Item category 2: POINTER Monthly Essays

This essay sets out to establish lessons learnt from Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One is the significant impact of IMINT on the strategic decisions behind the blockade on Cuba as well as the planning of eventual air strikes. The author also highlights that this im...

The concept of Centre of Gravity (CoG) remains a cornerstone in military planning, yet consensus on its definition eludes both practitioners and academics. This ambiguity stems from Carl von Clausewitz’s varied interpretations, compounded by divergent perspectives within different military branch...

The author highlights that many contemporary military strategists and practitioners value the philosophiescontained in Carl Von Clausewitz’s classic On War and its relevance to present day conflict. On the other hand, thereare also speculation and debates over Clausewitz’s relevance to contempora...

There are many qualities that a Commanding Officer (CO) must possess in order for them to lead their unit well. In this essay, the author shares the seven key factors that he feels an aspiring CO needs to consider when drawing out their own action plan as they take on the role of a CO, in order...

In this essay, the authors first examined the imperative of maritime sense-making in Singapore’s context. Despite its importance, maritime sense-making is not a topic that has been discussed robustly before. Therefore, the authors sought to elaborate what maritime sense-making entails, and how it...

In this essay, the author cites Mary Kaldor1, who argues that armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era is fundamentally different from traditional Clausewitzian interstate conflicts. Unlike old wars, which were fought between state-controlled militaries for geopolitical and ideological reasons, '...

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, contended that the Industrial Revolutions (IRs) were the main driving force behind technological improvements. In the same vein, the author considers that the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), through various transformations, is now capable of execut...

Using Carl von Clausewitz’s “trinity” as a framework for analysis, this article compares the performances of Generals Arthur Percival and Douglas MacArthur as commanders during the Malayan and Philippine campaigns in World War II respectively. Both campaigns ultimately ended in defeat by the Japa...

In the mid-20th century, the governments of Malaya and South Vietnam initiated population-resettlement programmes as part of their overall efforts to fight the ongoing communist insurgencies in their countries. The British colonials housed hundreds of thousands of Chinese squatters in “New Villag...

Military intelligence has always held an aura of secrecy and mystery. The success or failure of operations, and the nature of campaigns, hinges on commanders’ decisions, which are in turn guided by intelligence. For those who work ‘behind the curtain’, it has always been a tremendous challenge to...