KUALA LUMPUR: When Russian President Vladimir Putin flew home on Thursday after a two-day visit to Malaysia, he left $900 million dollars richer and confident that Russia had finally pried opened a rich and yet untapped Southeast Asian market for high-technology Russian weapons.

Malaysia was happy too — to get a squadron of advanced Sukhoi MK30 fighter jets, paying $270 million of the $900 million Sukhoi deal in palm oil — the country’s leading export.

Additionally, Russia will send a Malaysian into space and on the Experimental Space Station by 2005 — an important psychological booster for the government.

The Sukhoi MK30s is the latest addition to Malaysia’s shopping basket bristling with powerful and deadly weapons that money can buy — and all acquired since 2000.

The shopping list includes F/A 18 F fighters from the United States, battle tanks from Poland, submarines from France, MIG 29s from Russia, long-range helicopters and Jernas missile defence system from Britain, heat-seeking missiles from Ukraine, multiple-launch rockets from several countries.

Also coming up are early warning airborne systems worth 4 billion ringgit ($1.05 billion).

Officials estimate at $6 billion the cost of these upcoming purchases, increasingly viewed as Malaysia’s arms race vis-a-vis neighbouring Singapore, the region’s most powerful country in military terms.

“No, there is no an arms race. Malaysia is just upgrading and modernizing its armed forces. It is a process that was delayed for a long time,” said defence analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, executive director of the Centre for Strategic Studies.

He said that Malaysian military hardware was dangerously becoming obsolete compared to the sophisticated purchases Singapore was steadily acquiring.

“Now that the economy is up, the government is completing previously planned purchases,” he told IPS, adding that the purchases were essential because of the changing regional security environment.

He said Malaysia had battled an internal communist threat and was now looking outward and arming itself to defend its long shoreline and far-flung islands.

But Malaysia’s purchases are also coming against the backdrop of a changing security environment. Rather than becoming simplified in the post-Cold War era, this environment has become more complex what with the competition for resources, markets and emergence of new threats like terrorism and re-emergence of old threats like piracy.

The end of the Suharto era in 1998 and the internal breakdown of Indonesian society, for instance, had been an ominous development for Malaysia, which shares the Straits of Malacca with Indonesia.

“Although Southeast Asian countries are all part of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), except for East Timor, there are strong undercurrents of tension and suspicion,” said a senior editor of the Asian Defence Journal.

“Tension and mistrust among neighbours in a new and changing environment is a key reason for the military purchases,” he said. “The regional buying spree is part of the process of modernising and upgrading of military capabilities to face regional threats.”

Among South-east Asian nations, Singapore, Malaysia and to a lesser extent Thailand are blamed for the arms build-up in the region. Lately Indonesia too acquired Sukhoi MK30s from Russia.

“Singapore is the better armed nation in Southeast Asia and had been consistent in acquisition even during the 1997 financial crisis,” said Razak Baginda.

“The acquisition gives the impression that Malaysia is on an arms buying spree but the truth is that these purchases were planned over many years,” he said. He however agreed that other nations might see the arms purchases as “catching up” to a advanced Singapore.

“We are all friends in Southeast Asia...there are no enemies here,” said Razak Baginda who is influential with the Malaysian defence ministry.

Southeast Asian countries face new security threats besides traditional worries like the environment, migration and health issues. But increasingly, seeing other countries as a potential threat is a major preoccupation.

“The stable security environment of the region in future is not assured. Recent developments within and beyond the region will definitely pose challenges to national security,” said Mohamad Apdal, Malaysia’s deputy defence minister.

“This does not mean we are going to war with any country...it is prudent to prepare an umbrella before it rains,” he said this week.

The change is reflected in the country’s defence budget that jumped nearly threefold from 1.7 billion ringgit ($44.7 4 million) in 1981 to 4.8 billion ringgit ($1.26 billion) in 2001.

Much of the perception of Malaysia as a threat comes from Singapore, which was part of Malaysia until the city-state left in acrimony in 1965. Since then, ties have had their ups and downs and both states fiercely compete for the same markets and foreign investments.

Singapore has always been ahead of Malaysia with mobile firepower and high technological weapons system, until now.

“Malaysia has narrowed the gap considerably,” said Razak Baginda, who denied that there was an arms race between the two countries. But looking at the purchase and counter purchase, defence specialists see just that.

For example, in 1996 Singapore bought four Swedish Sjoormen-class submarines, the first in the region. Now Malaysia and Indonesia have ordered their own submarines.

In 1999 Singapore bought multi-role F-16C Fighting Falcons. Malaysia, Indonesia followed with MIG 29s, F/A 18s and now with the Sukhoi MK30s.

In March 2000, Singapore bought six French-designed stealth frigates. Malaysia answered with various anti-ship missiles systems.

To narrow the gap, Malaysia acquired multiple launch rockets. Singapore bought Apache helicopters and added more when Malaysia answered with starburst missiles and SAM surface-to-air batteries, which are effective against low-flying Apache helicopters.

Singapore this year added additional Apaches with enhanced “fire forget” missiles and all-weather capabilities.

These Singapore purchases have raised eyebrows within Southeast Asia and appear to have unnerved Malaysia, Derek da Cunha, a senior researcher at the Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies wrote in a 2002 paper on regional security.

But Malaysia leaders were quick to assure Singapore that the weapons were purely for defensive purposes.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.