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SG-H-THINK-34 | William Choong --- From Newsroom to Think Tank: Singapore's Bridge Between Defence Journalism and Strategic Analysis

Document Code: SG-H-THINK-34 Full Title: William Choong --- From Newsroom to Think Tank: The Intellectual Profile of Singapore's Leading Defence and Alliance Analyst Coverage Period: c. 1995--present Level Designation: Intellectual Profile Status: [COMPLETE] Primary Sources Consulted:

  1. William Choong, The Ties That Divide: History, Honour and Territory in Sino-Japanese Relations (London: IISS/Routledge, 2014).
  2. William Choong, "The Return of the Indo-Pacific Strategy: An Assessment," Australian Journal of International Affairs 73, no. 5 (2019): 415--430.
  3. William Choong, "Enlarging ASEAN's Tent: External Powers and the Quest for Centrality," ISEAS Perspective, no. 2022/49 (2022).
  4. William Choong, "AUKUS and the Future of US Alliances in Asia," Survival 63, no. 6 (December 2021--January 2022): 73--80.
  5. William Choong, "Singapore and the Great Powers," in Southeast Asian Affairs 2020, ed. Daljit Singh and Malcolm Cook (Singapore: ISEAS, 2020), 317--330.
  6. William Choong and Ian Storey, "Southeast Asia and AUKUS: Considerations and Concerns," ISEAS Perspective, no. 2021/136 (2021).
  7. William Choong, "The South China Sea: Diplomacy on the Rocks," IISS Strategic Comments 18, no. 7 (2012).
  8. William Choong, "US Alliance Management in Southeast Asia," PhD diss., Australian National University, 2016.
  9. William Choong, "The Quad and ASEAN: Complementary or Competitive?" ISEAS Perspective, no. 2023/15 (2023).
  10. William Choong, "Defence Diplomacy in Singapore: Past, Present, Future," RSIS Commentary, no. CO19111 (2019).
  11. William Choong, "Managing US-China Competition: ASEAN's Middle Way," in Strategic Asia 2024, ed. Ashley J. Tellis (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2024).
  12. William Choong, "Trump's Asia Policy: The View from Southeast Asia," IISS Strategic Comments 23, no. 6 (2017).
  13. Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000).
  14. The Straits Times, various articles by William Choong as defence and diplomatic correspondent (2000--2010).
  15. ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Fulcrum platform, selected commentaries by William Choong (2017--2026).
  16. Ralf Emmers, Cooperative Security and the Balance of Power in ASEAN and the ARF (London: Routledge, 2003).
  17. Daljit Singh, ed., Southeast Asian Affairs, annual volumes with contributions by Choong (2018--2024).

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Version Date: 2026-04-02

Table of Contents

  1. Biographical Foundation
  2. Key Takeaways
  3. From the Newsroom to the World Stage: The Straits Times Years
  4. The IISS Period: Becoming a Strategic Analyst
  5. Core Framework: US Alliance Management in Asia
  6. The South China Sea: Power, Law, and the Limits of Diplomacy
  7. ASEAN Centrality: Defence and Critique
  8. AUKUS, the Quad, and Minilateral Security
  9. Singapore's Defence Diplomacy and Strategic Posture
  10. Sino-Japanese Relations and the History Problem
  11. The Indo-Pacific Concept: Embrace and Scepticism
  12. Trump, American Power, and Southeast Asian Anxieties
  13. Intellectual Style and Methodological Approach
  14. Assessment: Choong's Place in Singapore's Strategic Discourse

1. Biographical Foundation

William Choong occupies a distinctive niche in Singapore's strategic affairs community: a former defence and diplomatic correspondent who transitioned into think-tank scholarship, carrying with him the journalist's instinct for the timely and the analyst's demand for structural explanation. His career trajectory --- from the newsroom of The Straits Times to the corridors of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and then to the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore --- has made him one of the city-state's most prolific and widely read commentators on Asian security, US alliance politics, and ASEAN's role in the regional order.

Education and Early Career

Choong studied at the National University of Singapore before entering journalism. He joined The Straits Times, Singapore's newspaper of record, where he rose to become a senior correspondent covering defence and diplomatic affairs. In this role, which he held through the 2000s, Choong reported on Singapore's bilateral defence relationships, the Singapore Armed Forces' modernisation programmes, and the broader regional security environment. His reporting took him to defence exhibitions, military exercises, and diplomatic summits across the Asia-Pacific, giving him direct exposure to the practitioners --- defence ministers, military commanders, and foreign policy officials --- whose decisions he would later analyse from an academic perch.

The journalism years were formative. Choong developed a network of contacts across the defence establishments of Southeast Asia, the United States, Japan, and Australia that would serve him well in his subsequent think-tank career. More importantly, the newsroom instilled in him a preference for clear, jargon-free prose and a scepticism toward the abstract theorising that characterises much academic international relations writing. This stylistic quality --- accessible without being superficial --- would become a hallmark of his analytical work.

The IISS Years (c. 2010--2017)

Choong's move to the IISS in London marked his transition from journalist to strategic analyst. As Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security, he was embedded in one of the world's premier defence and security think tanks, founded in 1958 and long associated with the annual Military Balance assessment and the Shangri-La Dialogue --- the latter held annually in Singapore. At the IISS, Choong produced a stream of Strategic Comments, Survival articles, and Adelphi Papers contributions that established his reputation as a rigorous analyst of Asian security dynamics.

The IISS period also saw Choong complete his PhD at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where his doctoral research focused on US alliance management in Asia. This academic work provided the theoretical scaffolding for much of his subsequent analysis: the question of how the United States manages its bilateral alliance relationships in the Asia-Pacific, and what happens when allies' interests diverge from Washington's strategic priorities. The ANU connection also situated Choong within the vibrant Australian strategic studies community, which has long paid close attention to Southeast Asian security given Australia's geographic proximity and its own alliance relationship with Washington.

ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (2017--present)

Choong returned to Singapore to join ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, one of Southeast Asia's oldest and most respected area studies research centres, established in 1968. As Senior Fellow in the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme, he brought the IISS's global perspective back to a Singapore-based institution with deep regional expertise. At ISEAS, Choong has been a prolific contributor to the institute's ISEAS Perspective series and to Fulcrum, the institute's online commentary platform. He has also contributed chapters to the annual Southeast Asian Affairs volume and to edited volumes published by international research institutions.

