Opening Address by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the 17th Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO), 21 April 2026

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, Executive Deputy Chairman of RSIS,

Head of Civil Service Chan Heng Kee,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

1                         The central idea which I want to leave with you, first, is that it is domestic political discontent that has driven this repudiation of globalisation. Second, a repudiation of globalisation means interdependence – especially interdependence based on trade liberalisation, global supply chains and economic integration – instead of being a source of prosperity and peace, has been weaponised, in full orchestra. The third point which I wanted to leave with you is that the simultaneous technological revolutions – particularly in the digital technologies, energy, and biotech – in fact, accelerate these disruptive changes. So just bear in mind these three central ideas, and let me go on with the rest of my presentation.

2                         Today, we all know, in real time, that the world is far more volatile and violent. War is no longer such an abstract idea; it is a lived reality. The attendant issues of supply chain disruptions are also very real, and even right now as we talk about a chokepoint in the Strait of Hormuz, this is just one of what I expect will be a series of future conflicts over chokepoints, with profound implications on our societies. And so, although we started this conference – I think you said 2007 – 19 years ago, the focus of national security has become more urgent, more acute than ever before.

3                         It is worth taking a step back and asking ourselves, what does the concept of national security mean in today’s geopolitical context? It used to be, ever since we have had the concept of Westphalian nation-states, that the first priority of national security was simply maintaining your independence, maintaining your ability to defend yourself. And this was the bedrock. In other words, it used to be primarily about defence. But actually, the evolution of geopolitics and the technological revolution since then have meant that national security has to go far beyond the traditional focus purely on conventional defence.

4                         Today, because globalisation is being repudiated, because interdependence is being weaponised, it means the attack surface area has expanded into multiple domains – whether it is climate change, public health, frontier technologies, geoeconomics, supply chains, trade; all of these have become the concern of national security. In sum, the concept of security now encompasses defence against a full spectrum of disruption, division, and coercion. And that is why this year’s theme, “Resilient Societies in a Fragmented World: National Security Beyond Borders”, is so apt.

5                         I want to pick this topic and pursue it along three dimensions. First, what is it we are facing? Second, why are we facing these myriad threats? And, third, how we can strengthen resilience?

What: The Threat Landscape

6                         So, let us start with the first: what are we confronting?

7                         In this evolving and expanding threat landscape, security can no longer be conceived purely as national. In fact, because challenges are not confined to any single domain, disruptions in any one region and any one domain can very quickly cascade globally, quickly, and unpredictably. The traditional dichotomies that we used to operate on – internal versus external, military versus civilian, state versus non-state actors –  all these dichotomies have blurred. It is now a spectrum on multiple axes.

8                         In the military domain, for instance, the nature of conflict has expanded beyond the conventional. Today, every military has to deal with grey zone tactics. These fall below the threshold of a conventional attack, but they are designed nevertheless to have an impact. They are designed to be difficult to attribute, and similarly, to cause dilemmas in how to respond proportionately. Take the example of drone flights over civilian airports, and you remember last year over major European airports, technically, they did not cause any physical damage, but the disruption to flight operations, the impact on stranded passengers, imposed a significant economic cost – and that is only I would say the early stages of this example. Singapore is a vital aviation and maritime hub; these non-conventional threats are real. They are a clear and present danger. And so the challenge is, how do we develop frameworks that can respond to such deliberate but ambiguous provocations, and to do so without escalating conflict unnecessarily, whilst deterring future incidents and preserving the resilience of critical infrastructure?

9                         And we know that the security challenges go beyond the military and political domains. The current war in Iran has made this very clear. One, our economic resilience, not just of individual countries but indeed the entire world, is being put to a stress-test. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has precipitated a global energy and supply chain crisis. Even now, we still do not know how things are going to pan out, how long it is going to take, and when governments, especially those in more vulnerable parts of the world with both supply and fiscal constraints, are going to crack. The Strait conveys not just oil and gas, but helium which is used for semiconductor manufacturing and for running medical equipment. We now have discovered that petrochemical derivatives are used to produce myriad goods which we use on a daily basis, including complex pharmaceuticals. And, of course, we know about fertilisers and the medium-term impact of a lack of fertilisers on agricultural yield and food prices, potentially leading to a food and agricultural crisis. These economic shocks will reverberate long after the acute phase of the conflict is over. The damage to infrastructure, the scarring to economies on a worldwide basis, will take time to recover, and therefore we will have to prepare, at least in the short term, not only for higher inflation and slower growth rates, but also that systems will crack in different parts of the world.

