Transcription
Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, uh, the head of civil service, Chan Heng Chee. In fact, uh, it's still not too late to congratulate you on this new appointment as the head of civil service of Singapore. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the central idea which I want to leave with you.
First, that it is domestic political discontent that has driven of globalization. Second, a repudiation of globalization means interdependence, especially interdependence based on trade liberalization, global supply chains, and economic integration. Instead of being a source of prosperity and peace, has been weaponized in full orchestra. And the third point which I wanted to leave with you is that the simultaneous technological revolutions, particularly in the digital technologies, in energy, and biotech, in fact, accelerate these disruptive changes. So, just bear in mind these three central ideas. And let me go on with the rest of my presentation.
Today, we all know in real time that the world is far more volatile and violent. And war is no longer just an abstract idea. It is a lived reality. The attendant issues of supply chain disruptions also very real, and even right now as we talk about a choke point in the Strait of Hormuz, this is just one of what I expect will be a series of future conflicts over choke points with profound implications on our society. And so, although we started this conference I think in 2007, 19 years ago, the focus of national security has become more urgent, more acute than ever before.
It's worth taking a step back and asking ourselves, what does the concept of national security mean in today's geopolitical context? It used to be, ever since we've had the concept of Westphalian nation states, that the first priority of national security is simply maintaining your independence, maintaining your ability to defend yourself. And this was the bedrock. In other words, it used to be primarily about defense. But actually, the evolution of geopolitics and the techno- technological revolution since then has meant that national security has go far beyond the traditional focus purely on conventional defense.
Today, because globalization is being repudiated, because interdependence is being weaponized, it means the domain or the attack surface area has expanded into multiple domains. Today, whether it is climate change, public health, frontier technologies, geo-economics, supply chains, trade, all these have become the concern of national security. In sum, the concept of security now encompasses defense against a full spectrum of disruption, of division, of coercion. And that's why this year's theme, Resilient Societies in a Fragmented World, National Security Beyond Borders, is so apt.
I wanted to pick this topic and pursue it along three dimensions. First, what is it we are facing? Second, why are we facing these myriad threats? And third, how we can strengthen resilience. So, let's start with the first. What are we confronting? In this evolving and expanding threat landscape, security can no longer be conceived purely as national. In fact, because challenges are not confined to any single domain, disruptions in one region and in one domain can very quickly cascade globally quickly and unpredictably. The traditional dichotomies that we used to operate on, you know, internal versus external, military versus civilian, state versus non-state actors, all these dichotomies have blurred. It's now a spectrum, a spectrum on multiple axis.
In the military domain, for instance, the nature of conflict has expanded beyond the conventional. Today, every military has to deal with gray zone tactics. These fall below the threshold of a conventional attack, but they are designed, nevertheless, to have an impact. They are designed to be difficult to attribute, and similarly, to cause dilemmas in how to respond proportionately. Take the example of drones. Drone flights over civilian airports. And you remember last year over major European airports. Technically, they didn't cause any physical damage, but the disruption to flight operations, the impact on stranded passengers, imposed a significant economic cost. And that's only, I would say, the early stages of this example. For Singapore as a vital aviation and maritime hub, these non-conventional threats are real. They are a clear and present danger. And so, the challenge is how do we develop frameworks that can respond to such deliberate but ambiguous provocations, and to do so without escalating conflict unnecessarily, whilst deterring future incidents and preserving the resilience of critical infrastructure. You know, this sounds like a typical mission statement of a minister to the ministry. I say, go and translate that into actions, and you all know the devil is in the details. But that's why we all have national security secretariats, national security advisers.
And we know that the security challenges go beyond the military and political domain. The current war in Iran has made this very clear. One, our economic resilience, not just of individual countries, but indeed the entire world is being put to a stress test. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has precipitated a global energy and supply chain crisis. And even now, we still don't know how things are going to pan out, how long it's going to take, and when governments, especially those in more vulnerable parts of the world with both supply and fiscal constraints, are going to crack. The Strait conveys not just oil and gas, but now we've all been educated about helium, and that helium is used for semiconductor manufacturing, for running medical equipment. We know about Now, we now have discovered that petrochemical derivatives are used to produce a myriad of goods which we use on a daily basis, including complex pharmaceuticals. And of course, we know that fertilizers, and we know the long the medium-term impact of a lack of fertilizers on agricultural yield, and therefore food prices, and potential food and agricultural crisis. And these economic shocks will reverberate long after the acute phase of the conflict is over. The damage to infrastructure, the scarring to economies in a on a worldwide basis will take time to recover. And therefore, we'll have to prepare at least in the short term not only for higher inflation, slower growth rates, but that systems will crack in different parts of the world.