At ISEAS, Choong has focused particularly on the intersection of great-power competition and Southeast Asian security --- a subject of growing urgency as US-China rivalry has intensified since approximately 2017. His work examines how ASEAN member states navigate the pressures of strategic competition, how minilateral security arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad interact with the existing ASEAN-centred architecture, and how Singapore's own defence diplomacy positions the city-state within these shifting dynamics.

2. Key Takeaways

  • Journalist turned strategist with a practitioner's eye. Choong's career arc from The Straits Times defence desk to the IISS and ISEAS gives his analysis a distinctive texture. Unlike scholars who approach security studies from purely theoretical frameworks, Choong writes with the immediacy of someone who has covered defence budgets, arms procurement decisions, and military exercises first-hand. His work consistently privileges empirical observation over abstract modelling, making him an effective translator between the worlds of policy and scholarship.

  • US alliance management as organising framework. The central intellectual contribution of Choong's career is his analysis of how the United States manages its hub-and-spoke alliance system in Asia. His doctoral research at ANU and his subsequent publications argue that alliance management is not a static condition but a dynamic process in which Washington must constantly calibrate its commitments, reassure allies of its reliability, and manage the divergent interests of partners whose threat perceptions do not always align with American priorities. This framework has become particularly relevant as US-China competition has raised questions about the credibility of American security guarantees.

  • ASEAN centrality as aspiration, not fact. Choong is sympathetic to the principle of ASEAN centrality --- the idea that the regional grouping should serve as the institutional hub for managing Asia-Pacific security --- but his analysis is persistently clear-eyed about the gap between aspiration and reality. He has documented how the rise of minilateral groupings (the Quad, AUKUS, trilateral arrangements) has challenged ASEAN's claim to centrality, and he has argued that ASEAN must adapt or risk marginality rather than assuming that centrality is a permanent entitlement.

  • Singapore's defence diplomacy as force multiplier. Choong has written extensively on how Singapore, despite its small size, projects strategic influence through defence diplomacy --- bilateral defence agreements, military exercises, hosting arrangements (such as the US Navy's logistics facility at Changi), and participation in multilateral security forums. His analysis frames defence diplomacy not as a supplement to military capability but as an integral component of Singapore's national security strategy, extending the city-state's strategic depth beyond its 728 square kilometres.

  • Critical engagement with the Indo-Pacific concept. While many Southeast Asian analysts have either embraced or rejected the Indo-Pacific framing, Choong has adopted a nuanced position. He recognises the concept's strategic utility --- particularly for the United States, Japan, India, and Australia --- but has cautioned that its implicit containment logic risks alienating ASEAN states that do not wish to be drawn into an anti-China coalition. His work traces the evolution of the Indo-Pacific concept from a geographic descriptor to a strategic framework and assesses its implications for ASEAN's own institutional architecture.

  • AUKUS as a stress test for regional order. Choong was among the earliest and most substantive analysts of the AUKUS pact's implications for Southeast Asia. Writing with Ian Storey in a widely cited 2021 ISEAS Perspective, he identified the concerns that AUKUS raised among ASEAN member states --- from nuclear proliferation anxieties to fears that the pact would accelerate an arms race in the region --- while also acknowledging that AUKUS reflected legitimate security concerns about China's military build-up. His analysis avoided both the alarmism and the dismissiveness that characterised much of the initial commentary.

  • The South China Sea as a barometer of regional order. Choong's extensive writings on the South China Sea disputes treat the issue not as an isolated territorial conflict but as a proxy for broader questions about the rules-based order in Asia. His analysis examines the interplay between international law (particularly the 2016 Hague tribunal ruling), military posturing, and diplomatic manoeuvring, consistently arguing that the South China Sea is the arena where the norms of the post-Cold War regional order are being tested and potentially rewritten.

  • Sino-Japanese relations and the uses of history. Choong's 2014 IISS book The Ties That Divide represents his most sustained scholarly contribution, examining how historical memory --- particularly of Japan's wartime conduct --- continues to shape Sino-Japanese relations. The book argues that history is not merely a legacy issue but an actively wielded instrument of statecraft, used by both Beijing and Tokyo to mobilise domestic constituencies and justify contemporary foreign policy positions. This analysis of historical memory as strategic tool has broader implications for understanding nationalism across East and Southeast Asia.

3. From the Newsroom to the World Stage: The Straits Times Years

William Choong's formative professional period was spent at The Straits Times, where he served as defence and diplomatic correspondent during a transformative period in Asian security. The years spanning approximately the late 1990s through 2010 encompassed the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis, the September 11 attacks and the subsequent "Global War on Terror," the rise of China as a military power, and the growing salience of the South China Sea disputes. As defence correspondent, Choong was required to cover these developments not from a distance but through direct engagement with the officials shaping them.

Covering Singapore's Defence Ecosystem

The defence beat at The Straits Times demanded an understanding of several overlapping domains. Singapore's defence establishment --- centred on the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) --- is one of the most capable in Southeast Asia, with a defence budget that has consistently ranked among the highest in the region in per capita terms. Choong reported on procurement decisions, including the SAF's acquisition of advanced fighter aircraft, naval platforms, and precision-guided munitions. He covered the evolution of National Service (NS), Singapore's conscription system, and the debates about its sustainability as demographic pressures intensified (see SG-D-03).

More significantly, Choong developed expertise in Singapore's bilateral defence relationships --- the web of defence cooperation agreements, military exercises, and training arrangements that extend the city-state's strategic reach. Singapore's defence diplomacy is unusually extensive for a country of its size: the SAF conducts regular exercises with the armed forces of the United States, Australia, India, France, and numerous ASEAN partners. The city-state hosts the US Navy's Logistics Group Western Pacific at Changi Naval Base and provides training areas in multiple countries (notably the United States, Australia, Taiwan, France, and Brunei) for its forces to compensate for Singapore's acute land constraints.

