Quora Answer: If Singapore & Indonesia Go to War, Who Would Win?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “If Singapore and Indonesia go to war, which country will emerge victorious?”

Countries do not simply go to war.  The only plausible scenario where I can see both countries pushed to open conflict would be if a nationalist group took power in Jakarta, and revived the post-colonial agenda to unify Nusantara.  This would not necessarily be a move to attack Singapore directly, since the Indonesians are not stupid.

Two major points of conflict would be attempts to close the Malacca Straits, or to threaten Singaporean and Australian investments in Timor Leste’s energy sector.  Both would lead to limited military action, and it will be a difficult fight.  Whilst Singapore’s navy is more than capable of interdicting any Indonesian naval assets, that is not enough to secure the Malacca Straits.  Indonesia has the capability of launching shore-based missiles from Sumatra.  Singapore’s strategy would be to get major powers involved since securing the Straits is also in their interest.  If the scenario involves an attempt to reannex Timor Leste, it will be the Australians doing the heavy lifting.  Singapore will not be sending significant assets there beyond air sorties because there is a whole lot of Indonesia between Timor Leste and Singapore.

Indonesia does not have the military lift capability, air or sea, to launch an invasion of Singapore.  That requires naval and air superiority, and they are outnumbered and outgunned.  What they can do is put artillery in Batam or Bintan to bombard Singapore, but that is not a long-term situation since they would have no capability to adequately resupply them.  Singapore can consider a limited invasion of the Riau Islands to secure them, but holding them long term is not viable, since the SAF is not geared towards long term occupation.  In light of that, any form of military invasion of Java or Sumatra is out of the question.

A significant advantage that Singapore has is wealth, and wealth buys friends.  Indonesia is very large, with many separatist elements all over the archipelago.  With the right push, the country will devolve into civil war, and it is a matter of choosing the right side to support.  Any conflict between Indonesia and Singapore would be costly.  Singapore would suffer economically, but Indonesia will lose territorial integrity and thousands dead.  Such a conflict would involve all the major powers in some limited or unlimited capacity, and would drag in the rest of ASEAN.  Malaysia and the Philippines have disputed and porous borders and they will be moving troops there.  Irian Jaya and Acheh will definitely flare up with increased separatist activity.  By any sort of calculation, it would take a mad man to pick a fight with Singapore because Indonesia is not on steady foundations that it can tolerate an external conflict.