Second point is that these conflicts also threaten to undermine domestic social cohesion. Remember I started off my first central idea that it is political domestic discontent that has led to a repudiation of globalization. But the point here now is you see a vicious cycle. Because these global reverberations, in fact, will lead to further fissures in domestic cohesion and the resilience of our societies. And this spiral, if it's not if we can't if we are unable to secure put in circuit breakers, this vicious circle will accelerate. And so across the world, security agencies are also warning of the increased risk of the danger of radicalization and associated spillover violence related to conflicts. For instance, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The French government, I believe, is investigating a recent incident in which four people, three minors, over a firebomb plot outside the Bank of America office in Paris. The suspicion, not yet proven, that there could be a link to the ongoing conflict in Iran. And I'm sure each of you will have your own examples that you're currently investigating. In short, today's national security threat assessment, by definition, has to be multi-domain. And as I said earlier, the attack surface area has expanded dramatically.
The second part of my presentation is why. Why now? Why is it so accelerated? Why have we arrived at this current scenario? I believe the key driving force is the fragmentation of our world order. I mentioned the repudiation of globalization. And yet we are still deeply interconnected and interdependent. So we are in a sense vandalizing our own lifeboats, if you think about that as a metaphor. And these tensions and the propensity for damage have also been turbocharged by rapid advances in technology.
So let's start with the fragmentation of the world order. We all know that geopolitical competition and tensions have risen dramatically. We know that multilateral institutions, the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO, have all been weakened and have have had their effectiveness compromised. And I mentioned domestic discontent with globalization. And paradoxically, this domestic repudiation of globalization, in fact, has been most acute in the major powers. A major power which, in fact, formally used to underwrite the system of globalization, which provided, despite its exceptions, but generally provided a formula for peace and prosperity, especially for us in Southeast Asia. And institutions, rules, laws, which previously were viewed as essential and helpful to prosperity and peace, instead are now viewed as constraints on the state's ability to exercise freedom of action. And in fact, gives leaders in many states a license to disrupt using every tool, every every lever, every crowbar available. So the global zeitgeist has become more inward-looking. States are pursuing a more narrow conception of national interest and over a shorter time horizon. And to do so often at each other's expense. Again, can you see how a vicious cycle is being developed? But what is rational for an individual actor, what is rational for one country, does not always mean it's optimal for all countries collectively.
In economics, we're all familiar with the invisible hand, Adam Smith, that the free market, but we know that even the invisible hand can fail. The free market doesn't work if it doesn't allocate resources efficiently. The equivalent is in international relations. That if there's a market failure in diplomacy, each country pursuing its own national interests exclusively and willing to take shortcuts, willing to ignore global rules, willing to weaken global institutions, in fact, can make the situation worse for everyone. So the invisible hand can also fail in diplomacy and in foreign affairs. And so what results is not just a thinner social safety net in international affairs, but in fact, everybody is laying tripwires for everybody else. And sometimes even for yourself, because you lock yourself into strategic choices. You think you are actually setting this tripwire to act as a deterrent against your neighbor or to you whoever your protagonist is, but actually these tripwires eventually end up tripping yourself and locking you into a course of action which you may not want to go.
Actually, the last time the world was in this situation was before the first World War. At the turn of the that century, the world was very interdependent. There were global supply chains, and everyone said it does not make sense to go to war. But an assassination of an archduke in Serbia led inexorably to an outcome which nobody wanted. And then even in the midst of the First World War, even halfway through that First World War, when there were options for a negotiated solution. Again, the logic of tripwires set up to deter others, but actually locking you in to making strategic choices which, in fact, prolong conflict. So I am worried about those parallels with the First World War. And today, what is different compared to the First World War is that now conflicts occur in the oceans, on choke points, in the air, outer space, and cyberspace. So again, the attack surface area has expanded.