Choong's coverage of these arrangements gave him an intimate understanding of how defence diplomacy functions as a pillar of Singapore's national security --- a theme that would become central to his later analytical work (see SG-F-02, SG-F-08).

The Journalism-to-Analysis Pipeline

Singapore has produced a small but significant cohort of journalists who have transitioned into strategic analysis and policy commentary. Choong's path follows a pattern visible in other Singapore-based analysts who began in newsrooms before moving to research institutions. The journalism background confers certain advantages: familiarity with how policy is actually made (as opposed to how academic models suggest it should be made), an instinct for the newsworthy angle within complex policy questions, and a network of contacts who continue to provide off-the-record insights.

However, journalism also imposes limitations that Choong's subsequent academic work sought to overcome. News reporting operates on daily or weekly cycles that privilege the immediate over the structural. A defence correspondent can describe Singapore's purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, but explaining why Singapore's alliance with the United States has deepened while its economic dependence on China has grown simultaneously requires the kind of extended analytical framework that think-tank research permits. Choong's transition to the IISS and then ISEAS can be understood as an effort to develop precisely this structural perspective while retaining the journalist's empirical grounding.

4. The IISS Period: Becoming a Strategic Analyst

The International Institute for Strategic Studies, headquartered in London with an office in Singapore (IISS-Asia), provided Choong with a platform of global visibility. The IISS is best known for two flagship products: The Military Balance, an annual assessment of the world's armed forces, and the Shangri-La Dialogue, the premier defence summit in the Asia-Pacific, held each June at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. As Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security, Choong contributed to both endeavours while producing his own stream of analytical work.

Strategic Comments and Survival

The IISS's Strategic Comments series --- concise, two-to-four-page analyses of emerging security issues --- became one of Choong's primary vehicles. These publications demanded the kind of writing he had honed at The Straits Times: tightly argued, evidence-based, and free of academic jargon. His Strategic Comments covered a wide range of topics, from the South China Sea disputes and Sino-Japanese tensions to US force posture in Asia and defence spending trends in Southeast Asia. The format required Choong to distil complex developments into accessible analysis for a readership that included government officials, military officers, and corporate leaders --- a readership more interested in policy implications than theoretical novelty.

Choong also contributed to Survival, the IISS's bimonthly journal of international strategy, which occupies a niche between academic journals and policy magazines. His Survival articles tended to be more analytically ambitious than the Strategic Comments, exploring questions of alliance management, regional order, and the strategic implications of specific policy decisions. His 2021 article on AUKUS in Survival, for example, went beyond the immediate diplomatic fallout to examine what the pact revealed about the evolving structure of security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

The Ties That Divide (2014)

Choong's single most substantial scholarly contribution from the IISS period is The Ties That Divide: History, Honour and Territory in Sino-Japanese Relations, published as part of the IISS/Routledge series in 2014. The book examines the persistent friction between China and Japan, focusing on how historical memory --- particularly of Japan's wartime aggression in China --- interacts with contemporary territorial disputes (especially the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) and with both countries' pursuit of national honour in the post-Cold War international order.

The argument of The Ties That Divide is more nuanced than the standard narrative of Sino-Japanese rivalry. Choong contends that the history problem in Sino-Japanese relations is not simply a matter of unresolved grievances from the Second World War. Rather, it is an active and evolving political phenomenon in which both Beijing and Tokyo instrumentalise historical memory for domestic political purposes. Chinese leaders invoke Japan's wartime record to bolster nationalist legitimacy, particularly when the Communist Party faces domestic pressures. Japanese politicians' visits to the Yasukuni Shrine --- where Class-A war criminals are among those commemorated --- are not mere expressions of tradition but calculated political acts that resonate with conservative constituencies.

For Choong, the implications extend beyond the bilateral relationship. Sino-Japanese tensions affect the entire East Asian security architecture, influencing US alliance management (Washington must balance its alliance with Tokyo against its need for a working relationship with Beijing), ASEAN's ability to maintain a unified stance on regional issues, and the prospects for multilateral security cooperation in the broader Indo-Pacific. The book thus connects Choong's area expertise in Northeast Asian security to his broader interest in how historical legacies shape contemporary strategic dynamics.

5. Core Framework: US Alliance Management in Asia

The intellectual centrepiece of Choong's analytical work is his treatment of US alliance management in the Asia-Pacific. His PhD dissertation at the Australian National University, completed during his IISS tenure, provided a systematic examination of how the United States manages its bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia --- and how these alliance relationships interact with Washington's broader strategy toward China.

The Hub-and-Spoke System Under Stress

The US alliance system in Asia was constructed in the early Cold War period as a series of bilateral ("hub-and-spoke") relationships, in contrast to the multilateral NATO structure in Europe. Choong's analysis begins from the observation that this system, designed to contain Soviet influence and manage post-war Japan, has been repurposed --- imperfectly --- to address a fundamentally different strategic challenge: the rise of China as a peer competitor. The fit between the old structure and the new challenge is imperfect, and Choong's work explores the resulting tensions.

Key among these tensions is what alliance theorists call the "abandonment-entrapment" dilemma. US allies in Asia fear abandonment --- the possibility that Washington will reduce its commitment to their defence, whether through strategic retrenchment, budgetary pressures, or a "grand bargain" with Beijing. Simultaneously, they fear entrapment --- the possibility that Washington's confrontational approach to China will drag them into a conflict they do not want. Choong's analysis demonstrates that these fears are not abstract: they manifest in concrete policy debates about basing arrangements, freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, and the extent to which allies should participate in US-led initiatives aimed at constraining Chinese power.

Alliance Credibility and Reassurance

A recurring theme in Choong's work is the question of alliance credibility --- whether US security commitments in Asia are believed by allies and adversaries alike. He has traced how specific US actions (or inactions) affect perceptions of credibility: the Obama administration's failure to enforce its "red line" on chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, for example, reverberated across Asia as allies questioned whether Washington would honour its commitments when the costs of doing so were high. Conversely, the Trump administration's unpredictability on alliance commitments --- from suggesting that Japan and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons to demanding dramatically increased host-nation support --- introduced a new form of credibility deficit rooted not in weakness but in unpredictability (see SG-F-02, SG-F-12).

