Singapore and GCAP: Developing Future Defence Capabilities Amidst Strategic Uncertainty

Singapore’s reported interest in joining the Italy-Japan-UK Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is notable both in terms of its potential capability implications and wider strategic significance.

GCAP is developing a sixth-generation crewed fighter. The aircraft is intended to enter service from 2035 (potentially even from 2033). Canada has joined the programme as an observer, with other states including Australia also interested in the programme. By means of comparison, the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) F-15SG is a fourth-generation aircraft, while the F-35 is fifth generation. The latter incorporates various signature reduction measures (such as stealth), internal weapons carriage, advanced avionics and sensor fusion. Together, they provide a significant step up in capability compared to earlier generations of aircraft. GCAP is intended to provide a highly stealthy, advanced AI-enabled platform providing a significant improvement in range and payload over older types of fighters. GCAP also has an integrated sensing and non-kinetic effects and integrated communications system. It will also form part of a wider multi-domain system of systems, including operating alongside uncrewed aircraft via crewed-uncrewed teaming (CUC-T – an area the RSAF is exploring). 

The RSAF currently operates 59 F-16C/Ds and 40 F-15SGs with 20 F-35s (comprising 12 “B” and eight “A” variants) on order. The first F-35 will arrive in 2026, with the rest due to be delivered by 2030. The acquisition of the F-35 may indicate a potential approach to GCAP: Singapore began evaluating the type in 2004, first as a Security Cooperation Participant, and ordered an initial four-aircraft batch in 2020. Similarly, it could join GCAP as an observer with an actual procurement occurring much later. In his remarks to the Committee of Supply Debates in February 2024, then-Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen stated that the “F-35s, when operational, will put the RSAF in the premier league”.

Sixth-generation combat air systems represent the cutting edge of defence aerospace, with programmes underway in the US (the F-47 and naval F/A-XX), China (the J-36 and J-XDS) and South Korea. Spain and Germany are considering their options following the collapse of the Franco-German-Spanish collaborative Future Combat Air System programme, and France is pursuing a national effort. India has also expressed interest in joining a sixth-generation programme.

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia continues to modernise its airpower, including entering into an initial agreement to acquire the Turkish fifth-generation KAAN fighter. Vietnam has expressed interest in the Russian Sukhoi Su-57. Malaysia is considering options for a next-generation fighter, with candidates including the Chinese J-35A, Turkish KAAN, and South Korean KF-21EX (all fifth-generation types). An RSAF in the 2040s centred on GCAP, the F-35, upgraded F-15SGs and potentially uncrewed combat aircraft, would put it in the ‘premier league’, with significant strategic implications.  

A potential GCAP acquisition would provide the Singapore Armed Forces with a potent, world-class capability and enhance interoperability with like-minded allies.

A core aspect of GCAP is industrial and technological sovereignty, in particular reduced dependence on and exposure to US technology. The F-35, while providing advanced kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities, brings with it constraints on operational sovereignty and dependence on the US. The potential consequences of such dependence on the US have assumed much greater importance in strategic debates, given the uncertainties and idiosyncrasies surrounding the Trump administration. In a March 2026 interview, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, described this in stark terms: “The underwriter of this world order has now become a revisionist power, and some people would even say a disruptor”. The implication, as Dr Balakrishnan explained, was to continue to pursue a national policy which confers “strategic choice [and] strategic autonomy”. Although the US may no longer be the guarantor of global order, that order itself can be sustained, ironically even without Washington.  As William James explains: “While many US partners are hedging, the core allies are doing the opposite: working with Washington and increasingly with each other to keep the existing order standing”. Arrangements such as GCAP are designed without Washington’s involvement, but remain “true to the order it built”.

A Singaporean interest in GCAP can be seen in this light: it would provide both strategic choice and autonomy, develop and deepen connections with allies such as Japan and the UK while also maintaining interoperability with the US. To use the traditional hub-and-spokes terminology, deeper integration and interoperability between the “spokes” (US allies and increasingly, strategic partners of the US) keep these “spokes” connected to the “hub”. This is important given the prevalence of US systems in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), including, for example, the F-15SG, F-16C/D, AH-64, the forthcoming F-35A/B and P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. This also provides the basis for deepening defence cooperation with key regional allies such as Japan and Australia as well as the potential development of new capabilities. In this context, GCAP could provide a second avenue for cooperation, that is, for the acquisition of uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) such as the MQ-28 Ghost Bat or the BAE Systems’ Brontanax. A key driver for CCAs is to provide air forces with advanced capabilities at much lower cost compared to crewed aircraft, and leveraging CUC-T.           

While it is impossible to accurately predict the strategic environment of the late 2030s or 2040s, the requirement for advanced and robust defence capabilities will be enduring. Given the highly fluid nature of the strategic environment and its inherent unpredictability, developing defence policies that provide long-term strategic choice and autonomy are valuable. A potential GCAP acquisition would provide the SAF with a potent, world-class capability and enhance interoperability with like-minded allies. Given that these allies are also committed to the rules-based international order, it would contribute to regional and international security and stability.    

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