And we all know, especially when you're dealing with the global commons, meaning climate change, pandemics, AI, both potential and threat, that in fact, these are all areas where no country on its own or seeking to advance its own narrow national interest can mitigate the damage of or risks to the global commons. Even the major powers unilaterally cannot solve climate change, pandemics, and the threats from AI. We still need close coordination, and we need the ability for the global community to exercise collective efforts. Unfortunately, geopolitical fragmentation is not going to result in a world that's conveniently divided by self into self-sufficient autarkic regions. Because the truth is we will still have sufficient dependence on these interconnections. And people will still have to make a decision on whether you weaponize it or whether you optimize interconnectedness.
The issue of connectivity facilitated by technology and the rapid expansion of the liberal trade regime after World War II You know, when the internet first came along and everyone everyone can now communicate with everyone virtually for free. There was this early dream which clearly was not capable of withstanding the test of reality that global communications means we will all become one happy global village. Everyone will converge. Everyone will have better understanding because you have universal access to data. And we all know that was a pipe dream. In fact >> [snorts] >> we didn't end up with one happy global village. What I believe has happened on the internet in the last four decades is in fact it has amplified toxic tribalism. Because no matter how crazy or repugnant your views today you will find someone else on the internet to affirm you. You will find avenues to mobilize people with who believe wrongly in those crazy repugnant ideas. So that's what I mean about toxic tribalism. So it's not one global happy village. It's in fact an opportunity for global mobilization of toxic tribalism. And this is something which we all collectively face and this is something which national security advisers all over the world will have to deal with.
And we also know it's not just the humans in the loop but because internet companies especially social media companies and here I will be provocative. These companies are designed to maximize revenue. These companies know what drives eyeballs. It's not highfalutin inspiratory insp- inspired ideas. The easiest way to drive eyeballs is outrage incitement to anger triggering tribalism. It's again you know it's not focused on the positive and the constructive but anger and eliciting destructive emotions. It's a bit like smoking and the fact that the tobacco companies knew long ago the harm but they also knew they had an addictive medium and they were optimized to maximize revenue. Actually the same phenomena has occurred now. And governments all over the world are still struggling to come to terms with how do you regulate rationally and sensibly a new technology which is addictive which is mediated by companies who are motivated by profit maximization and yet has got such pernicious effects on our social on our social cohesion. So even this becomes another area of concern for national security.
And then we talk about interdependence trade energy technology. And as I said it has been weaponized and what was a source of strength a con- a paradigm of organizing global supply chains on the basis of efficiency has instead become an exercise of assessment of vulnerabilities and how to con- and how to use that to threaten countries uh whom you want to threaten. And this weaponization of interdependence actually has been going on for a long time. But the current war in Iran has laid bare the fragility of the global economy and our reliance on choke points. Actually every geography has not changed. We all know that there are there are choke points. But the fact that we're all scrambling now also illustrates that you know simply knowing a fact doesn't mean you have appreciated the situation and doesn't mean that the preparations are in order. So this Pandora's Box has been opened and will not be shut. It cannot be shut. And I just want to tell you all of you you can even after the acute phase is over we are not going back to status quo ante. Economy may you know stock market prices will bounce up and down. But do not make the mistake of assuming it is business as usual. It will not be.
So this tension between geopolitical fragmentation and weaponized interconnectedness will be exacerbated by the ongoing revolution especially in information technology. So AI biotechnology with the ability now to edit genes including the genotype of humans quantum technology with its threat to explode the whole concept of encryption and privacy and the frontier technologies like AI have the potential to both offer great benefit but also great disruption. And we know whenever you deal with a new incisive platform technology actually you do need rules. If nothing else guardrails against its abuse rules for interoperation interoperability of such systems. But really what's happening now is because of heightened contestation and because of lack of trust with each other the world is unable to come together to work out and agree on these guardrails and to agree on standards for interoperability. And so we are going to be in this danger zone for many years to come.
This is most evident in artificial intelligence. CrowdStrike's 2026 global threat report shows that attacks by AI enabled adversaries have increased 89% year on year. But I think this is an underestimate. Anthropic's latest model they call it Methos. The company claims it is so powerful that it can enable autonomous agentic cyberattacks which exploit cross-domain vulnerabilities at a scale and speed that defenders cannot match. You know, we're all aware that you know if you look at our full set of systems there will be a vulnerability here another vulnerability there but it's now the ability to rearrange the Swiss cheese of vulnerability at scale and speed which a defender cannot match. So Anthropic has assessed that its latest model Methos is too dangerous to release to the public given [snorts] quote unprecedented cybersecurity risks unquote. Well, I hope it's just company hype but actually I suspect it is not just company hype. I think this is a threat that we have all to take seriously.