Choong's framework suggests that for small states like Singapore --- which is not a formal US ally but maintains a deep defence partnership --- the credibility of US engagement in Asia is a critical variable. Singapore's strategic posture depends on a stable regional balance that the US presence helps to underwrite. If allies like Japan and the Philippines lose confidence in American commitments, the entire security architecture on which Singapore's defence planning rests could be destabilised. This makes Choong's alliance-management framework directly relevant to Singapore's national security calculus.

Singapore's Non-Alliance Partnership

A distinctive contribution of Choong's work is his analysis of how states that are not formal US allies --- Singapore being the paradigmatic case --- relate to the alliance system. Singapore does not have a mutual defence treaty with the United States, but its defence relationship with Washington is arguably deeper and more operationally significant than those of some formal treaty allies. The 2005 Strategic Framework Agreement, the 2015 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, the hosting of US Navy littoral combat ships and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft at Changi, and the extensive bilateral exercise programme all testify to the depth of the relationship.

Choong has argued that Singapore's approach represents a deliberate strategy of gaining the benefits of close defence cooperation with the United States without the formal constraints of a treaty alliance. This gives Singapore greater flexibility --- it is not obligated to support US military operations, and it maintains robust defence relationships with other powers, including China, India, and Russia. But it also means that Singapore cannot invoke a treaty commitment in a crisis. Choong's analysis suggests that this ambiguity is a feature rather than a bug of Singapore's defence posture, reflecting the city-state's broader strategic philosophy of maximising options and avoiding being locked into any single alignment (see SG-F-01).

6. The South China Sea: Power, Law, and the Limits of Diplomacy

The South China Sea has been a persistent focus of Choong's analytical work, and his writings on the subject illustrate his broader approach to security issues: grounded in specific developments, attentive to the interplay of military and diplomatic factors, and cognisant of the gap between international legal norms and the realities of power politics.

The Disputes in Context

The South China Sea disputes involve overlapping territorial and maritime claims by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan across some 3.5 million square kilometres of strategically vital waters. Choong's analysis situates these disputes within a larger narrative about the nature of regional order in Asia. For Choong, the South China Sea is not primarily about fish, hydrocarbons, or even the specific islands and reefs in contention. It is about whether the regional order will be governed by international law and multilateral norms or by the assertion of power by the region's dominant state.

China's construction of artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago beginning in 2013--2014, and their subsequent militarisation with radar installations, missile batteries, and military airstrips, marked a qualitative shift in the disputes. Choong's IISS Strategic Comments on this subject documented the transformation of submerged reefs into military outposts and assessed the strategic implications for freedom of navigation, military surveillance, and the credibility of ASEAN's diplomatic efforts to manage the disputes through a Code of Conduct.

The 2016 Arbitral Tribunal Ruling

The July 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague --- in the case brought by the Philippines against China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) --- was a watershed moment. The tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in the Philippines' favour, finding that China's "nine-dash line" claim had no legal basis in international law. China rejected the ruling as "null and void."

Choong's analysis of the ruling and its aftermath was characteristically measured. He acknowledged the ruling's legal significance while cautioning that its practical impact would depend on whether states were willing to enforce it --- and on the broader trajectory of US-China competition. He noted that ASEAN's response to the ruling was fractured: the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte chose not to press the ruling but instead pursued a rapprochement with Beijing, while other claimant states like Vietnam adopted a more assertive posture. This fracturing of ASEAN unity on the South China Sea --- with Cambodia consistently blocking consensus statements critical of China --- illustrated the limits of the ASEAN-centred approach to dispute management that Choong had long analysed with a mixture of sympathy and scepticism.

Singapore's Position

Singapore is not a claimant state in the South China Sea disputes, but Choong's analysis has made clear that the city-state has significant interests at stake. As one of the world's busiest port states and a major maritime trading hub, Singapore has a vital interest in freedom of navigation through the South China Sea, through which roughly one-third of global shipping passes. Singapore also has a principled interest in the maintenance of international law --- as a small state, its survival depends on a rules-based order in which disputes are resolved through legal mechanisms rather than the application of superior force.

Choong has documented how Singapore's attempts to stake out a principled position on the South China Sea --- supporting the applicability of UNCLOS and the tribunal's ruling without taking sides on the underlying sovereignty disputes --- have at times generated friction with China. In 2016, following Singapore's statements in support of the ruling and its advocacy for stronger ASEAN language on the South China Sea, Beijing subjected Singapore to pointed diplomatic pressure, including the seizure of nine SAF Terrex armoured vehicles in transit through Hong Kong. Choong's analysis of this episode situated it within the broader pattern of Chinese coercion aimed at deterring smaller states from opposing Beijing's South China Sea claims.

7. ASEAN Centrality: Defence and Critique

ASEAN centrality --- the principle that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should serve as the primary platform for managing regional security affairs --- is a concept that Choong has engaged with throughout his career. His position is characteristic of a certain strand of Singaporean strategic thinking: supportive of ASEAN's institutional role in principle, but unsentimental about its limitations in practice.

The Architecture of ASEAN-Led Security

The post-Cold War security architecture in the Asia-Pacific was built around a set of ASEAN-centred institutions: the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), established in 1994 as the first pan-Asian multilateral security dialogue; the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), which brought together defence ministers from ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners; and the East Asia Summit (EAS), which expanded the conversation to include heads of government. Choong's work has traced how this architecture was designed to give ASEAN a convening role disproportionate to its collective military or economic weight, based on the proposition that no other institution or grouping was acceptable to all regional powers as a neutral platform.

In his 2022 ISEAS Perspective on "enlarging ASEAN's tent," Choong examined the pressures that this convening role faces. The fundamental problem, as Choong diagnoses it, is that ASEAN centrality rests on two assumptions that are increasingly in tension: first, that great powers will continue to invest in ASEAN-led institutions rather than bypassing them; and second, that ASEAN itself can maintain sufficient internal cohesion to act as a credible interlocutor. The rise of minilateral groupings --- the Quad, AUKUS, and various trilateral arrangements --- challenges the first assumption. The deepening divisions within ASEAN over Myanmar, the South China Sea, and relations with China challenge the second.

