Singapore’s Minister answering Malaysian military’s passive aggression on Singapore’s National Day
In case you missed it, Singapore celebrated the nation’s 56th birthday last Saturday (Aug 21) with a belated bash at the floating platform in Marina Bay, featuring the usual fanfare — fireworks, the Red Lions and displays from the Singapore Armed Forces.
Across the Causeway, Malaysia was also highlighting its own military with a display of their own.
The English-language video, uploaded on the official Malaysian Army Facebook page on Saturday evening, features a dramatic soundtrack and montage of various training activities, as well as a rousing speech by a commander before a para troop exercise to “secure two crossing sites”.
Speaking of a “tough, stubborn enemy”, the commander declared as he brandished a pointer: “Nothing will stop the Third Combined Armed Division to punch through direct into the heart of enemy centre of gravity [sic].”
The video even attracted the attention of Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam, who reshared it on his Facebook account the next evening.
“Interestingly, the Commander speaks in English, and there are English subtitles,” Shanmugam noted. “The video doesn’t show much by way of tech or platforms or tactics. Instead the focus seems to be on what the Commander says the Malaysian Army will do to the enemy.”
DPA Notes: This is likely due to the fact to Malaysia is currently undergoing leadership transition (from the 8th to the 9th Prime Minister) and thus wanted to send out a signal to neighboring countries (particularly Singapore) that the Malaysian Armed Forces is still a credible fighting force regardless of the politics in the Dewan Rakyat.
The unusual usage of English as the language of choice in the briefing is disingenuous as the Malaysian Army primarily converse in Bahasa Melayu (Malay) – which is a deliberate decision towards a special target audience (Singapore). Adding English subtitles confirms this assumption, as they would typically have added Malay subtitle instead should the video be targeted towards domestic audience, and large swarth of the Malaysian population isnt very good in English.
The Singaporean Minister, K. Shanmugam highlighting of the video is also a subtle messaging to Malaysia that Singapore had noted their message, and is willing to highly publicize the video for Malaysia; in a double edge sword inversed effect, boosting Singapore national support for it’s own military and swaying public opinion against Malaysia subtle threat. Its also a signal (by highly publicizing the video), that Singapore is not afraid of the Malaysian military is will ready to take them on should that ill-fated day comes.
In DPA’s opinion, the idea of posting such a video against a neighbour that had not really been threatening Malaysia militarily is inviting Singapore to be more adversarial in its relationship with the new Prime Minister. It’s a rather bad idea and does more in encouraging support for the Singapore’s military service than intimidating the Singapore public.