10                      The second point is that these conflicts also threaten to undermine domestic social cohesion. You remember that I started off with my first central idea that it is political domestic discontent that has led to a repudiation of globalisation. The point is that you see a vicious cycle because these global reverberations, in fact, will lead to further fissures in domestic cohesion and the resilience of our societies. This spiral, if we cannot and if we are unable to put in circuit breakers, this vicious cycle, will accelerate. And, so, across the world, security agencies are also warning of the increased risk of the danger of radicalisation and associated spillover violence related to conflicts – for instance, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The French government, I believe, is investigating a recent incident involving four people, including three minors, over a foiled bomb plot outside the Bank of America office in Paris. There is suspicion, not yet proven, that there could be a link to the ongoing conflict in Iran. And I am sure each of you will have your own examples that you are currently investigating. In short, today’s national security threat assessment, by definition, has to be multi-domain, and as I said earlier, the attack surface area has expanded dramatically.

Why: The Driving Forces

11                      The second part of my presentation is: why? Why now? Why is it so accelerated? Why have we arrived at this current scenario?

12                      I believe the key driving force is the fragmentation of our world order. I mentioned the repudiation of globalisation, and yet we are still deeply interconnected and interdependent. So, we are, in a sense, vandalising our own lifeboats, if you think about that as a metaphor, and these tensions and the propensity for damage have also been turbo-charged by rapid advances in technology.

13                      Let us start with the fragmentation of the world order. We all know that geopolitical competition and tensions have risen dramatically. We know that multilateral institutions – the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO – have all been weakened and have had their effectiveness compromised. I mentioned domestic discontent with globalisation. Paradoxically, this domestic repudiation of globalisation has, in fact, been most acute in a major power – a major power which, in fact, formerly used to underwrite the system of globalisation which, despite its exceptions, generally provided a formula for peace and prosperity, especially for us in Southeast Asia. Institutions, rules, laws, which previously were viewed as essential and helpful to prosperity and peace, are now viewed as constraints on the state’s ability to exercise freedom of action and, in fact, give leaders in many states a license to disrupt using every tool, every lever, every crowbar available. The global zeitgeist has become more inward-looking. States are pursuing a more narrow conception of national interest, over a shorter time horizon, and often at each other’s expense. Again, can you see how a vicious cycle is being developed?

14                      But, what is rational for an individual actor, what is rational for one country, does not always mean it is optimal for all countries collectively. In economics, we are all familiar with the theory of the “invisible hand” by Adam Smith. We know that even the invisible hand can fail if the free market does not work and does not allocate resources efficiently. The equivalent in international relations is that if there is market failure in diplomacy – each country pursuing its own national interests exclusively and willing to take shortcuts, willing to ignore global rules, willing to weaken global institutions – this can make the situation worse for everyone. The invisible hand can also fail in diplomacy and in foreign affairs. What results is not just a thinner social safety net in international affairs, but, in fact, everybody is laying tripwires for everybody else, and sometimes even for yourself, because you lock yourself into strategic choices. You think you are actually setting this tripwire to act as a deterrent against your neighbour or whoever your protagonist is, but actually, these tripwires eventually end up tripping yourself and locking you into a course of action which you may not want.

15                      The last time the world was in this situation was before the First World War. At the turn of that century, the world was very interdependent. There were global supply chains and everyone said it does not make sense to go to war, but an assassination of an archduke in Serbia led inexorably to an outcome which nobody wanted. Then, even halfway through the First World War, when there were options for a negotiated solution, again, the logic of tripwires set up to deter others were locking you in to make strategic choices, and in fact prolonged conflict. So, I am worried about those parallels with the First World War and today.

16                      What is different compared to the First World War is that now conflicts occur in the oceans, choke points in the air, outer space, and cyberspace. Again, the attack surface area has expanded. We all know, especially when you are dealing with the global commons, meaning climate change, pandemics, AI – both potential and threat – that, in fact, these are all areas where no country on its own, or seeking to advance its own narrow national interests can mitigate the damage of or risk to the global commons. Even the major powers unilaterally cannot solve climate change, pandemics, and the threats from AI. We still need close coordination, and we need the ability for the global community to exercise collective efforts.

