Pukul Habis: Total Wipeout: A Story of War in Malaysia and Singapore. By David Boey.

• Date: 01 August 2023
• Author: Huxley, Tim

Pukul Habis: Total Wipeout: A Story of War in Malaysia and Singapore. By David Boey. Singapore: David Boey Creatives, 2022. Softcover: 400pp.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and concerns over a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan have brought the conduct as well as the deterrence of interstate war to the foreground of contemporary discussions about international security. But, despite the prominence of concerns over terrorism, internal security, piracy and other relatively low-intensity challenges over the last two decades, potential conflict between states never went away as a focus for those who think about defence and security in Southeast Asia. This has been particularly so in Singapore. The structure, equipment and training of the city-state's armed forces provide many clues to their intended operational roles, which are evidently concerned primarily with deterrence and (if necessary) defence against conventional military threats. However, to a greater or lesser extent, the orders of battle, procurement patterns and military exercises of some other Southeast Asian states, including Malaysia, reveal that their political leaders and defence establishments also have possible conflict with other regional states on their minds.

For several decades, David Boey--a Singaporean who was at one point a correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly and later Defence Correspondent for The Straits Times--has thought long and hard about his country's defence...