For a country that is an Island you'd think that the question of whether or not it is 'national-strategic' would have been answered in the affirmative.
most of australia has less than 2 weeks of gasoline and imports it on weekly barges from singapore.
in the XXIer century some australia cities have run out of gasoline for half a day, an afternoon, a few days
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/singapore-bound-duel-...
Sorry, but it's a bit funny. Based on the name I assume you're French (speaking, at least)?
That "XXIer" contraption is really funny to me, I speak a bit of French. In English it's twenty first so XXI or XXIst, in French as far I know it's vingt et unième, so XXI or XXIème.
Is "XXIer" from another French dialect or another language entirely?
And you know how much oil is found in the vast lands of Singapore... That stuff floating to Australia is probably Russian oil https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/nov/09/looph...
After all, if a war broke out and our normal trading partners weren't willing to sell us ships, presumably they wouldn't sell us steel or engines or ball bearings or paint or radar modules or computer chips or plastics.
The real answer to this is threat analysis: what are the realistic scenarios under which it becomes a problem. e.g. if Japan stops supplying ships a) how likely is that and b) could we just buy them from the Dutch instead? However, the stakes for getting this wrong are high.
Otherwise sure, realistic threat scenarios. But the world is also changing fast. Denmark or Canada did not expected to be militarily threatened by the US some years ago and still this is where we are now.
If your usual trading partner is inaccessible for reason X , what are the odds your alternate trading partner is also affected by reason X? Are there geopolitical or national political reasons that partner B might become unavailable or unpalatable at the same time?
But the UK decided against that in 2016, and despite demographics having shifted the views, there is no general "rejoin" campaign.
I think rejoin is going to be politically unpopular for a while, as there's no way we could rejoin the EU on anything like as good terms as we left on.
The problem is the UK is an oligarchy owned and run by non-dom billionaires. It's essentially a floating labour camp. Virtually all the major industries are foreign-owned, and profits flow out of the country instead of being invested in infrastructure, R&D, and national development.
The public school/Oxbridge educational path is based on a 19th century view of the world, which has its roots in a feudal society that expanded into global piracy.
Rejoining the EU isn't just about undoing the direct, about exposing the population at all levels to a more modern culture with elements of social responsibility and rational state planning.
The EU isn't perfect. But Europe successfully rebuilt after WWII, while politically the UK is still stuck in the 1930s.
And while the majority agree we should never have left the EU, and the majority agree we should rejoin, that isn't translating to political support.
Indeed the plurarity of votes is to Mr Brexit himself, who thanks to FPTP is likely to get a majority government in 2029 off 30% of the vote.
Hell 1 in 8 people that voted Farage last year think the UK never should have left Europe. Not that it wasn't the right type of brexit, but that it shouldn't. Yet they voted for Farage, decided that was a mistake, and are continuing to vote for Farage.
I get it. Some people just want the world to burn.
But a similar number think we should rejoin the EU, yet voted Farage last year.
It's no wonder support for democracy is at an all time low.
On day one - for past bad behaviour.
The UK is too large to be an independent city state, but too small to be self sufficient.
As long as your friends build ships, you are fine.
The UK is friends with South Korea, for example.
"Friends" is a strange concept in national strategic planning. You might ask yourself "just how much are those friends going to come and help when push comes to shove" and look at current politics, and re-assess what has been commonly felt these last 50 years: no prior friend can be assumed to be motivated to still be a friend.
Think about Taiwan. All these friends, and now the biggest one says "we think you're too risky. move all that advanced chip making to us, onshore, we'll talk more about how seriously we want to be a friend and defend you after"
Of course, you can also look for some closer-to-home backup friends.
My main point is that close allies (both geographically and in terms of relationship) are about as good as having your own local industry. In a few important cases and areas, having production with friends is better than at home.
Mostly because it's harder for local political interests to capture a foreign economy.
Nobody likes being a back up friend to only be called on when your primary friend is unavailable, or you want to do something your primary friend wouldn't like. Countries make treaties/trade agreements accordingly
No, but depending on your (presumed national security) needs, you might be able to repurpose a ship that was almost done for another client. If you have active local shipbuilders, there should be some capacity there.
But, the trick is, how do you do it? The US Jones Act is trying, but US ship building capacity is pretty minimal. Just ordering military ships on the regular is expensive... Etc.
Some people might go so far as to put a lot of the blame for the sorry state of affairs _on_ the Jones Act.
(Though to be fair, while the Jones Act alone could probably snuff out American ship building, even without it most ships would probably still be build in South Korea. But you can fairly blame the Jones Act for suppressing US-to-US ocean shipping.)
That's because it exists on the benevolence and because of the benefits of it existing to several third parties. If/when that balance stops, they could turn it into a failed state in a forthnight.
Being this careless by relying on "friends" (in global politics? lol) is ok for a small place like Singapore that can't do anything else anyway. For an ex-empire, it's more suicidal than prudent.
It's not practical for most countries to have a viable industry in every so-called critical good across an economy. As another commenter noted, it's even less practical the more complex it gets because you need to be self-sufficient in the entire stack, not just parts of it.
What good is fuel refining without oil? What good is shipbuilding without mines and smelters? Without the ability to build massive shipboard diesels? Etc.
Moreover, it tends to make your real friends a bit nervous when you want to make yourself independent of them, because than you have less reason to defend them. It's not to say you should make your food production dependant on them, but when your sole reaosnt to figure out how to build ship engines is so you don't need to buy them from Germany (totally random, probably wrong example) it feels a bit off.
This is all ignoring the tremendous costs inherent in this sort of autarkic ideal. People enjoy the highest standards of living ever today thanks to global trade.
