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.
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.