Singapore Tsunami Relief Effort
Click the link above to find a new blog detailing Singapore's contributions. Note that they seem to be focusing on Sumatra's northeast coast, while the U.S. & Australia handle the northwest coast. Another example of close coordination of the command & control of the military forces. Note also that they are using some American built helicopters, a sign of previous coordination. All of this is likely the result of SEATO, a local treaty with the U.S. that was signed in the aftermath of the Korean war in Manila 9/8/54!
Now if we could only form SWATO as I described in a previous post (look in the archive 12/29/04 4:46 AM).
posted by MachiasPrivateer at 2:30 AM
1 Comments:
Actually, Singapore was never part of SEATO. In fact, while we are one of the US's closest friends in the region, there are no formal military treaties between the two countries. There is a memo. of understanding that allows USN ships to service in Singapore; in fact, the brand new Changi Naval Base was built to be able to handle a Nimitz class carrier!
The Singapore military have been buying aircraft (F-5E Tigers, A-4 Skyhawks, F-16 Falcons, E-2C Hawkeyes) and helicopters (CH-47D Chinooks and AH-64D Longbow Apache) from the US for many years; but we also buy stuff from other countries, e.g., the Super Pumas from France, Missile Gun Boats from Germany, Submarines from Sweden, and most recently, 6 new stealth frigates to be built by DCN in France. (The US tends to hold back on some aspects of technology transfer, which does make it less appealing as a supplier sometimes.)
There is a decent (but not great) article about the Singapore military in the Wikipedia. The real (public source) authority is Tim Huxley's book "Defending the Lion City".
By the way, I've blogrolled your site.
Cheers!
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