Whither Conscription in Singapore

Singapore began universal conscription two years after independence. The government exempts first generation immigrants from National Service (NS). With the increasing number of New Citizens (NC), natives began to question the fairness of conscription policy. Citizens see them enjoying the benefits of citizenship without serving national obligations. While many studies are done on the purpose of conscription in early Singapore, most of them are tackling it from a security aspect. None has examined conscription from the socio-political stand point with the emerging demographic pattern in Singapore. This thesis provides a quantitative analysis on three possible scenarios that conscription in Singapore may take, whether (1) conscription continues, (2) conscription ceases, or (3) neo-conscription from a social perspective. It first presents a comparative analysis using social cohesion and civil-military relations as the evaluation criteria and then the three key principles of NS, (1) meeting critical needs, (2) universality, and (3) equity, as screening criteria to test the validity of the policy. The net analysis suggests that, status quo is no longer tenable. The thesis proposed broadening the definition of conscription to encompass the fives aspect of Total Defense: Military Defense, Economic Defense, Psychological Defense, Social Defense, and Civil Defense.