Barely a week all, and the new defence minister is already made up his mind that he should be spending his way to more votes for the government.
Reading his priorities as the defence minister, it’s incredible that the security of the nation is not among his top 3 considerations!
Can someone please give him a “Dummies’ Guide to Becoming Defence Minister”?
He’s probably too quick to fire from his hips. As anyone who has read the dummies’ guide would know, the defence minister’s priority is the country’s defence. Sure, improving the lot of the armed services is one way of doing it, but surely he should assess the current defence blueprint or ‘doctrine’, as he puts it, first.
Questions he should be asking should be, for example (on page 65 of the dummies’ guide): should we be spending billions of taxpayers’ money to buy more submarines, since the 2 or 3 that we have bought do not stand any realistic chance against an invading navy? Or perhaps the money could be better spent to buy smaller carfts to patrol the coast, which are a lot cheaper and can be used to counter the threat of piracy, which we have a realistic chance against?
He should also weigh the cost of maintaining a ‘bloated’ armed services, against the benefits of doing so. Perhaps he could start with the activities logs of the armed personnel. Other than training and vying for the Mr Malaysia/Asia title, and the occasional duties to patrol the borders, how do they fill their time? Not to be ungrateful, but the country has not faced (or indeed expect to be facing) any real threats for a while now. Even bigger nations (other than Communist China) have cut down the size of their armed forces…
Well, if anyone wants to donate a copy of the abovementioned guide, please leave your contact details below…