America cannot afford a baseless national security strategy

In 1940, Winston Churchill declared Singapore safe. It was “not considered possible that the Japanese … would embark on such a mad enterprise.” When the Japanese arrived in February 1942, Singapore fell in a week. “The man in the street had been led to believe that Singapore was an impregnable fortress upon which the safety of Australia, New Zealand and India depended,” wrote British historian Major-General S. Woodburn Kirby. “This belief had been rudely shattered.”

The loss of Singapore was devastating for the Brits. It was their only major naval base in South Asia. Japan intended its attacks on Pearl Harbor and U.S. bases at Subic Bay to drive America out of Asia, much in the manner it had rolled back British power by taking Singapore.