SM Lee Hsien Loong at DSTA 25th Anniversary Dinner

Minister for Defence, Mr Chan Chun Sing
Former Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen
Past and present leaders of DSTA and MINDEF
Distinguished Industry Partners and Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted to join you all this evening for DSTA’s Silver Jubilee dinner. It is a significant milestone. I am happy to celebrate it with many old friends, but also with many younger faces. DSTA has grown and matured enormously since it was established 25 years ago. This has only been possible through the hard work and strong support from all of you here today and many more who are not present today.

Foundational Context: Why DSTA was Formed

Defence technology has always been crucial to Singapore. We are a tiny island state with no strategic depth. The security threats we face are real, and formidable. And yet our manpower constraints are real too. Furthermore, we rely on national servicemen to defend us – they are our own sons and husbands, friends and colleagues. We must train them thoroughly and equip them well. For the SAF to succeed in its mission, we must make the most of technology to compensate for our lack of numbers; to multiply our efforts and to give us a decisive edge. Hence we need competent, dedicated people to identify, to procure, and to deploy the technology that best does this.

This is an important capability, which we did not start off possessing. In 1966, the year after independence, the Ministry, then called the Ministry of Interior and Defence, had just three engineers in the Logistics Division evaluating tech and weapons purchases. They were Professor Lui Pao Chuen, then an SAF Captain, together with LTA Chye Wee Seng and LTA Seow Tiang Keng. Chye Wee Seng has passed away, but Lui Pao Chuen is here tonight, as is Seow Tiang Keng. We are indebted to these pioneers. Thank you very much.

Dr Goh Keng Swee, our first Minister of Defence had a bold “1,000 Engineers Vision” to build up engineering and technical capabilities within MINDEF and SAF, and to set up a local defence industry.

We took a highly pragmatic approach: To buy what is available in the market where possible instead of reinventing everything ourselves; to adapt and integrate our purchases intelligently, to improve their capabilities and suit our needs; and to develop our own technologies only when commercial options are unavailable or unsuitable, or when it gives us a secret advantage. In 2000, we created DSTA out of eight different MINDEF/SAF defence-tech entities. DSTA’s mandate was to specialise in technology procurement, deployment, and integration for the SAF.

DSTA Today

DSTA has become a strong engineering organisation − procuring, integrating, adapting and enhancing high-end equipment for the SAF. It has done good work for each of the SAF’s services – the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and now the Digital and Intelligence Service. For example, our F-15SG Strike Eagles are not a standard variant available off the shelf, but have been customised and enhanced by DSTA with advanced mission and communications systems. In the maritime domain, DSTA integrated various weapon systems, sensors and C2 software for our missile corvettes and frigates. It designed Littoral Mission Vessels for lean-crew manning, and it customised our submarines to operate in tropical waters. For the upcoming Multi-Role Combat Vessels, DSTA is also integrating multi-domain warfighting capabilities and unmanned systems.

Beyond system integration, DSTA has also developed strong in-house Command, Control and Communications (C3) capabilities – and made these capabilities available to the Whole-of-Government. During COVID-19, DSTA delivered network analysis tools and C2 systems to support the many task forces covering contact tracing, patient care, testing operations, and supply chain risk management. It has helped other agencies improve their C3 capabilities, by building the Crisis and Incident Management System (CIMS) used by multiple security agencies to coordinate responses to major incidents and national crises, and also ICA’s C2 system deployed at land checkpoints that enhances situational awareness and incident management.

DSTA has also built new capabilities in software development, intelligence gathering and cybersecurity – to support new SAF missions in the Digital and Info domain.

It has even gone into protective and rock engineering − a strategic capability because of our shortage of land. The Underground Ammunition Facility was the first-of-its-kind endorsed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). This expertise was later applied to other national underground projects, including the Jurong Rock Caverns.

The Next Bound

DSTA’s engineers have developed a keen feel for technologies in multiple domains, and honed the skills to deliver high-performance solutions in a cost-effective way. Importantly, the agency has a culture of pushing the technology envelope, and exploring novel solutions to solve unique and complex problems. These qualities will become more important in future.

Because despite our good progress, we still need to go much further.

The ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East show how quickly technologies and fighting concepts and tactics are changing – sometimes on a timescale of weeks and days, instead of months and years. AI is helping to process massive quantities of data, to generate intelligence and to inform real-time decision-making. Cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns are extensive, unremitting, and ever more sophisticated. Drones are pervasive – used for surveillance, precision strikes, and even sabotage far behind the frontlines. Here the pace of evolution is particularly astonishing. In Ukraine, drones now account for 70% of the frontline casualties. New models, concepts, uses and tactics develop every few weeks. Both Russia and Ukraine depend on a whole network of informal backyard operations and small commercial companies to accelerate development cycles and evolve faster than the other side, and these unconventional producers are doing so, much more cheaply than traditional defence tech companies. As a result, what is happening on the frontlines today is vastly different from how the war was fought in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Ditto what is going on in Gaza today, compared to what happened immediately after the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023.