The Minilateral Challenge

Choong has been among the most thoughtful Southeast Asian analysts on the relationship between minilateral security groupings and the ASEAN-centred architecture. His analysis resists the binary framing that dominates much of the debate --- the idea that minilaterals are either complements to or competitors with ASEAN. Instead, Choong argues that the relationship is contingent: minilaterals complement ASEAN when they address issues that ASEAN itself cannot handle (such as advanced military interoperability among like-minded democracies), but they compete with ASEAN when they draw agenda-setting power away from ASEAN-led forums or when they signal a preference for exclusive groupings over inclusive ones.

In his 2023 ISEAS Perspective on the Quad and ASEAN, Choong examined whether the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue --- comprising the United States, Japan, India, and Australia --- was developing in ways that reinforced or undermined ASEAN's institutional centrality. He noted that the Quad's early framing as a "democratic security diamond" (a term coined by Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in 2012) had given way to a broader agenda encompassing vaccines, climate, technology, and maritime domain awareness. This expansion, Choong argued, had the paradoxical effect of making the Quad both less threatening to ASEAN (because it was no longer purely a military alignment) and more competitive (because it was encroaching on issue areas that ASEAN-led forums traditionally addressed).

Singapore's Balancing Act

For Singapore, the challenge of ASEAN centrality has specific implications that Choong has explored in depth. Singapore is both one of ASEAN's most institutionally committed members --- having hosted the ASEAN Secretariat functions in its early years and consistently championing ASEAN integration --- and one of the most willing to invest in bilateral and minilateral security arrangements outside the ASEAN framework. Singapore's deep defence partnership with the United States, its participation in Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) exercises with the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia, and its bilateral exercises with India, Japan, and France all sit outside the ASEAN-centred architecture (see SG-F-07, SG-F-08).

Choong has argued that Singapore does not see a contradiction between these parallel tracks. From Singapore's perspective, ASEAN centrality is a useful organising principle for regional diplomacy, but it cannot be the sole basis for the city-state's security. Singapore's defence needs are too acute --- and the threats it faces too immediate --- to be addressed through the consensus-based, lowest-common-denominator processes that ASEAN institutions inevitably produce. The ASEAN Regional Forum, for example, has never been able to address the South China Sea disputes in a meaningful way because of the requirement for consensus and China's ability to use sympathetic ASEAN members (particularly Cambodia) to block unfavourable outcomes.

8. AUKUS, the Quad, and Minilateral Security

The announcement of AUKUS in September 2021 --- a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, centred initially on providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarines --- was one of the most consequential developments in Indo-Pacific security in the post-Cold War era. Choong was among the first analysts to provide a systematic assessment of its implications for Southeast Asia.

The AUKUS Analysis

Writing with his ISEAS colleague Ian Storey in ISEAS Perspective no. 2021/136, Choong identified several distinct concerns that AUKUS raised among Southeast Asian states. First, there was the nuclear proliferation dimension: AUKUS would provide Australia with nuclear-powered (though conventionally armed) submarines, making it the first non-nuclear-weapon state to acquire such technology through a transfer from nuclear-weapon states. Southeast Asian states with strong nuclear non-proliferation credentials --- notably Indonesia and Malaysia --- worried that this precedent could weaken the global non-proliferation regime and potentially encourage other states to seek similar technology.

Second, Choong and Storey identified the risk that AUKUS would accelerate a qualitative arms race in the region. If Australia acquired nuclear-powered submarines optimised for long-range operations in contested waters, this could prompt China to expand its own submarine fleet and anti-submarine warfare capabilities, with cascading effects on the naval balance in the South China Sea and the broader Indo-Pacific. Southeast Asian states, most of which lack sophisticated submarine capabilities, feared being caught in a spiral of great-power military competition.

Third, and most significantly for the ASEAN-centrality debate, AUKUS raised questions about the architecture of regional security cooperation. The pact was negotiated in secret, without consultation with ASEAN or its members. This exclusion --- reminiscent of the major-power politics that ASEAN was designed to mitigate --- rankled regional sensibilities. Indonesia's foreign ministry issued a statement of "deep concern," while Malaysia's prime minister warned against provoking China.

Beyond Submarines: AUKUS Pillar II

Choong's subsequent analysis expanded beyond the submarine dimension to examine AUKUS Pillar II --- the technology-sharing component covering advanced capabilities such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, electronic warfare, and undersea capabilities. He argued that Pillar II was potentially more consequential for regional order than the submarine deal itself, because it signalled a deepening of the technology alliance among the three Anglophone partners that could create new divisions between those states with access to cutting-edge military technology and those without.

For Singapore, Choong noted, AUKUS Pillar II presented both opportunities and challenges. Singapore's advanced defence technology base and its close partnerships with all three AUKUS members positioned it to benefit from technology spillovers. But the exclusivity of AUKUS's technology-sharing arrangements could also complicate Singapore's strategy of maintaining diversified defence partnerships --- including with countries not aligned with the AUKUS grouping.

9. Singapore's Defence Diplomacy and Strategic Posture

Singapore's defence diplomacy has been a persistent theme throughout Choong's career, and his analysis represents one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject from a think-tank perspective. His work in this area draws directly on his earlier journalism experience, which gave him access to the practitioners --- defence ministers, military commanders, and defence attachés --- who execute Singapore's defence diplomacy on a daily basis.

The Logic of Defence Diplomacy for a Small State

Choong's analysis begins from the premise that defence diplomacy serves a qualitatively different function for a small state than for a great power. For the United States or China, defence diplomacy --- military exercises, port visits, defence cooperation agreements --- is a tool of influence projection, a way of extending strategic reach into regions of interest. For Singapore, defence diplomacy is existential: it compensates for the constraints of geography and demography that would otherwise leave the city-state dangerously vulnerable.

