There has been a four-fold increase in the defence budget in the past two decades - from RM1.7 billion in 1981 to RM4.8 billion in 2001 - Deputy Defence Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal told the Dewan Rakyat today.

He said during the communist insurgency the military operation was focused o­n "counter-insurgency warfare" that emphasised o­n the infantry force.

He added that after the communist surrender in the late 1980s and due to changes in the region, the focus shifted to "conventional warfare force" which provided "a balanced force" among the infantry, navy and the air force.

Mohd Shafie was responding to a question from Raja Ahmad Zainuddin Raja Omar (BN-Larut) who asked Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak to state the difference between the budget allocation during the communist insurgency and now.

Elaborating further, the deputy minister stressed that these changes required yearly budgets to aid the purchase and maintenance of the high-tech military equipment used by the three divisions of the military.

Several factors

In view of this, Mohd Shafie said the defence budget increased by 47 percent from 1981 to 1991.

The deputy minister explained that the defence budget was drafted based o­n the operational concept, manpower, military equipment and the policy of the government of the day, among other factors.

At present, he said, besides the deployment of high-tech military equipment, the number of military personnel had also increased significantly.

On the evacuation of Malaysians in Iraq and other Middle-East countries should US launch a war o­n Iraq, Shafie said air force planes would be used to evacuate them.

What is important now, he said, was to first ascertain the whereabouts of these Malaysians to facilitate the evacuation process.