And we must expect the same thing to happen to us, should we enter a conflict. How must DSTA respond?

First, DSTA must innovate and deliver systems at a pace that keeps up with accelerating technology cycles. Around the world, new entrants are disrupting the traditional defence industry model. Once-obscure newcomers, such as Anduril, Palantir and Helsing have vaulted into prominence. These have become highly sought-after companies, as militaries begin to realise the value of fast-moving, innovation-driven players. The newcomers thrive not by outspending traditional defence primes, but by outpacing them. They prioritise software-driven platforms, deploy quick-and-dirty solutions rapidly, and then roll out improvements and upgrades one after another, instead of gunning for a perfect product from the outset. Some of the most successful innovations do not even come from technology companies at all. They may originate from low-cost informal backyard operations, or from rapid improvisation by troops and small fighting teams on the ground, using cheap dual-use technologies to devastating effect. This is the new reality of defence innovation.

And it means that DSTA cannot just double down on what it has traditionally been good at: focussing on the high-end; spending time to exhaustively gather requirements; thoroughly studying and evaluating all options; negotiating for the best prices; finally, testing and delivering systems that hopefully work perfectly from the start, but more often do not. DSTA must now pay equal, if not more, attention to how fast it can bring new systems and capabilities online, adapt them iteratively, and meet operational timelines that work for the SAF.

And doing so will not be easy. It will involve several fundamental mindset shifts, and doing some things very differently. DSTA must develop new procurement models. It must selectively accept more risks − to invest in more experimentation, agile and continuous development – in order to speed things up. The process will be ‘messier’ and less controlled. But this approach will better fit the new paradigm, and MINDEF/SAF’s new operating context.

We must also contemplate even more radical changes, to push the envelope still further. In extremis, this may well require organisational changes. For example what the US Department of Defence (now Department of War) had tried with Unit X (which is now the DIU or Defence Innovation Unit) and what the Israelis have done. Large organisations with traditional strengths and ways of working find it inherently difficult to move away from what worked for them in the past. The same tendencies that afflict organisations elsewhere apply to us too – we are not exempt from them. This point goes beyond DSTA, and applies to the wider local defence industry. Instead of concentrating on a few primes, we have to support more local start-ups, to create a large penumbra of smaller, spryer, and nimbler participants, which have greater latitude to innovate and push the boundaries.

I am happy that the Defence Technology Community is alive to the discontinuities we are witnessing, and is in the process of refreshing its Defence Technology Strategy. It aims to build up the fundamental qualities of A-I-R within the DTC, to ensure that it is Agile, Innovative and Resilient. Agile in embracing the heightened pace of technology adoption. Innovative in translating novel technologies into operational advantages. And Resilient by strengthening the defence industrial base and supply chain robustness.

DSTA is working on new capability development models – using block budgets, new procurement frameworks, and streamlined contracts, to speed up acquisition lead times.

It is focussing more on drones, autonomy, counter-drones and AI, to ensure it masters these new disruptive areas.

It is also doing more experimentation in the field. For example, Exercise Forging Sabre, currently underway in the US. In this exercise, both DSTA and the SAF are experimenting extensively with drones, including off-the-shelf commercial drones enhanced with DSTA’s drone swarming and obstacle avoidance algorithms. A small team of RSAF software engineers is developing software updates on-demand and in real-time in the exercise, in response to changing operational requirements, in order to trial and implement new operational concepts and software on-the-fly.

Organisationally, DSTA has also changed the way it works. It has expanded partnerships with global partners, including the new breed of innovative companies like Anduril, Shield AI and Mistral, to latch onto their fast development cycles and access new technological approaches. It has used CapVista Pte Ltd, a private company, to hunt for start-ups and technology sources, and to support them through equity investments, innovation funding, or accelerator programmes. It has also recently set up the Horizon Tech Office within DSTA to quickly pair promising start-ups and innovative companies with its own programme centres and potential ops users. Through these efforts, DSTA is now working with various local start-ups, such as Hope Technik, Performance Rotors, BeeX and Bifrost, to co-develop solutions involving robotics, autonomy and AI. I am also happy that DSTA has recently signed an MOU to adapt Razer’s game controllers for drone and robotics control. It will save a lot of training time for our NSmen.

We must push on with all these efforts, and where possible push them further.

Secondly, we must set up and maintain a healthy tension between DSTA and SAF’s war-fighters, on technology acquisition. I think the tension exists. The thing is to keep it tight as well as healthy. What do I mean?

