I hear a growing number of Swiss people are similarly ignoring reality and wanting to reduce military spending and even some of them want to demilitarize entirely. All I can say is: what are you thinking? You want to be an independent country surrounded by countries with powerful militaries and think you don't have the responsibility to be ready to defend yourselves with an unfair advantage?

I'd say the same to Choy. Although the situation is not the same, look what has happened to Hong Kong. Singapore as a country is successful and others will want to take that from you.

Or remember history: Japanese occupation, the ethnic massacres that happened in Indonesia in 1965, and again in East Timor in 1975, and I think we talked about a similar tragedy in Malaysia before.

Some countries can do without mandatory conscription, such as the United States. But for small countries that are near large, not-always-friendly ones, it seems to be the way to maintain existence. Even if there's no conflict, knowing the entire population of a country has military training is a powerful deterrent.