing, 70–73 47–57, 60
navies and maritime scene, Lim, Richard, 23
70–71 Littoral Mission Vessels (LMVs), 55
problems with industrial capac- Lombok-Makassar Straits, 62
ity, 72–73 Loo, Bernard Fook Weng, 15–26, 32
seablindness, 63–65
Western Fleet Command, 52
Institute of Strategic and International M
Studies (ISIS) Malaysia, 82 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs), 71
Integrated Maritime Surveillance Makassar Straits, 71
System (IMSS), 71 Malacca Gateway, 79, 83
Intelligence, Surveillance, Malacca Strait Patrols (MSP), 52
Reconnaissance (ISR), 98. Malay Peninsula, 53, 78
124 Index
Malaysia overview, 15–16

growth of fleet, 88 patterns, 21–24
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement strategic stability and, 24–26
Agency (MMEA), 81 Naval planning
National Security Council (NSC), overview, 33–34
81–82 Philippines; challenges, 35–36; lack
naval development of resources, 36–38
defence policy making, 85–87; Thailand; austerity and, 39–40;
national defence and secu- peaceful context, 38–39
rity strategy making, 83–85 Nawi, Abdul Wahab bin Haji, 85
national security policy, 81–83 New Zealand, 56
naval policy and strategy mak- Nguyen Dynasty, 99
ing, 87–88 Nguyen The Phong, 93–103,
overview, 77–78 105–106
setting maritime agenda, 78–81 Non-governmental organisations
Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN), 79, (NGOs), 81, 85
81, 84, 86–89 Non Traditional Security (NTS), 50,
Malaysia Airlines MH370, 48 53
Maritime Capability Perspective Plan
2012–2017, 11
Maritime Institute of Malaysia O
(MIMA), 82 Obama, Barack, 117
Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance One Belt One Road project, 80
Aircraft (MPRA), 54, 56
Maritime Silk Road, 80
Medcalf, Rory, 35 P
Miksic, John, 78 Paracel Islands, 35, 112
Military Bases Agreement (1991), 36, Pedra Branca, 49
111 People’s Action Party (PAP), 50, 58n9
Mischief Reef, 35–36 Philippines
Moro Islamic Liberation Front missiles, 37
(MILF), 35 naval fleet; challenges, 35–36; lack
Myanmar, 17, 39, 44n32, 109, 112 of resources, 36–38
Philippine Army (PA), 36–37
Philippine Navy (PN), 35–37,
N 42n14
National Law No. 16/2012, 72 growth of fleet, 37
Natuna Islands, 52, 65 Phung Quang Thanh, 100
Naval Air Group, 37 Poros Maritim Dunia (PMD), 62–63,
Naval modernisation vs. development 65–66, 68
long-term perspective, 19–21 Prueher, Joseph, 42n15
naval arms race argument, 16–19 PT-PAL, 72
Index 125
R Indonesia and, 65–67