On the SAF’s part, combat formations and leaders must raise their tech quotient. They must understand not only their mission needs, but also what technology can accomplish for them. They must know what to demand from DSTA. They must also have an adequate appreciation of how the tech works, recognise the trade-offs that their demands involve, and be prepared to de-prioritise requirements that are not critical. They should not ask for the sky, and end up specifying gold-plated but impractical or exorbitant operational requirements. Nor should they get swept along by the latest fads. They must be ready always to change tactics, techniques and procedures (or TTPs) in response to changing tech, and not to stick dogmatically to existing practice or doctrine.

Technology is evolving in real-time, and what seems eminently sensible today may become irrelevant or counter-productive tomorrow.

On DSTA’s part, it cannot see itself just as a purchaser and deliverer of whatever the SAF asks. Having dealt with defence science and technology for so long, DSTA has accumulated deep experience and expertise in your own right. And sometimes, you will know better than the SAF what works, what doesn’t, and what new technologies have emerged – what is potentially game-changing, and what is just hype or disinformation. It must form an independent view on whether the SAF’s demands and requirements make sense, or can be met much more cost-effectively with some adjustments. It must be prepared to push-back.

At the same time, DSTA must be quick to alert the SAF when new technologies threaten to disrupt its whole concept of operations, and be prepared to join issue to debate the choices that must be made, instead of fudging the matter and hoping to muddle through. In other words, we cannot just rely on “ops-pull”, we need stronger “tech push” as well – healthy sparring will generate a creative tension in the relationship between technologists and the warriors.

Our collective strength lies in how well our soldiers and engineers come together to forge Ops-Tech partnerships. Each side needs to understand the other’s needs and constraints, co-create solutions, and finally deliver capabilities that are both technically sound and operationally relevant. This is going to be extremely demanding on both sides, but we just have to do it.

I am glad that both MINDEF/SAF and DSTA recognise this, and are working hard at it. For example, there are more deliberate cross-postings of SAF personnel to defence tech organisations and companies, and vice versa. And we are also setting up more taskforces that combine operational and tech expertise, like the RSAF’s Drone and Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) Task Force, which brings together operational units and engineers to trial autonomous drone swarms as well as integrate sensors, electronic jammers and C3 systems, in order to protect our airspace against rogue drones.

But we will have to keep working at this. The trend of faster change has far from maxed out. To prepare for tomorrow’s battles, operators and technologists must work ever more closely, and spar ever more intensively with one another.

Third, we must also figure out how to keep the bulk of our fighting force – who are national servicemen – abreast of the rapidly changing technology and weapon systems. We need to keep them continually updated on new technologies and TTPs, train them well, retrain them frequently, and do this at speed and at scale.

The SAF has grappled with this problem for decades, especially with NS units which come for in-camp training once or twice a year. But accelerating technology cycles makes this an even more acute problem. We would lose out significantly, if new technologies and equipment are changing and being deployed every few weeks and months, and yet it takes a year or even several years, for them to reach the bulk of our fighting force. Should the button be pressed, our men will be going out with technology they know is already several generations old, with operating systems which belong on their handphones five years ago, and which must affect their operational readiness, confidence and morale.

We will need to figure out how to deploy and scale new technologies in the SAF, quickly but also sensibly.

People

I have listed some issues to watch out for in the technological space, as we navigate a challenging future. But never forget that battles are ultimately fought and won by people, not just by technology.

Just look at how Hamas completely surprised Israel on 7th Oct 2023. The Hamas attack was beyond doubt a heinous act of terrorism. But it was also a spectacularly successful example of strategic surprise which produced devastating results, and which so far only humans are capable of conceiving and carrying out. For all of Israel’s technological superiority and military might – complex border security systems armed with cameras and remote-controlled machine guns, perpetual surveillance and extensive use of tech, AI, massive computing, command and control− Israel was caught completely unprepared, and paid dearly. Ultimately, human initiative and ingenuity can trump even the best technology.

Thus while we build our technological capabilities, we must constantly ask ourselves: Are we also a people who will stand up and fight, who can find the right way to fight, who can avoid being blindsided by adversaries, and who have the iron will and resilience to prevail whatever the odds?

MINDEF, the SAF and DSTA will always need brave and resourceful soldiers and engineers in its ranks. For the survival of our country rests on their shoulders.

On its part, DSTA must continue to attract and retain top STEM talent to strengthen its ranks. It must do its utmost to attract, motivate, and nurture a pipeline of top-quality people to deliver on its mission. It needs people who are not only strong in engineering and IT, but who also care deeply for the country and have a passion for applying their expertise to defence technology. That is how DSTA can continue to make a major contribution to our nation’s security.

Closing

I thank the pioneers and the current DSTA officers for your ingenuity, dedication and your many contributions. Your efforts have made DSTA not just a capable builder of defence systems, but also an important enabler of national strength. Your work quietly powers the systems that make the SAF strong, and keep Singapore safe.

I wish all of you a very happy Silver Jubilee!

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