17                      Unfortunately, geopolitical fragmentation is not going to result in a world that is conveniently divided into self-sufficient autarkic regions, because the truth is we will still have sufficient dependence on these interconnections, and people will still have to make a decision on whether you weaponise it or optimise interconnectedness.

18                      The issue is connectivity facilitated by technology and the rapid expansion of the liberal trade regime after World War Two. When the Internet first came along and everyone said, we can now communicate with everyone, virtually for free, there was this early dream – which clearly was not capable of withstanding the test of reality – that global communications mean we will all become one happy global village. Everyone will converge, everyone will have better understanding because you have universal access to data, and we all know that was a pipe dream. In fact, we did not end up with one happy global village. What I believe has happened on the Internet in the last four decades is that, in fact, it has amplified toxic tribalism, because no matter how crazy or repugnant your views today, you will find someone else on the Internet to affirm you. You will find avenues to mobilise people who believe wrongly in those crazy, repugnant ideas. That is what I meant about toxic tribalism. It is not one global happy village. It is in fact, an opportunity for the global mobilisation of toxic tribalism.

19                      This is something which we all collectively face, and this is something which national security advisors all over the world will have to deal with. We also know it is not just the humans in the loop, because internet companies, especially social media companies, are designed to maximise revenue. These companies know that what drives eyeballs is not highfalutin, inspired ideas. The easiest way to drive eyeballs is outrage, incitement to anger, triggering tribalism. Again, it is not focused on the positive and the constructive, but eliciting anger and destructive emotions. It is a bit like smoking and the fact that the tobacco companies knew long ago the harm, but they also knew they had an addictive medium, and they were optimised to maximise revenue. Actually, the same phenomenon has occurred now, and governments all over the world are still struggling to come to terms with how you regulate, rationally and sensibly, a new technology which is addictive, which is mediated by companies who are motivated by profit maximisation, and yet has got such pernicious effects on our social cohesion. Even this becomes another area of concern for national security. Interdependence, trade, energy, technology have been weaponised and what was a source of strength, a paradigm of organising global supply chains on the basis of efficiency, has instead become an exercise of assessment of vulnerabilities and how to use that to threaten countries.

20                      This weaponisation of interdependence actually has been going on for a long time, but the current war in Iran has laid bare the fragility of the global economy and our reliance on chokepoints. Actually, geography has not changed. We all know that there are chokepoints, but the fact that we are all scrambling now also illustrates that simply knowing a fact does not mean you have appreciated the situation and does not mean that the preparations are in order. This Pandora’s box has been opened and will not be shut. It cannot be shut, and I just want to tell all of you that even after the acute phase is over, we are not going back to status quo ante. The economy and stock market prices will bounce up and down, but do not make the mistake of assuming it is business-as-usual. It will not be.

21                      This tension between geopolitical fragmentation and weaponised interconnectedness will be exacerbated by the ongoing revolution, especially in information technology. AI, biotechnology with the ability now to edit genes, including the genotype of humans, quantum technology with its threat to explode the whole concept of encryption and privacy, and other frontier technologies have the potential to both offer great benefit, but also great disruption. We know that whenever you deal with a new, incisive platform technology, you do need rules; if nothing else, guardrails against its abuse, rules for interoperability of such systems. But what is happening now is that because of heightened contestation, and lack of trust with each other, the world is unable to come together to work out and agree on these guardrails and to agree on standards for interoperability. And, so, we are going to be in this danger zone for many years to come.

22                      This is most evident in artificial intelligence. Crowdstrike’s 2026 Global Threat Report shows that attacks by AI-enabled adversaries have increased 89% year-on-year. But I think this is an underestimation. Anthropic’s latest model – they call it Mythos – is reportedly so powerful that it can enable autonomous, agentic cyber-attacks which exploit cross-domain vulnerabilities at a scale and speed that defenders cannot match. You know, if you look at our full set of systems, there will be a vulnerability here, another vulnerability there, but it’s now the ability to rearrange the Swiss cheese of vulnerability at scale and speed, which the defender cannot match. Anthropic has apparently assessed that its latest model Mythos is too dangerous to release to the public given “unprecedented cybersecurity risks”. Well, I hope it is just company hype, but I suspect it is not just company hype. I think that this is a threat that we have to take seriously. Apart from cyber security, the political impact of AI generated deepfakes: it used to be, if you wanted corroboration, you want to see a photo. Then we said, no, a photo is not enough, it is too easy to edit, and you want to see a video. Today, you are reaching the point where, at least to a human eye, you cannot tell which video is real or manufactured. These systems are only going to get better. What does this mean for respect for facts? What does this mean for respect for expertise? What does this mean for getting people onto the same page, an agreed set of facts? What does this mean for social cohesion? And, therefore, what does this mean for the ability to mobilise our societies to go in a collective, constructive direction, as opposed to a cacophony where there is no single drumbeat, and everybody is freelancing and moving in all directions? This Brownian motion is not an organising principle for societies or for international affairs.

