“There is a growing recognition that countries must address the reality that cyber elements are becoming more prevalent in modern warfare,” said Eleanor Shiori Hughes, defence analyst at The Asia Group, a strategic consulting firm in Washington.

Both state and non-state actors have grown increasingly sophisticated in how they carry out cyberattacks, she said, and this has spurred regional countries to devote more resources towards boosting their electronic defence capabilities and safeguarding their digital infrastructure.

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Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen highlighted cyber threats and the growing use of disinformation in warfare when he spoke in March of the need for the city state to have a dedicated service tasked with defending its digital borders.

Creating defence capabilities to meet the increasingly complex demands of modern warfare “requires not only upgrading military technologies and hardware, there must be organisational agility as well,” said Michael Raska, coordinator of the military transformations programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

The formation of DIS signals that Singapore recognises the importance of cyberdefence in a world where electronic warfare is no longer “considered abstract and somewhat elusive” but instead “viewed as concrete and real”, said Paul J. Smith, a professor at the US Naval War College who spoke to This Week In Asia in a personal capacity.

“Modern warfare will inevitably feature conflict in this domain,” he said, adding that Singapore had been careful to present the creation of its new military branch “as a capabilities-based decision, as opposed to a threat-based decision” without explicitly naming “where the threat is coming from”.

“This is important because the issue is not where the threat is coming from per se,” Smith said. “Rather, what matters is that Singapore has the capability to counter it regardless of its origin.”

Ukraine conflict spotlights rise of cyberwarfare

Before this year, Singapore’s first line of defence against electronic threats was the Defence Cyber Organisation, an arm of the defence ministry founded in 2017 as the growing need to counter cyberattacks and other forms of digital warfare became increasingly clear.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine only threw this requirement into sharper focus, according to Muhammad Faizal Bin Abdul Rahman, a research fellow at the RSIS’ Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies regional security architecture programme, who compared the rise of cyberwarfare and defence to the birth of national air forces in the 20th century after the then-new technology of flight had begun to turn the tide of battles.

“The Russia-Ukraine war is demonstrating how cyber and digital warfare is an essential element of multi-domain operations,” Muhammad Faizal said, further noting that a number of major powers had made cybersecurity more integral to their defence strategies in recent decades – such as the US Cyber Command, founded in 2010 – though their scale, missions and command structures differ.

Beginning as early as the second half of last year – months before Russia invaded on February 24 – Ukraine was hit with a string of concerted cyberattacks targeting its critical infrastructure and sensitive digital networks.

Russian-backed intelligence and military agencies have been attributed with carrying out the ongoing operations, which have targeted Ukrainian government and financial websites, satellite communications networks and other key systems.

Their next focus, it’s feared, could be Ukraine’s power grids – and any heating infrastructure not already damaged by physical bombardment – as the cold of winter closes in.

Singapore’s cyberdefence focus ‘may raise eyebrows’

Approved at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’s defence ministers last year, the ACICE was set up to share information and build regional cyberdefence capacity.

It’s is also in Singapore’s best interest, as a country with a highly digitised economy and society, to be “proactive and forward-looking” when it comes to cybersecurity, Muhammad Faizal said.

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While the move to establish DIS “may raise eyebrows and perhaps interest from neighbouring countries”, Smith from the Naval War College said it’s unlikely to be perceived as threatening.

“Singapore’s military posture is defensive. Its military simply wants to protect the country, not invade or encroach on the interests of others,” he said.

“Singapore is an agile and innovative country that punches above its weight. Many countries envy Singapore’s ability to make bureaucratic changes in a matter of weeks or months that might take other countries years to achieve. I see this latest change as being consistent with this larger pattern.”