,,,The military needs a Strategic Defence Review - very urgently now . It’s also time for our defence chiefs - the head of the Navy, Army and Air Force, to put the security of the nation before the interests of their own individual services and petty inter-service rivalries aside too.
The malaysian military is still effectively equipped kind of to fight a war against a conventional adversary - an event which is wholly unlikely to happen. Tomorrow’s threat will not come from strong nations as in the past, but internally from weak or failed government. Just watch the events surrounding us, as in Thailand and Philippines plus Burma.
,,,What is the use of heavy Challenger tanks, even if the Army wants them, against an enemy who lives and fights amongst a rural populace and whose "hearts and minds" we have to win?
,,,What use is the multi-billion ringgit submarine fleet against such an enemy which attacks with hijack civilian airliners as demonstrated at the world trade centre ?
,,,Why having too many different types of fighter aircrafts now so sophisticated and complicated that at the moment it can’t even fly often enough due to high specialized maintenance contract costings or lacking in spare parts probably due to lack in budget fundings - all of which may have indeed restricted its ability to fly. Such poor planning and madness !.
,,,Previously as experienced in the fight against the CTs, our troops were being killed and injured by ambushes and booby traps because they are forced to travel by road rather than by air due to a shortage of transport helicopters.
,,,Ground troops will continue to face such potential hazards unless petty inter-service rivalries are killed off - hopefully this is the first step in the right direction.
,,,There is no suggestion that all of these conventional weapons should be scrapped but we must get the balance right.