Singapore's territory is approximately 728 square kilometres --- smaller than many military training areas used by larger countries. Its population of approximately 5.9 million (of whom roughly 3.5 million are citizens and permanent residents) imposes severe manpower constraints on the Singapore Armed Forces, which depends on National Service conscripts to fill its ranks. These constraints mean that Singapore cannot achieve strategic depth through territorial buffer zones or mass mobilisation. Instead, it achieves strategic depth through relationships: training agreements that allow the SAF to conduct exercises in Australia, the United States, France, Germany, Taiwan, Brunei, India, and elsewhere; hosting arrangements that embed foreign military presences in Singapore's security calculus; and bilateral agreements that establish frameworks for intelligence sharing, logistics support, and operational coordination.

Choong has documented the extent of this defence-diplomatic network. Singapore maintains defence cooperation agreements with more than thirty countries. The SAF participates in major multilateral exercises including the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise hosted by the United States, the biennial Cobra Gold exercise in Thailand, and exercises under the FPDA framework. Singapore hosts the Shangri-La Dialogue, which Choong covered extensively during his IISS years, and which serves as an annual venue for defence ministers and military leaders to engage in both formal discussions and informal diplomacy.

The US-Singapore Defence Relationship

Within Choong's broader analysis of Singapore's defence diplomacy, the bilateral relationship with the United States occupies a central place. Choong has traced the evolution of this relationship from the Cold War era --- when Singapore provided logistics support to the US military presence in Southeast Asia --- through the post-Cold War period and into the current era of US-China competition. The key milestones include the 1990 Memorandum of Understanding granting US forces access to Singapore's military facilities (negotiated after the closure of US bases in the Philippines), the 2005 Strategic Framework Agreement, and the 2015 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement.

Choong's analysis highlights the asymmetry in the relationship. For the United States, Singapore is a valuable but not indispensable partner --- one node in a global network of military relationships. For Singapore, the US defence relationship is a strategic cornerstone, providing access to advanced military technology, intelligence sharing, and the implicit security assurance that comes from close partnership with the world's preeminent military power. Choong has argued that managing this asymmetry --- ensuring that the relationship remains robust even as US administrations change and US strategic priorities shift --- is a permanent challenge for Singapore's defence establishment (see SG-F-02).

10. Sino-Japanese Relations and the History Problem

Choong's 2014 book The Ties That Divide remains his most substantial and original scholarly contribution, and its arguments merit extended examination within the context of his broader intellectual profile. The book's central question --- why do history disputes continue to poison Sino-Japanese relations despite decades of economic interdependence and diplomatic engagement? --- has implications that extend well beyond the bilateral relationship.

The Argument

Choong rejects the common explanation that Sino-Japanese tensions over history are simply a product of Japan's failure to apologise adequately for its wartime conduct. While acknowledging that Japan's apologies have often been perceived as insufficient or insincere --- particularly when followed by contradictory actions such as prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine or revisionist statements by cabinet members --- Choong argues that the history problem is more structural than this narrative suggests.

The structural dimension, as Choong presents it, involves three interlocking factors. First, there is the domestic political utility of the history issue for both sides. In China, the Communist Party's narrative of national humiliation at the hands of Japan serves a legitimising function, particularly as ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism has waned and nationalism has become the primary source of regime legitimacy. In Japan, conservative politicians' engagement with the history issue --- including shrine visits and resistance to "masochistic" historical narratives --- appeals to a domestic constituency that views the post-war settlement as imposed and unjust.

Second, Choong identifies a structural honour competition between the two countries. As China has risen to become the world's second-largest economy and a major military power, it has demanded recognition commensurate with its status. Japan, meanwhile, has resisted a recalibration of the bilateral hierarchy, viewing itself as a more established and legitimate great power. The history issue becomes a proxy for this honour competition: China's insistence on Japanese contrition is, in part, a demand for deference, while Japan's resistance to perpetual apology is, in part, an assertion of sovereign dignity.

Third, Choong connects the history problem to territorial disputes, particularly over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. These disputes have escalated periodically since Japan's nationalisation of three of the islands in September 2012, an event that triggered massive anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities and a sustained Chinese maritime presence in the islands' vicinity. Choong argues that the territorial and historical dimensions are inseparable: Chinese claims to the islands are framed through the lens of wartime grievance (the islands were allegedly stolen as spoils of Japanese imperialism), while Japan's refusal to acknowledge even the existence of a dispute is interpreted in China as evidence of unrepentant militarism.

Implications for Southeast Asia

While The Ties That Divide focuses primarily on the Sino-Japanese relationship, Choong draws out implications for the broader region. The history problem in East Asia has echoes in Southeast Asia, where memories of Japanese occupation during the Second World War remain salient in countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, and Myanmar. Choong's analysis suggests that historical memory is not a declining force in international relations --- a proposition that liberal internationalists might expect as economic integration deepens and generations turn over --- but a persistent and potentially intensifying one, particularly when it is harnessed to nationalist political projects.

For ASEAN, the Sino-Japanese dynamic poses a particular challenge. ASEAN's institutional framework depends on maintaining productive relationships with both China and Japan, which are among the grouping's most important dialogue partners and sources of trade, investment, and development assistance. When Sino-Japanese tensions escalate, ASEAN states are placed in the uncomfortable position of having to navigate between two major partners whose conflict they cannot mediate and whose rivalry they cannot escape.

11. The Indo-Pacific Concept: Embrace and Scepticism

The concept of the "Indo-Pacific" --- a geographic and strategic framing that links the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean into a single strategic theatre --- has become one of the most consequential ideas in contemporary Asian security discourse. Choong has tracked the concept's evolution from its origins in Australian and Japanese strategic thinking through its adoption by the United States and its contested reception in Southeast Asia.

Origins and Adoption

The Indo-Pacific framing gained prominence through several channels. Australian strategic thinkers, notably Rory Medcalf, articulated the concept as early as 2007, arguing that the traditional "Asia-Pacific" framing was geographically and strategically inadequate to capture the growing interconnection between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo gave the concept political currency in his 2007 speech to the Indian Parliament on the "confluence of the two seas," and further elaborated it in his 2016 proposal for a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" (FOIP). The Trump administration's adoption of the FOIP language in its 2017 National Security Strategy and the subsequent rebranding of US Pacific Command as US Indo-Pacific Command in 2018 cemented the concept's place in the strategic lexicon.