Sure. The UK isn't "most countries", and shipbuilding is not any random "so-called critical" good.
You say that as if Singapore has no agency here. And you are under-estimating Singapore's resilience: after all just after independence we were close to the nightmare scenario you are trying to conjure.
> Being this careless by relying on "friends" (in global politics? lol) is ok for a small place like Singapore that can't do anything else anyway. For an ex-empire, it's more suicidal than prudent.
What does it matter that the UK was part of an Empire in the past? Singapore used to be part of the same empire.
And yes, keeping good relations with your allies is extremely important in global politics. This shouldn't be news. Or do you think we should all strive for autarky, like North Korea or 1930s Germany?
It doesn't.
>And you are under-estimating Singapore's resilience: after all just after independence we were close to the nightmare scenario you are trying to conjure.
And it didn't happen because some conditions regarding foreign forces balance prevented it. Not because of the "agency" of a barely nascent tiny nation.
>What does it matter that the UK was part of an Empire in the past? Singapore used to be part of the same empire.
The UK wasn't "part of an Empire", it was the creator, owner, and benefactor of the Empire. That's why it matters.
>And yes, keeping good relations with your allies is extremely important in global politics. This shouldn't be news
That's irrelevant, since its orthogonal.
Friends aren't good enough, unless you have a mutual defense treaty, they aren't real friends and can't be counted on. Look at Ukraine struggling to get Tomohawks and ATACMS now, or struggling to get tanks and jets, due to fear of escalation.
They are if you actively manage your relationships with an eye to maintaining redundant access to necessary materiel or having multi-pronged defense strategies. Singapore is constantly nurturing strategic defense ties with multiple allies and attempting to avoid existential reliance on any single ally. And the one nation they definitely wouldn't rely on is Malaysia, the country most likely to threaten their sovereignty. Ukraine's problem was they were politically too dysfunctional and dependent on Russia defense trade until Russia's successive invasions forced them to reform domestically. (To be fair, Russia had a hand in prolonging their dysfunction.)
No, no, just the opposite: treaties aren't good enough. Try suing your supposed allies when they break your mutual defense treaty.. Broadly speaking (and with only some exceptions), there's no higher authority you can appeal to for enforcement of international treaties.
Mutual defense treaties only work amongst something like friends. A big part of NATO's success is because they take this lesson very serious and designed the whole system around it.
Canada and many other countries collectively thought the US was their friend, which it was, until it wasn't. Friends stopping being friends is a risk that needs to be at least considered.
The public is unaware and unwilling to engage in such discussions because there isn't much pain being felt yet from the current structure of the economy.
In my opinion, having a country that doesn't have the means to build, at the very least, what is needed to keep its economy going is not in a good spot at all.
Why would they prioritize national interests? Because they were elected to do so?
After all they know they were actually elected because people were only given a couple of establishment approved choices, and in their naivety they happened to pick their side this time (after all they alternate between the two choices all the time).
They also know they'll be fine and have their salaries, extras, and nice corporate post-politic sinecures whetever their performance. Just see Blair.
How about because they are human people like you and me. You don't think you are a bad guy who always does things only in your own interest right? So why do you think they are like that?
How about if they really screw people over they know there will be mass protests
etc.
Oh, sweet summer child.
>You don't think you are a bad guy who always does things only in your own interest right? So why do you think they are like that?
Because I wasn't promoted and passed all the exams of a system designed to promote sociopaths, party interests, and corporate/financial/M.I.C. interests, nor did I have the sociopathic self-selection to want to get to the highest offices of power.
> because people were only given a couple of establishment approved choices
Unless you think Jeremy Corbyn was establishment approved (!), this is clearly not true.
I’m not really sure what to make of your latest comment. Is your preferred world one where the media never criticize your favored politicians and the left wing of the Labour Party ruthlessly crushes internal dissent? If that’s what it would have taken to make Corbyn Prime Minister, then count me out.
Australia has ranked choice voting and mandatory voting. What else could be done to “give” people more choices?
* some kind of proportional representation in lower houses or parliament (see e.g. New Zealand for a Westminster-compatible solution, or Switzerland for something more radical while still working with seats allocated by state populations).
* referendums on laws/treaties, and popular initiatives to propose constitutional changes and/or new laws (like in Switzerland or various western US states).
* reinvigoration of the federal principle that things that can be done by the states (or the local governments) should be done at that level, rather than the feds sticking their nose in everything (see, again, Switzerland).
None of the above are even close to giving people choices.
Australia has a seat-by-seat majority-based system that favors the bigger parties (HoR).
Choices come when there's direct proportional elections.
Choices come when you don't need campaign support, advertising budgets, rich sponsors to be elected.
When they media don't sway to their (owners) favorite parties and candidates.
When you're not elected on an huge laundry list of a program, and then left to do whatever and backtrack on any and all promises until the next election with no consequences.
When there are direct referendums for major issues, regularly, not just to change the constitution in rare cases.
And many many other things besides, those are just some big ones.
I actually doubt the value of modern navies for anything other than gunboat diplomacy, or coastal patrols these days. I think they’re too vulnerable to things like cruise missiles and drones.
I don't even think there's much of a merchant marine fleet left in the UK.
The more interesting question is how many of these are under "control"/influence of domestic operators
If required, a flag can be exchanged in a pinch and tax codes /regulations can be adapted to allow/encourage this.
There are peacetime rules and war time rules, war time rules are best summarised as “government does what it wants and justifies it after the fact”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War_order_of_battle:... under “Ships taken from trade”.
It’s not at all clear to me a government would have that power about a foreign flagged vessel, even if the shipping line owning it might be British.
Who is going to make up the difference?
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...