Rajaratnam School of International Malaysia and, 79–80, 83–84, 86, 88
Studies (RSIS), 32 Philippines and, 34–35, 37–38,
Razak, Najib Abdul, 17, 116 42n15
Rim of the Pacific Naval Exercise regional security and, 110–111,
(RIMPAC), 8, 54–57, 59n13 116–117
Rowden, Thomas, 9 Singapore and, 47, 49–53
Russia, 5, 25, 94–98, 101–102, Thailand and, 39
112–113 Vietnam and, 94, 96–98, 101, 103
Russian Northern Project Design South Luconia Shoals, 53
Bureau (SPKB), 95 Soviet Union, 22, 95
Ryacudu, Ryamizard, 67 Spratly Islands, 35, 38, 42n15, 98,
100, 112
Stockholm International Peace
S Research Institute (SIPRI), 34,
Scarborough Shoal, 35, 116 42n1, 97, 100–101
Schreer, Benjamin, 110 Straits of Malacca and Singapore
Sea-blindness, 4, 63–65 (SOMS), 34, 50, 52
Sea Harrier fighters, 40 Strategic Sail Plan 2020, 36
Seahawk helicopters, 40, 54–55 Strategic Sealift Vessels (SSVs), 37
Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC), Subic Bay, 36, 111
34, 41, 49, 85 Submarines
Security community, 19, 28n11 anti-submarine capabilities, 19,
Singapore 36–37, 54, 95, 99
Air Force, 52, 56 Archer-class, 54
growth of fleet, 114 Challenger class, 54, 56
naval development; changes, 48–51; Kilo-class, 25, 97, 101, 112
evolving strategic thinking, Malaysia, 25, 85, 87
51–53; force development, Philippines, 37
54–57; overview, 47–48 proliferation of, 19, 25, 48, 54,
missiles, 17–18, 23 109–115
People’s Action Party (PAP), 50, Scorpene, 25, 87
58n9 Singapore, 19, 23, 54–56, 114
Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), South China Sea and, 25–26, 85
52 Thailand, 40
Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), 51, Type-218SG, 55
55, 59n12 US, 9
Singapore Strait, 49, 79 Vietnam, 25, 36, 95, 97–99, 112
Soesilo, Indroyono, 67 Suharto, 23
South China Sea (SCS) Sulawesi Sea, 66, 79
China and, 25–26, 110–112, Sulu Sea, 48, 50, 52–53, 79, 110
116–117 Superferry, 14, 35
126 Index
Supriyanto, Ristian Atriandi, vii, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), 55,

61–73, 76, 107–119 57, 98
T V
Taiwan, 35 Vietnam
Thailand Air Force, 94, 98
China and, 23–24 China and, 94, 97–101, 103
growth of fleet, 23–24, 40 South China Sea and, 94, 96–98,
missiles, 40 101, 103
naval planning, 38–40 submarines, 25, 36, 95, 97–99, 112
push-out policy, 39 US and, 35, 80, 86, 116–117
Royal Thai Navy (RTN), 40, 111 Vietnam’s People Navy (VPN), 93;
submarines, 40 challenges, 99–103; growth of
US and, 39, 41, 111 fleet, 20, 95–96, 98–99, 103;
Till, Geoffrey, vii, 1–13, 77–88, 92, modernisation of VPN, 94–99;
107–119 overview, 93–94
Trans Pacific Partnership, 117 Vietnam War, 22, 96, 99
Transparency International, 71 Vo Van Tuan, 100
Trump, Donald, 117
Truong-Minh Vu, 93–103, 105–106
Tseng, Henrick Z., 77–88, 92 W
Typhoon Haiyan, 55 Wawasan Nusantara, 64
Widodo, Joko, 52, 61–62, 65
Woody Island, 35
U World War II, 36
United Nations
Convention of the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS), 34 X
Food and Agriculture Organisation Xi Jinping, 4
(FAO), 67
Natuna Islands and, 65
Trafficking in Persons Protocol, 81 Y
United States YinHui Lee, 33–41, 45
China and, 35, 80, 86, 116–117 Yudhoyono, Bambang, 53
Indonesia, and, 49, 71
naval capabilities, 9
Philippines and, 36–38, 42n15, Z
43n18, 111, 117 Zaini, Fahru, 65
South China Sea and, 33, 116–117 Zycraft, 57
Thailand and, 39, 41, 111
Vietnam and, 22

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ISBN 978-3-319-58405-8 ISBN 978-3-319-58406-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943482

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Growing a Navy: Problems and Prospects. An

2 Naval Modernisation Versus Naval Development:

3 A Common Setting for Naval Planning in Southeast Asia?

4 Naval Development in Singapore 47

5 Naval Development in Indonesia 61

6 Naval Development in Malaysia 77

7 Naval Development in Vietnam 93

Geoffrey Till is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s

AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines

KEMHAN Indonesia’s Ministry of Defence

Fig. 5.1 The concept of Poros Maritim Dunia 63

Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia 18

Growing a Navy: Problems and Prospects.