Choong's 2019 article in the Australian Journal of International Affairs provided a careful assessment of the Indo-Pacific concept's strategic content and its reception in Southeast Asia. He argued that the concept had undergone a significant evolution: from a geographic descriptor emphasising the growing importance of the Indian Ocean to a strategic framework with implicit normative content (freedom, openness, rule of law) and a geopolitical subtext (balancing against China). This evolution, Choong suggested, made the concept simultaneously attractive to some and threatening to others.

Southeast Asian Ambivalence

Choong's analysis of Southeast Asian responses to the Indo-Pacific concept revealed a spectrum of positions rather than a uniform stance. Indonesia, under President Joko Widodo, articulated its own "Global Maritime Fulcrum" vision and later proposed an "ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific" (AOIP) in 2019 --- an effort to co-opt the Indo-Pacific framing while stripping it of its perceived anti-China orientation. The AOIP emphasised ASEAN centrality, inclusiveness, and development cooperation, in contrast to the Quad-associated FOIP's emphasis on security, freedom of navigation, and the rules-based order.

Choong noted that the AOIP was, in significant respects, a diplomatic holding action. It allowed ASEAN to claim engagement with the Indo-Pacific concept without committing to the strategic alignment that the concept's principal proponents --- the United States, Japan, India, and Australia --- envisaged. Whether the AOIP could serve as a substantive framework for regional cooperation, rather than merely a rhetorical device, remained an open question. Choong was candid about his scepticism: the AOIP lacked the institutional mechanisms, funding, and implementation roadmap that would be necessary to translate its principles into practical cooperation.

Singapore's Pragmatic Engagement

Singapore's approach to the Indo-Pacific concept, as Choong has analysed it, reflects the city-state's characteristic pragmatism. Singapore has embraced the Indo-Pacific terminology without subscribing to any single version of the concept. In practice, this means that Singapore participates in Quad-adjacent initiatives (such as infrastructure cooperation and maritime domain awareness) while maintaining its engagement with China-centred frameworks (including the Belt and Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership). Choong has argued that this approach allows Singapore to benefit from the strategic energy generated by the Indo-Pacific concept while avoiding the alignment dilemma that a full embrace of any one version would entail.

12. Trump, American Power, and Southeast Asian Anxieties

The presidency of Donald Trump (2017--2021, and again from 2025) has been a recurring subject in Choong's analysis, and his treatment of the topic illustrates his broader approach to the question of American reliability in Asia. Choong's analysis of the Trump phenomenon is notable for its refusal to treat it as an aberration, instead situating it within longer-term trends in American foreign policy and domestic politics.

The First Trump Term

Choong's 2017 IISS Strategic Comments on "Trump's Asia Policy" identified several features of the new administration's approach that troubled Southeast Asian governments. First, the transactional nature of Trump's foreign policy --- his tendency to evaluate international relationships in terms of their immediate, measurable benefits to the United States --- sat uneasily with the relationship-based diplomacy that ASEAN states preferred. Second, Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017, within days of taking office, signalled a retreat from the kind of economic engagement that Southeast Asian governments viewed as the essential complement to US security commitments. Third, Trump's unpredictable personal diplomacy --- the rapid oscillation between threats and flattery in his dealings with North Korea's Kim Jong-un, the erratic signals on Taiwan, and the periodic suggestions that allies were free-riding on American security --- introduced a level of uncertainty that small states like Singapore found deeply unsettling.

Choong's analysis of the first Trump term drew on the annual ISEAS State of Southeast Asia survey, which tracks elite perceptions of great-power engagement in the region. The survey data consistently showed that confidence in US reliability declined during the Trump years, while hedging behaviour --- including deeper engagement with China and with middle powers such as Japan and the European Union --- increased. Choong used this data to argue that the Trump presidency was accelerating a pre-existing trend toward strategic diversification in Southeast Asia, rather than creating an entirely new dynamic.

The Return of Trump and Its Implications

The return of Trump to the presidency in January 2025 has, in Choong's analysis, intensified the anxieties that his first term produced. The second Trump administration's early moves --- including tariff escalation, pressure on allies for increased defence spending, and transactional approaches to security commitments --- have raised questions about whether the US-led regional order that has underpinned Southeast Asian security for decades will survive in recognisable form. Choong has argued that the second Trump term poses an even greater challenge to ASEAN states than the first, because the institutional guardrails that constrained Trump's impulses in 2017--2021 (experienced cabinet officials, a functioning interagency process, congressional resistance) have been weakened.

For Singapore specifically, Choong has noted that the second Trump term creates a particularly acute dilemma. Singapore's strategic model depends on a stable US presence in Asia --- not because Singapore is a US vassal, but because the US presence sustains the balance of power that allows small states to maintain their autonomy. If the United States under Trump becomes a disruptive rather than a stabilising force, Singapore's entire strategic calculus requires adjustment. Choong has been careful not to overstate this risk --- Singapore's leaders have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to manage relationships with difficult US administrations --- but he has flagged it as the central challenge facing Singapore's defence planners in the late 2020s (see SG-F-02, SG-F-12).

13. Intellectual Style and Methodological Approach

Choong's intellectual style reflects his hybrid career straddling journalism and scholarship. Understanding this style is essential for situating his work within Singapore's broader strategic discourse, which includes voices as diverse as the combative realism of Bilahari Kausikan (see SG-H-THINK-01), the grand-strategic ambition of Kishore Mahbubani (see SG-H-THINK-06), and the diplomatic elegance of Chan Heng Chee (see SG-H-THINK-07).

The Journalist-Analyst Synthesis

Choong's writing is characterised by several qualities that distinguish it from both conventional academic analysis and typical think-tank commentary. First, there is a consistent emphasis on specificity: his analysis is anchored in concrete developments --- particular exercises, specific procurement decisions, named individuals, dated events --- rather than floating at the level of abstract strategic concepts. When Choong writes about ASEAN centrality, he does not discuss the concept in isolation but examines how it played out in a specific summit, a particular chairman's statement, or a named foreign minister's intervention.