23                      More fundamentally, I think not enough of us have focused on how automation and AI are transforming our tactical and operational decisions, because, in fact, we have already outsourced targeting instructions to autonomous systems. Here, I am referring to the military domain. Just think about it. In today’s conflicts, we all know that targeting, to a significant extent, has also been outsourced – which targets, which persons, where they are, what activities they are engaged in, you already rely on artificial intelligence. Another example: we know about hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, drones. We know nobody just fires a single missile. You fire a barrage, and, yes, there are interceptors, but you ask yourself, if you have a swarm of missiles coming in, do you have time to put a human in the loop to identify every incoming one and have a human finger on the trigger? Whether we realise it or not, we are already in the age of lethal autonomous weapons. This is a necessity that has arisen because of technological advances, but we have not yet been able to get the political consensus globally to have rules on lethal autonomous weapons. So here is another point where technology has exceeded our ability to make political decisions, not just domestically, but internationally. In sum, this depressing presentation that I am making is that we are headed for a world with heightened danger and at a speed which we have failed to appreciate.

How: The Way Forward

24                      The final part of my presentation is, how? Where do we go from here? What is the way forward? How do we build resilience against this complex and evolving security context, and to look beyond just tying the concept of security to national borders?

25                      Externally, to look for partners. Internally, to deal with domestic political discontent, social security, education, jobs, inequality. Individually, each of us in our respective institutions to be able to build up our respective institutional and personal capabilities and to integrate these capabilities, these tools, across our systems.

26                      Let us deal with the external part of it. Shared security challenges mean we must support efforts to cooperate internationally and, despite the political pressure, try our best to promote an open, rules-based, interoperable global system. Bilaterally, we can grow our network of partnerships. This helps us create strategic space. We have to both reduce our overdependence in certain critical domains but also understand that wisdom consists of understanding the right balance, because full autarky, full self-sufficiency is impossible, or, even if it was possible for your country, very expensive. So, find the right balance between self-reliance and interdependence, especially interdependence with partners whom you can trust or whom you can align forces so that you encourage habits of cooperation and trust-building, rather than accelerate threat perceptions. Over the last two years, Singapore has upgraded relations with Australia, France, India, New Zealand, Vietnam. We have established new strategic partnerships with the Republic of Korea and Japan. We are expanding our footprint in Africa and Latin America, including expanding our diplomatic footprint. We are deepening cooperation with our partners in areas including food, energy, and we are paying particular attention to making arrangements to secure the flow of essential goods during crises. Just a few days ago, Singapore concluded a legally binding Protocol on Economic Resilience and Essential Supplies with Australia. We similarly concluded an Agreement on Trade in Essential Supplies with New Zealand in October 2025, and we are looking for more opportunities to do so. Even as we do this, we are looking to do this in an open, inclusive, and transparent way.

27                      With our immediate neighbours. we are working on mutually beneficial projects such as the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System Link with Malaysia, and cross-border electricity trading and green investments with Indonesia, and indeed, ultimately throughout ASEAN. We need to share a common understanding that interdependence, interconnectivity, and making a wider zone of collective investment and free trade, are in our respective national security interests. This calls for cool, rational heads to prevail in the hurly-burly of politics and elections, who take a longer and wider view of our national interests.

28                      At multilateral fora, at the UN, we are trying to leverage our hard-earned reputation as a trusted bridgebuilder to build consensus wherever possible, to support the development of global standards. From 2021 to 2025, our Permanent Representative to the UN Mr. Burhan Gafoor, chaired the Open-Ended Working Group on ICT Security – you must remember 2021 to 2025 were turbulent times globally. Nevertheless, this Open-Ended Working Group was able to achieve consensus in its Final Report that was published in July last year, and this promoted norms for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace and helped countries to strengthen cyber security collectively.