Apart from cybersecurity the political impact of AI generated deepfakes. It used to be if you wanted corroboration you want to see a a photo. Then we said no photo's not enough too easy to edit you want to see a video. And today you're reaching the point where at least to a human eye you can't tell which video is real or manufactured. And guess what it is these systems are only going to get better. What does this mean for respect for facts? What does this mean for respect for expertise? What does this mean for getting people onto the same page? Agreed set of facts. And what does this mean for social cohesion? And therefore, what does this mean for the ability to mobilize our societies to go in a collective constructive direction as opposed to a cacophony where everybody is make you know, there's no single drumbeat. Everybody is freelancing and moving in all directions. This Brownian motion is not an organizing principle for societies or for international affairs.
And more fundamentally I think none enough of us have focused on how automation and AI are transforming our tactical and operational decisions. Because in fact, we have already outsourced targeting instructions to autonomous systems. And by here, I'm referring to the military domain. Just think about it. In today's conflict we all know targeting to a significant extent has also been outsourced. Which targets which persons where they are what activities they engage in. You're already relying on artificial intelligence. Another example we know about hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, drones. We know that nobody just fires a single missile. You fire a barrage. And yes, there are interceptors, but you ask yourself if you have a swarm of missiles coming in do you have time to put a human in the loop to identify every incoming and have a human finger on the trigger? The point I'm making is that whether we realize it or not, we're already in the age of autonomous lethal weapons. This is a necessity that has arisen because of technological advance, but we haven't yet been able to get the political consensus globally to have rules on autonomous lethal weapons. So, here's another point where technology has exceeded our ability to make political decisions, not just domestically but internationally.
So, in sum this you know, depressing presentation that I'm making is that we're headed for a world with heightened danger and at a speed which we have failed to appreciate. My final part of my presentation is how. Where do we go from here? What is the way forward? How do we build resilience against this complex and evolving security context? And to look beyond just tying the concept of security to national borders. I'm coming back to the theme of this conference. Externally to look for partners internally to deal with domestic political discontent social security, education jobs inequality and individually, each of us in our respective institutions to be able to build up our respective institutional and personal capabilities and to integrate these capabilities, these tools across our systems.
So, let's deal with the external part of it. Shared security challenges means we must support efforts to cooperate internationally. And still despite the political pressure still try our best to promote an open rules-based interoperable global system. Bilaterally, we can grow our network of partnerships. This helps us create strategic space and we have to both reduce our overdependence on certain in certain critical domains but also understand wisdom consists of under- getting the right balance. Because full autarky, full self-sufficiency is impossible or even if it was possible for your country very expensive. So, finding the right balance between self-reliance and interdependence, especially interdependence with partners whom you can trust or whom you can align the forces so that you encourage habits of cooperation and trust-building rather than accelerate threat perceptions.
Over the last 2 years I'm now speaking with point of Singapore. We have upgraded relations with Australia, France, India, New Zealand, Vietnam. We've established new strategic partnerships with the the Republic of Korea and Japan. We're expanding our footprint to Africa and Latin America, including expanding our diplomatic footprint. We're deepening cooperation with our partners in areas including food energy and we're paying particular attention to making arrangements to secure the flow of essential goods during crisis. Just a few days ago, Singapore concluded a legally binding protocol on economic resilience and essential supplies with Australia. We similarly concluded an agreement on trade in essential supplies with New Zealand in October 2025. And we're looking for more opportunities to do so. And even as we do this we're looking to do this in an open, inclusive and transparent way.
With my immediate neighbors we're working on mutually beneficial projects such as the Johor Singapore Special Economic Zone, the Johor Bahru Singapore Rapid Transit Link and cross-border electricity trading and green investments in both Indonesia and Malaysia. And indeed, ultimately throughout ASEAN. We need to share a common understanding that interdependence, interconnectivity and making a wider zone of collective investment and free trade is in our respective national security interests. It calls for cool, rational heads to prevail in the hurly-burly of politics and elections who take a longer and wider view of our national interests.
