Just 58 years of independence and already two of our foreign ministers – one current and one former – are starting to get sloppy about their history and international politics. This is ridiculous. I congratulate two of our battle-hardened diplomats for pointing out some serious errors made by the duo which does not reflect well on the high standards which we have come to expect of our foreign ministers in a lineage which goes back all the way to the remarkable S Rajaratnam and his pioneer team.
Then there was Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the current Foreign Minister. He referred in a recent interview with Bloomberg.com to the ending of a peace dividend which came after World War II. That period apparently allowed countries to cut defence spending and focus on education and social welfare, especially after the end of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.
Former Ambassador-at-Large Bilahari Kausikan described this as unhistorical nonsense and profoundly misleading.the Korean War, the Vietnam War, several wars in the Middle East, numerous wars in the Third World many of which were Cold War proxy wars anddefence expenditures by countries in the United States-led camp and those in the Soviet bloc. He said: “The so-called ‘peace dividend’ is a fashionable myth.
TK is all principle. Bilahari is more pragmatic. The current one is mostly rhetoric than substance. My opinion.