ON THE sidelines of the Brunei Darussalam International Defence Exhibition yesterday, one of the distinguished panel of speakers commented on the uniqueness of BRIDEX, as well as the force-multiplying benefits and prestige that it draws for the Sultanate.
Dr Warren Chin, former lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and currently a lecturer at the Defence Studies Department, King's College, London commented: "What you've put together by combining a defence exhibition and a defence conference is substantial and comprehensive as most countries normally just focus and specialise on one or the other.
"By having something like this at Bridex, where you draw government officials, military officials, academics and defence industry players is something unique, which provides everyone the opportunity to gain different insights that otherwise would be very difficult to achieve elsewhere".
Despite the fact that this was the first time that Dr Chin had been to the Sultanate, he was enthusiastic about being invited to speak at the BRIDEX Conference. Presenting the topic of 'Asean Defence Industries from the EU Perspectives', during the afternoon session yesterday that was themed on the opportunities and challenges for defence technology changes, Dr Chin noted: "Undoubtedly, it is a very good flag-waving exercise for Brunei, which for a small country with a tiny population, to be able to create and pull something like this off, which you are doing very, very well and it seems to work. In terms of prestige, it is a good force-multiplier, as it also plays to your characters of being a good host."
Within the Asean context, which has been looking at trying to work together politically and economically, the King's College defence lecturer noted that "geographically and politically it is difficult to arrange Asean to be good neighbours, but Brunei plays that game anyway and this gives you an added capability of building up your own network and not necessarily relying on your traditional supply networks".
In his presentation, Dr Chin advised against Asean following the EU model of integration but noted that the growing defence acquisition and collaboration between the Sultanate and Singapore could be viewed as a model example in the region as it allows for standardisation of equipment, "which is useful as this is the best way to develop by allowing it to grow organically and this is how more integration will happen".
Dr Chin compared the Brunei defence exhibition to that of Singapore, which despite the many geographic and socio-economic and political similarities, is more focused on network-centric warfare. "Singapore is focused on very high-tech and very expensive aspect of the defence industry, which understandably, for a city-state with its own set of security issues, is very dependent on technology as it is the only force-multiplier that will provide them with an advantage."
"But for the Sultanate's perspective, he pointed out that it would heavily depend on what Brunei's aspiration of capability is and "carving out a niche that suits your own needs".