Second, Choong displays a preference for moderate, carefully hedged positions. He is neither a relentless optimist about ASEAN's institutional potential nor a dismissive critic. He neither cheerleads the US alliance system nor pronounces it doomed. This moderation is not equivocation --- Choong is willing to state clear conclusions --- but it reflects an awareness, honed in the newsroom, that complex situations rarely admit of simple characterisations. In an intellectual ecosystem where provocation often generates more attention than nuance, Choong's measured approach has earned him a reputation as a reliable rather than a sensational analyst.

Third, Choong's work is notable for its accessibility. His prose avoids the jargon, acronym inflation, and theoretical apparatus that make much security studies scholarship impenetrable to non-specialists. This accessibility is not achieved at the cost of analytical depth --- his Survival articles and his book on Sino-Japanese relations engage seriously with academic debates --- but it reflects a conscious choice to write for the informed general reader rather than exclusively for the academic community. This choice is consistent with Choong's institutional affiliations: both the IISS and ISEAS prioritise policy relevance and public engagement over purely academic publication.

Positioning Within Singapore's Strategic Discourse

Within Singapore's community of strategic thinkers, Choong occupies a specific niche. He is less combative than Bilahari Kausikan, whose intellectual persona is built on deliberate provocation and the willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. He is less ambitious in scope than Kishore Mahbubani, whose work engages with civilisational-level questions about the Western and Asian orders. And he is more focused on defence and security than Chan Heng Chee, whose expertise spans diplomacy, political science, and the arts.

Choong's niche is the operational level of strategic analysis: the specific mechanisms through which security relationships are built and maintained, the concrete challenges that alliance management poses, and the particular disputes and institutional developments that shape the regional order. This operational focus makes his work particularly valuable for practitioners --- defence officials, military planners, and diplomats --- who need analysis that is directly relevant to their daily work rather than pitched at the level of grand strategy.

Choong's approach also reflects a generational shift in Singapore's strategic community. The founding generation of Singapore's foreign policy thinkers --- exemplified by S. Rajaratnam and anchored in the existential anxieties of the separation era --- developed a strategic culture that was instinctively realist and deeply suspicious of international institutions' capacity to protect small states. Choong belongs to a subsequent generation that takes Singapore's survival as given (if not guaranteed) and is more willing to engage constructively with multilateral institutions while remaining clear-eyed about their limitations.

14. Assessment: Choong's Place in Singapore's Strategic Discourse

William Choong's intellectual contribution to Singapore's strategic discourse rests on several distinctive strengths that, taken together, make him one of the city-state's most important voices on defence and security affairs.

The Bridge Function

Choong's most significant contribution is arguably his bridge function --- his ability to connect different worlds that often operate in isolation. He bridges journalism and scholarship, bringing the journalist's empiricism to academic analysis and the scholar's structural thinking to policy-relevant commentary. He bridges the global and the regional, having worked at a London-based think tank with a worldwide remit before returning to a Singapore-based institute with deep Southeast Asian expertise. And he bridges the bilateral and the multilateral, analysing specific defence relationships (US-Japan, US-Singapore, US-Australia) within the broader context of regional institutional architectures (ASEAN, the Quad, AUKUS).

This bridge function is particularly valuable in a small state like Singapore, where the strategic community is necessarily compact and where the distance between the analyst and the policymaker is short. Choong's work informs Singapore's defence policymakers not through privileged access or formal advisory roles (he is an independent analyst, not a government official), but through the quality and relevance of his analysis. His ISEAS Perspective pieces are read within MINDEF and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His contributions to Southeast Asian Affairs are part of the annual analytical landscape against which Singaporean policymakers assess the regional environment.

Contributions to the Analytical Infrastructure

Choong has also contributed to building the analytical infrastructure through which Singapore's strategic community understands the external environment. His doctoral work on US alliance management provided a systematic framework for analysing a set of relationships that are central to Singapore's security. His book on Sino-Japanese relations offered a model for how historical memory interacts with contemporary strategy --- an analytical lens applicable to Singapore's own neighbourhood, where historical grievances (from the Japanese Occupation to Konfrontasi) continue to shape bilateral relationships. His work on AUKUS and the Quad has helped to frame the debate about how Singapore should respond to the proliferation of minilateral security groupings.

Limitations and Critiques

No analyst is without limitations, and Choong's work is no exception. His focus on the state-to-state level of analysis --- defence agreements, military exercises, alliance management --- means that his work pays relatively less attention to the domestic political factors that shape defence and security policy. The role of public opinion, civil society, and domestic political competition in shaping Singapore's defence posture receives less treatment in his work than the external strategic environment. Similarly, his focus on conventional security issues leaves less room for the non-traditional security agenda --- transnational terrorism, cybersecurity, pandemic preparedness, climate security --- that has become increasingly central to the regional security discourse.

Additionally, Choong's measured, moderate analytical style, while a strength in terms of reliability, can sometimes understate the urgency of the developments he analyses. The careful hedging and balanced assessment that characterise his work may, at times, obscure the sharpness of the choices that Singapore and its ASEAN neighbours face. Where Bilahari Kausikan's provocative framing forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths, Choong's more temperate approach can allow readers to remain within their analytical comfort zones.

Legacy and Ongoing Relevance

These limitations notwithstanding, Choong's body of work represents a significant and ongoing contribution to Singapore's understanding of its strategic environment. As US-China competition intensifies, as the regional security architecture undergoes its most significant transformation since the end of the Cold War, and as Singapore confronts the challenge of maintaining its strategic autonomy in an era of great-power polarisation, the questions that Choong's work addresses --- How reliable are American commitments? Can ASEAN centrality survive? How should Singapore manage its defence relationships? --- are among the most consequential facing the city-state.

Choong's career trajectory itself embodies a proposition about how small states can generate strategic knowledge. Singapore cannot sustain large defence bureaucracies or extensive intelligence agencies on the scale of great powers. It compensates, in part, through the quality of its analytical community --- a community in which journalists become scholars, scholars advise policymakers, and the feedback loop between analysis and action is unusually short. William Choong's journey from the Straits Times newsroom to the IISS to ISEAS illustrates this proposition in practice, and his work continues to shape the terms of Singapore's strategic debate.

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