We came across a post on Facebook that claims 36 per cent of Singaporeans are willing to fight for their country — the lowest figure among all countries in ASEAN. Citing surveys by globally renowned market research agencies YouGov and Ipsos, the post claims that most ASEAN countries have more than 50 per cent of their citizens willing to defend their country, while Singapore shows a “lower willingness among youths”.

While the post currently has low reach with 1100 likes and 190 shares, the infographic has since been shared on multiple popular Reddit and Facebook pages, including r/SMRTRabak, r/SingaporeRaw and Complaint Singapore. The original post was published by the page SouthEast Asian Gallery on 12 August 2026, just days after Singapore’s National Day celebrations. Given the significance of the military and National Service to the community, we took a closer look to understand the validity and significance of the claim.

Is this survey real?

We could not find any YouGov and Ipsos survey, joint or otherwise, on ASEAN willingness to fight for one’s country. Neither firm appears to have published anything matching this topic, timeframe, or country grouping.

The genuine, widely cited survey on this exact question is the WIN/Gallup International Global Survey, conducted in 2014 and published in 2015. That survey found that 89 per cent of Vietnamese respondents were willing to fight for their country matching the figure in the Facebook graphic exactly. However, the graphic’s other figures do not hold up: the same survey found that 72 per cent of Thai respondents were willing to fight, not the 84 per cent claimed in the graphic, and 63 per cent of Malaysian respondents, not the 64 per cent claimed. Singapore’s claimed figure of 36 per cent does not appear anywhere in that survey’s published results.

Recent data, both from Singapore’s government and independent researchers, paints a very different picture from the graphic’s claimed 36 per cent.

Singapore’s Ministry of Defence’s (MINDEF) most recent Total Defence survey, conducted in 2024, found that about 90 per cent of respondents said they were willing to play their part in Total Defence, a broader concept spanning military, civil, economic, social, psychological and digital defence.

A separate, independent study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) at the National University of Singapore, funded by MINDEF but conducted independently, surveyed over 1,000 Singaporeans and permanent residents aged 17 and above in 2023. It found that 93 per cent supported mandatory National Service, and 88 per cent said they would encourage friends and family to serve even if it were made optional. The proportion who strongly agreed that National Service remains necessary even without an immediate threat to Singapore rose from about 40 per cent a decade earlier to nearly 60 per cent in the latest wave. MINDEF’s own response to the study said it was “encouraged by the strong support for NS from the study findings.”

Separately, a Black Dot Research dipstick survey conducted in April 2025, of 193 respondents in Singapore, found similarly high levels of support: 83.4 per cent agreed National Service is important for the country, 83.3 per cent agreed defence should be a top government priority, and 61.6 per cent agreed that individuals who have completed National Service have the capabilities to defend the country. As a dipstick survey with a comparatively small sample, this was not intended to be nationally representative.

None of these three data sources – one government, one independent academic, and one of our own – resembles a country where only 36 per cent of people support their own defence.

Therefore, we rate the claim that only 36 per cent of Singaporeans are willing to defend their country as false. No underlying YouGov or Ipsos survey on this topic could be found, the figure does not appear in the genuine global survey from which the graphic’s most widely cited statistic is drawn, and it runs contrary to multiple current, credible surveys – both government and independent – on Singaporean attitudes towards national defence.