Sustainability framework for the Malaysian Defence Industry towards achieving the principle of self-reliance

The defence industry is of great importance to a country as it serves as a catalyst for capacity building and creating high-value-added products to boost the country's economy. Furthermore, the industry is essential to its armed forces and can support self-reliant armed forces by enhancing their defence capability and readiness. The Malaysian Defence Industry was spurred in 1972 through the privatisation of SME Ordnance and AIROD. The government has allocated relatively enormous defence funding to increase the readiness and resilience of the Malaysian Armed Forces. However, the defence industry in Malaysia has experienced various problems and challenges in recent years. These problems and challenges have negatively impacted the development of the local defence industry and affected efforts to modernise and increase the capabilities and readiness of the Malaysian Armed Forces. At the same time, the country's desire and aspiration to achieve self-reliance are among the fundamental principles of the National Defence Policy and the Defence White Paper. Therefore, the defence industry must support the country's aspirations to develop and produce indigenous military products and not rely on foreign manufacturers. Therefore, this study aims to explore the potential of the sustainability framework in the Malaysian defence industry towards achieving the principle of self-reliance. In this study, qualitative research is used as a methodological method by analysing the data obtained through interviews with 21 research participants that are prominent personnel in the local defence industry, literature studies, and related national defence policy and using Thematic Data Analysis and ATLAS.ti as a medium for analysing research data. The findings obtained from this study are the development of this industry has yet shown the desired performance or is comparable enough to neighbouring countries, such as Singapore and Indonesia, that have successfully reached the second tier in arms manufacturing (RQ1), the implementation by the Government of Malaysia is not as expected by most defence industry players. The development of the national defence industry has not shown significant improvement (RQ2), implementing sustainability elements related to defence and the Malaysian defence industry sector has yet to be demonstrated either by the government or the local defence companies (RQ3), various challenges are faced by the government and relevant local defence industry companies in the Malaysian defence industry (RQ4) and the government and local defence industry players need to embark on new opportunities. These will create the potential for the best practices to drive the national defence industry towards the principle of self-reliance (RQ5). At the end of this study, as a contribution to this study, a sustainability framework is proposed to strengthen the development and sustainability of the national defence industry in the framework.