"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.
As long as your friends build ships, you are fine.
The UK is friends with South Korea, for example.