All well-designed and well-planned objects, action plans, business models and institutions will fail, sooner or later (The power of negative thinking, Oct 24).

The proper use of negative thinking can help us prevent a failure. It can enable us to be better prepared to face a failure.

In the 1980s, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew warned us not to take for granted that our new and young nation would survive a hundred years.

In 2013, Mr Lee raised this concern again in his book One Man's View Of The World.

Mr Lee's worry was that should a future generation elect an incompetent government, the country would go downhill.

We must be mindful of other traps and dangers that would wreck our destiny, such as failures in sustaining racial harmony, in integrating new citizens into society or in tackling the disparity gaps among social groups, as well as deterioration in the standard of civil service or defence, or a decline in our global competitiveness.

The situation in the region has become more volatile recently. Besides the pending territory disputes and trade wars, there are the lingering pandemic and social and political unrest in some countries.

An escalation or outburst of any of these would result in serious implications for Singapore.

We need to take a proactive stance to deal with these potential internal and external hazards. We must maintain a strong capability to safeguard ourselves in any eventualities.

Albert Ng Ya Ken