SINGAPORE, June 27 -- Singapore must heighten vigilance across various fronts due to escalating global conflicts that could see it becoming "collateral in other people's fight", its Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing said this week.

Speaking to Singaporean reporters earlier this week, Chan said the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is continuously dealing with a wide spectrum of threats across its four service branches, as the country navigates a state that is neither conventional war nor peace.

"Today, we are not at war in the conventional sense, neither are we at peace in the conventional sense," he was quoted saying by The Straits Times.

"We are always operating somewhere in between, with different gradations. And that's what keeps us on ou...