29                      Singapore has also supported efforts to uphold navigational rights and freedoms. This is a principled defence that we take very, very seriously, considering our own geographical and political circumstances. We must ensure that sea lanes remain open, secure, and accessible to everyone. We delivered a joint statement last week at the UN General Assembly on behalf of countries that played a founding role in the conclusion of UNCLOS – Fiji, Jamaica, Malta and Singapore. You notice that these are all small island states, exquisitely dependent on globalisation and the freedoms of navigation and overflight working.

30                      Singapore is also a founding member of the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FIT-P). This is a group of small and medium economies that support free and open trade. In response to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Singapore and 10 other FIT-P members issued a joint statement on maintaining open and resilient supply chains, including outlining the importance of refraining from trade restrictive measures, especially during a time of crisis.

31                      Internally, we need to ensure that our societies remain cohesive and united, because a house divided cannot stand. Our ability to respond to and defend against threats depends on the collective strength of our respective communities and the preparedness of our people to adapt and to recover from the inevitable episodes of disruption that will occur.

32                      In Singapore, we view our diversity as a strength. We are a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual society. Non-resident foreigners constitute approximately one-third of our population at any given time, and our people are connected internationally by history, culture, language and through travel, networks, and the media. This diversity, if it is to remain a strength, must be managed carefully and actively. In Singapore, we do not leave this to the invisible hand, and we know that, especially with grey zone tactics, foreign actors can, will, and do exploit social fault lines in order to shift public opinion, undermine cohesion, put governments under pressure. Many global developments have the potential to stir up emotions and strain our social compacts, turbocharged by social media. We are already witnessing the polarisation of societies and even decentralised terror acts – the lone wolf and self-radicalised motivated by events geographically far away, but able to achieve emotional resonance. The Bondi Beach incident in Australia illustrates how far-away global events can have domestic security implications. All of us are just one incident away from a crisis.

33                      We need to strengthen our people’s awareness of and resolve to deal with such threats. This means stepping up integration efforts for new immigrants, creating meaningful opportunities for citizens to solve common problems in the global commons, as well as in the neighbourhood commons, and for immigrants to build understanding and trust with indigenous communities. We need the right tools to counter foreign interference, including appropriate legislation and the capabilities to respond in real time to hostile information campaigns. Finally, we must ensure that our citizens understand our national interests and why the government has to take certain foreign policy positions and why certain views advocated by foreign actors or non-state actors are not in our common interests.

34                      There is a balance to be struck here, because we need to manage these sensitivities carefully, but we must also guard against a descent into nativism and isolationism. We cannot afford to cut ourselves off from the world at a time when our national interests, in fact, demand the opposite. The world is a far more dangerous place when countries and the public think in the narrow and short terms of “me” rather than “us”.

35                      So, we all have our work cut out for us. We need to boost our capabilities as institutions, as policy practitioners. We have to be multi-disciplinary. We have to have a multi-stakeholder approach. We have to break down silos. We have to foster closer coordination across the different pillars of government. Whether you talk about resilience of energy or supply chains, coordination across economic agencies, transport officials, energy suppliers, working with critical information infrastructure, is required. If you think about the last pandemic and the pandemics to come, can you see how, actually, for all of you in the room, your work in national security coordination can only expand.

36                      My main plea to you is to understand that this is now acute. This is now far more profound a threat, and it is multidisciplinary. The question is, how big will our national security secretariats have to be in the future? The attack surface has expanded to multiple disciplines, and if everything is weaponised, it means you will have to be the national security secretariat for everything ultimately.

Conclusion

37                      Let me just close by coming back to the fundamental point. Domestic political discontent has led to repudiation of globalisation, interdependence has become weaponised, and technological revolutions have accelerated these trends. We have to avoid getting caught in a vicious cycle. We have to take the concept of national security in a far broader sense, work across silos, understand politics, economics, technology, defence in the broader sense of the word. The job of all of you in this room is to translate that into actionable items which your civil service and political leadership can execute.

38                      I wish you all the very best, not just in this conference, but I need all of you to succeed if we are to have a more peaceful and constructive world. Thank you very much.

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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SINGAPORE

21 APRIL 2026