Keywords Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems

There can be little doubt that a substantial process of naval modernisa-

© The Author(s) 2018 1

The focus of this chapter, though, is rather different. Instead it will

• Policy-making at the level of Grand Strategy

Tier 1: Deciding Grand Strategy or National

to gauge its requirements. Wide consultation with non-military sources

Tier 2: Implementing and Resourcing Grand Strategy

national power can most effectively contribute to the general policy

Tier 3: Military Policy and Strategy-Making

At this third, (‘Ministry’) level, the broader decisions taken higher up

Indian Administrative Service already referred to and, additionally by a

Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy-Making

long lead times normally required to produce sophisticated naval weap-

Nor can the problem of corruption, in which procurement deci-

the Maritime Capability Perspective Plan, 2012–2017, the fleet will

10. Vivek Raghuvaneshi, ‘Procurement problems Await Next Indian Gov’t,’

Naval Modernisation Versus Naval

Bernard Fook Weng Loo

Abstract The chapter reviews naval development in Southeast Asia as a

Keywords Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems · Strategic

© The Author(s) 2018 15

increase in naval platforms, allowing these navies to move from primar-

Deconstructing the Naval Arms Race Argument

the domain of naval acquisitions, for instance, Malaysia’s acquisition of

Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia

1960– 1970– 1980– 1990– 2000– 2010– Total

Granted, the missile corvettes gave Singapore’s navy an anti-submarine

Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia: A Long-Term

Table 2.2 Elements of Southeast Asian Navies

1969 1979 1989 1999 2009

destroyers, frigates and corvettes

pattern of relative neglect, growing significantly in terms of principal sur-

This pattern of relative neglect becomes more apparent when jux-

From Relative Neglect to Naval

it constitutes a slow-motion development of more or less full-fledged

1980s. The surge in principal surface combatants in the Indonesian navy

As to why these Chinese frigates were acquired, therefore, explanations

Implications for Strategic Stability in Southeast Asia

capability. To a certain extent, this introduction of power projection

principal surface combatants are driven more by China’s involvement

Research Institute, September 2013 (available online: http://www.

Source http://www.tradingeconomics.com/, accessed 20 November 2014

Fig. 5.1 The concept of Poros Maritim Dunia 63

Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia 18

Growing a Navy: Problems and Prospects.

Keywords  Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems

Tier 2: Implementing and Resourcing Grand Strategy

Tier 3: Military Policy and Strategy-Making

Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy-Making

10. Vivek Raghuvaneshi, ‘Procurement problems Await Next Indian Gov’t,’

Abstract  The chapter reviews naval development in Southeast Asia as a

Keywords  Naval modernisation · Southeast Asia · Problems · Strategic

Table 2.1 Defence Expenditure in Southeast Asia

Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia: A Long-Term

Table 2.2 Elements of Southeast Asian Navies

From Relative Neglect to Naval

Implications for Strategic Stability in Southeast Asia

A Common Setting for Naval Planning

Abstract  Two examples of naval development (Thailand and the

keywords  Naval modernisation · Philippines · Thailand · Problems

The Case of the Philippines

The Case of Thailand

40. Ministry of Defence, Defense of Thailand 2008 (Thailand: Ministry of

Naval Development in Singapore

Abstract  This chapter provides analysis of the strategic context facing

C. Koh Swee Lean (*) 

20. Kelvin Wong, “TKMS starts construction of Singapore’s Type 218SG

Naval Development in Indonesia

Abstract  This chapter provides analysis of the strategic context facing

Fig. 5.1 The concept of Poros Maritim Dunia

Tier 2: National Defence and Security Strategy Making

Tier 3: Defence Policy-Making at the Ministry Level

Fig. 5.2 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in real terms

Fig. 5.3 Southeast Asia’s defence expenditures in GDP terms

Tier 4: Naval Policy and Strategy Making

Navies and the Maritime Scene

Clashes with Maritime Defence Industrial Base

12. Vibhanshu Shekhar and Joseph Chinyong Liow, “Indonesia as a

Naval Development in Malaysia

Abstract  This chapter provides analysis of the strategic context facing