Singapore is an island nation, and an island needs to defend its waters.

Sea piracy has spiked, with 31 pirate attacks in the Singapore Strait in 2019, and with some more in 2020.

And of course, there's the previous matter of the multiple intrusions by Malaysian vessels in our territorial waters, during the period of disputed boundary claims.

New ships for the Maritime Security Task Force

To handle incidents like these, the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) will be beefing up its Maritime Security Task Force (MSTF).

Speaking in Parliament on Monday (March 2) during the Committee of Supply Debates, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said that new purpose-built ships will be acquired and delivered in the coming few years.

But in the meantime, the MSTF will use four refurbished patrol vessels that will be deployed with "greater persistence" to protect Singapore's waters.

These will complement the MSTF's existing Littoral Mission Vessels, which took six years of planning and construction.

Working with others

The MSTF will work together with agencies like the:

• Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA)
• Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)
• Singapore Customs
• Singapore Police Force (SPF)

and will be coordinated through the Singapore Maritime Crisis Centre.

But maritime threats are often transnational in nature, and the navy has been working to strengthen its cooperation and collaboration with its Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts.

The RSN's Information Fusion Centre is currently linked to 97 operation centres in 41 countries that helps information sharing to respond to threats.

The navies of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand met in Feb. 2020 and signed a revised set of operating procedures to help it tackle piracy in the Malacca and Singapore Straits.

Related article:

Top image via Graphiss Media's YouTube channel