While the FIFA Manager inside me rejoices to ogle these stats as if our SAF generals were European Footballers waiting for a transfer to PSG, the more important question is, how? How did these officers get promoted to Generals to the first place?

This is where it gets tricky because SAF’s appraisal/promotion system is more complicated than Game Of Thrones.

And like many things in Singapore, it all began with LKY.

Before that, the SAF promotion system was based on time, exams, and your superior officer giving you a thumbs-up. This was naturally quite nebulous, so LKY decided to borrow an appraisal system from the most unlikely of places: Royal Dutch Shell. The Shell System introduced the idea of Current Estimated Potential (CEP), defined as the highest rank/appointment that a person could ‘handle competently’ within an organisation before retirement.

In less flattering terms, you could see it as ‘camo ceiling’ which determines whether you Hentak Kaki at Lieutenant Colonel or SMRT CEO.

Rather hilariously, an officer’s CEP is defined by the amount of HAIR he possesses. HAIR being short for the four cardinal virtues of Helicopter Vision, Analytical Power, Imagination, and Reality. I don’t want to go management consultant on you, but suffice to say, HAIR is used to “identify and nurture talented individuals” in the SAF. Alongside performance reports, it is used to evaluate and promote officers.

CEP is kept secret even from the officers because of how depressing it would be to learn that the organisation you serve considers you an inferior specimen (ie. ‘affect morale’). However, one can make an educated guess based on, well, education.

As Prof Ling explains, “Perhaps there is no greater influence on CEP than an individual officer’s level of education.”

The official rhetoric from the SAF claims that “we don’t see ourselves constrained by whether an officer is a graduate or not” (Permanent Secretary Lim Siong Guan), although this is contradicted by the testimony of ex-officers, one of whom claims that “Even grades within degrees have at times proven significant”.

Other retired generals agree. Even with the “best intentions”, an assessor “could not help but be influenced by the educational qualifications of the assessed”. (Colonel Menon)

Scholar-officers, by virtue of their prestigious Oxbridge/Ivy League education, would naturally have an edge over the rest. However, they also enjoy other advantages over their peers.

They are more “visible” in the military hierarchy, and “this is a big advantage because it gets you more projects and better appointments” (LTC Dominic Ng, SAFOS 1972). Crucially, they are also given “second chances” and “the benefit of the doubt” by a system that considers them “better than the rest until proven otherwise”. Many are “specially groomed by the organization”, while non-scholar peers have to “seize opportunities” and take “career-wagering risks”.

Or, as one general recalls: “COs might be hesitant to take action against scholars because of their ‘halo’ where they are predestined to rise to high positions. That being said, many who get there do deserve it.”