And at multilateral fora the at the UN we're trying to leverage our hardened reputation as a trusted wherever possible to support the development of global standards. From in 2021 to 2025 our permanent representative to the UN, Mr. Burhan Gafoor chaired the open-ended working group on ICT security. And you must remember 2021 to 2025 were turbulent times globally. Nevertheless, this open-ended working group was able to achieve consensus in its final report that was published in July last year. And this promoted norms for responsible state behavior in cyberspace and helped countries to strengthen cybersecurity collectively. Singapore has also supported efforts to uphold navigational rights and freedoms. And you know, this is a a principle defense that we take very, very seriously considering our own geographical and political circumstances. We must ensure that sea lanes remain open secure and accessible to everyone. We delivered a joint statement last week at the UN General Assembly on behalf of countries that played a founding role in the conclusion of UNCLOS. Fiji, Jamaica, Malta and Singapore. You notice these are all small island states exquisitely dependent on globalization and the freedom of navigation and overflight working. Singapore is also a founding member of the future of investment and trade partnerships. This is a group of small and medium economies that support free and open trade. In response to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Singapore and 10 other FITP members issued a joint statement on maintaining open and resilient supply chains, including outlining the importance of refraining from trade restrictive measures, especially during a time of crisis.
Internally, what do we need to ensure that our societies remain cohesive and united because a house divided cannot stand. And our ability to respond to and to defend against threats depends on the collective strength of our respective communities and the preparedness of our people to adapt and to recover from the inevitable episodes of disruption that will occur. In Singapore, we view our diversity as a strength. We are a multiracial, multireligious, multilingual society. And non-resident foreigners constitute approximately 1/3 of our population at any given time. And our people are connected internationally by history, culture, language, and in and through travel, networks, and media. But this diversity, if it is to remain a strength, must be managed, managed carefully, managed actively. In Singapore, we don't leave this to the invisible hand. And we know that especially with gray zone tactics, foreign actors can and will and do exploit social fault lines in order to shift public opinion, undermine cohesion, put governments under pressure. Many global developments have the potential to stir up emotions, strain our social compacts, and turbocharge by social media. We're already witnessing the polarization of societies and even decentralize terror acts, you know, the lone wolf, self-radicalized young men, more often young men than women, motivated by events geographically far away, but able to achieve emotional resonance. The Bondi Beach incident in Australia illustrates how far-away global events can have domestic security com- complications. All of us are just one incident away from a crisis. And so we need to strengthen our people's awareness of and resolve to deal with such threats. This means stepping up integration efforts for new immigrants, creating meaningful opportunities for citizens to solve pro- common problems in the global commons as well as in the neighborhood commons, and for immigrants to build understanding and trust with indigenous communities. We need the right tools to counter foreign interference, including appropriate legislation and the capabilities to respond in real time to hostile information campaigns. And finally, we must ensure that our citizens understand our national interests and why the government has to take certain foreign policy positions and why certain views advocated by foreign actors or non-state actors are not in our common interests. And there's a balance to be struck here because we need to manage these sensitivities carefully, but we must also guard against a descent into nativism and isolationism. We cannot afford to cut ourselves off from the world at a time when our national interests in fact demand the opposite. The world is a far more dangerous place and when countries and the public think in narrow and short terms of me rather than us.
And so we all have our work cut out for us. We need to boost our capabilities as institutions, as policy practitioners. We have to be multidisciplinary, we have multi-stakeholder approach, we have to break down silos, we have to foster closer coordination across the different pillars of government. And whether you talk about resilience of energy, supply chains, economic coordination across economic agencies, transport officials, energy supplies, working with critical critical information infrastructure, and you think about the last pandemic and the pandemics to come, can you see how actually for all of you in the room, your work in national security coordination can only expand. And my main plea to you is to understand that this is now acute. This is now far more profound a threat and it is multidisciplinary. So, the question is how big will our national security secretariats have to be in the future? The attack surface has expanded, multiple disciplines, and if everything is weaponized, it means everything. You will have to be then the the national secretariat for everything, ultimately.
So, let me just close by coming back to the fundamental point. Domestic political discontent has led to repudiation of globalization. Interdependence has become weaponized. Technological revolutions have accelerated these trends and we have to avoid getting caught in a vicious cycle. And we have to take the concept of national security in a far broader sense, work across silos, understand politics, economics, technology, defense in the broadest sense of the word, and you the job of all of you in this room is to translate that into actionable items, which your civil service and political leadership can execute. So, I wish you all the very best not just in this conference, but I need all of you to succeed if we are to have a more peaceful and constructive world. Thank you very much. >> [applause]