Ok now I need someone who knows something about the Malaysian/Indonesian/Filipino Navy.
Well, SeaDart pretty much has that nailed down, I think. ^_^;
Specifically, how does your nation (both the official government line and the popular opinion) feel about the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, with regards to the effect on your relations with your neighbors?
Hmmm. Well, going off the cuff what I know:
- Malaysia has some claims to the Spratlys, which pretty much everyone in Southeast Asia has been claiming, but compared to say the Phillipines, we haven't really been pursuing those claims with any great fervor. There was some sabre-rattling in the late 90s, IIRC, but then
everyone was sabre-rattling at the time.
- Neighbourly relations range from cool to "let's talk smack to distract our people from internal problems." Singapore tends to be a favored whipping boy at one point. That said, from what I understand nobody in the Ministry of Defense (known by the Malay portmanteau name of Kementah
1)
seriously wants to get into a shooting war, but as the Ambalat Incident above, it's pretty easy for a stubborn or hotheaded officer to escalate things from a normal patrol into what could become an all-out shooting war.
*Whiskey looks meaningfully at poaw*
- Generally though relationships are okayish with the neighbours, though there's a certain wariness towards Indonesia, given that Indonesia did try a paradrop assault in the Confrontation, and did launch cross border raids into Sarawak. Relationships with the Phillipines don't actually seem to be all that bad despite the so-called Sultan of Sulu's armed incursion last year
2.
EDIT: Also LOL at one of your airbases being named "Butterworth".
It's named after the town, which was named after WIlliam John Butterworth, one of the Straits settlement governors. Possibly due to being the first British colony in Malaya, Penang has a very strong English influence, of which one example is seen in the roads: for example, the locals insist on referring to "Light
Lane" when in all the official maps and shit the govt puts out, it's "
Lebuh Light".
1Kementerian Pertahanan, Ministry of Defense. Kementah has an unfortunate implication in Malay - "mentah" means raw, uncooked, and is used as slang for greenhorns, fresh noobs, kids wet behind the ears etc.
2 There is speculation that the incursion was actually orchestrated by shadowy figures working for the government, with the idea being to manufacture a crisis that would unite the people against foreign "invasion" and strengthen the government's mandate to rule in the hearts and minds of the people, given the election results went quite badly for the ruling Barisan Nasional government.
Also, for the most part, the Malaysian Government, people and military seem for the most part internally-focused, given all the ongoing political drama. Which is not to say that I wouldn't put it past Najib to leap on a chance to try and use foreign conflict drama to try and take everyone's minds off the fiascoes of his government.
...also, as a general rule, expect our kit to not really be working; from what little I've read in local defense mags, our readiness rates are apparently quite low, and at least one of our Hornets has been a hangar queen for several years now. This is mostly because Najib treats the defense budget as a slush fund to buy designer handbags for Rosmah, or so the meme goes in Malaysia.
This is the difference between Malaysia and Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew may have
probably lined his pockets, but he also made damn sure that Singapore's kit works. If Singapore had to go to a shooting war tomorrow, you could expect them to be ready. If we had to go to a shooting war in a month's time... well, I'd probably prepare myself to work as a terp for our conquering overlords. -_-
Edit: as another example, there's an anecdote Kensai shared of a joint exercise he was on. The Singaporean conscripts had better kit and physical fitness than the Malaysian Army regulars.
