Whither Conscription in Singapore

<p>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.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>