Australia Faces not just a repeat of 1939-1942 but far worse now the US. Republicans enmeshed with Putin's Russia may dump us to face China alone

A few years ago Professor Rory Medcalfe wrote a great book re-establishing the insights of people like Frost and the schools of insight that emphasized the 'Indian' origins and enmeshment of the Anglophone settlement at Port Jackson (In essence our Indo-Pacific situation).

Frost's vision beginning, of course, with the role of the Roaring 40's, the interchanges between the coastal and insular First nations (then the European settlers) and their interplays with Malaysia (that is understanding this term as applying to almost all of South East Asia, bar maybe Indo China and Thailand, and the rest.

The lessons' not learned from the past will be inevitably repeated in the future

Beyond that too, sadly, also emphasizing the reality of how far today’s Australian mass cultural myopic mass fantasy mirrors the earlier, far too easy 'ostrich in the sand' mass culture that led to slavish irrational Empire Jingoism, mass hysterical bullying and marginalization of anyone who suggested that we should have a High Policy based on a strategic pro-activity & self-actualization.

Sadly, today’s current métier is a carbon copy of this earlier one, except that the United States now substitutes for Mother England, and this 'Bizzaro world' replay will inevitably lead to a similar outcome to that of the earlier period, the ultimate and logical consequence of which was the Surrender of Singapore.

I say 'surrender of Singapore' rather than 'fall of Singapore' as how could a force 'fall' if it surrenders to an advance force of about 30,000 of a wider force, totalling about, 80,000? That is when it had 5 Divisions, with -several months of supplies, including armaments, with a Chinese population relatively willing to fight, (regardless of the possible ambivalence of some of the Malays and a few of the Indians and a very few of those designated in those days of being of " mixed blood.").

That is the Chinese Singaporeans knew just how much faith they could place in Japan's promises of a Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, from the hideous and completely evil nightmare of Japan's, by then, longer than a decade's invasion of China that made the Nazi and Marxist genocide, forced and unneeded and unjustified war, democide, use of poison gas and chemicals and biologicals rape, absurd & irrational destruction of infrastructure, ancient monuments, treasures, and etc., as an extension of policy, etc., in the West - a mere Sunday school by comparison!

Which saw us forced to stake-all on an irrational reliance on one, badly supported, insanely so, geopolitical 'one roll of the dice'- in an attempt to placate and appease Japan with the ideas, that without an adequate fall back capacity in naval forces and at least fifty to hundred fighter bombers bombers with some capacity and plans in place to replace these if used up quickly.

Australasian and British High Policy was to hope that this vast army based in Singapore would somehow sit out a siege at Singapore, or maybe by some miracle some of it, say 40% or so of it (as at Dunkirk but to be fair a 'Dunkirk' that might have a month or two to plan and to operationalize, not few weeks as at Dunkirk itself) be able to withdraw and regroup for a holding operation at Batavia ( the present day Jakarta) or maybe even Rabaul.

That somehow an Allied presence would remain as an untaken flag token stuck on map sitting on a wall in Whitehall, and that would be all that would be needed to hold out for one year, two years or three years or four years maybe, until relieved or the Japanese were negotiated into an armistice. That was the plan prior to December 1941 when the United States, along with Japan entered the War. Up until that time had seen a majority of the Republican Party actively lobbied against those odd and funny sounding Antipodeans who had had the gall the gall since early 1940 to have their own Legation in Washington and to plead for 50 or 60 or more modern fighters and fighter/bombers!

Those nut-jobs in Australian conservative and ( ultra-right wing) Labor politics circles who think that the U.S. Republicans have always have been and always will be our "besties" in the handing -out of equipment or sending troops or otherwise acting, within the world community, to help us that so that we can defend ourselves, well, just do not know their history!

Of course recent events with trUmp only indicate that history has almost turned full circle and if Trump is re-elected and then becomes President for life or for at least 2-3-4 terms we will have the exact opposite of the 1930's and 1940's situation in terms of the United States. There will be a return, rather than a gradual shift away as in the 1930's, to obsessive, almost manic isolationism, projected fantasies out onto scum like Putin and onto childish and cardboard cut-out pyric diplomatic victories over China and the cutting-off of support and aid and comfort to anything that even looks like it is a liberal and pluralistic option in world affairs. Of course Putin, will use the United States as his cats paw and almost certainly outmaneuver the US in the Middle East and in order to curry favor with and get cash from the Oil rich Arabs will turn with them against Israel anyway and seek to supplant the US by doing a cross-authoritarian/totalitarian deal with China in any event.

The US will see much more of Africa slip into Wagner Group like evil hellholes and/or Muslim extremist flavored hell-hole governments with Russia & China seeking to poll the strings from behind the scenes. Europe will have to regroup without the US and something like the Anglo-French alliance of the later 1930's but this time with Germany added on will have to stand alone, again against a new Axis with the United States like sick and petulant an self-deluding child will see Latin America Latin descend again into a nightmare of ultra-rightist torture state dynamics with Trump and his local and newly converted Latino Protestant pluralities praying and cheering this all the way!

Which way India jumps may be crucial but you can be sure that Putin and/or China will ensure that the military/ intelligence elite who run Pakistan will be on board with them, no doubt promised, probably much of northern India in some carve up of territory there.

Australia will be asked to sit by as Putin plays peacemaker when China takes over Taiwan and very likely tries to allow North Korea to take over South Korea in some strange joint play to gain hegemony over the still considerable economy of Japan. Australia will just be a low hanging fruit, that as in 1938-1943 will be tossed around as a potential prize in half a dozen possible outcomes, in none of which it will have any say or control whatsoever, as in 1938-1943!

From the frightening near future under a MAGA Republican United States for Australia back to the past to draw some lessons from there.

The only Republican to do anything to help our defence between 1941 and 1945 was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and he as was his own very singular type of Republican! From the 1940's onward and then during the Cold War, and in my opinion, even since then, with the exception of the Eisenhower and the two Bush administrations, Democrats have been more likely to give us, not just what the US from its own point of view thinks we need or thinks its best for them to give us, but were often willing to give us but we say we want !

The two most central relationships in Australian-United States relations have been those of Labor Prime Minister John Curtin and Douglas MacArthur and between Liberal Prime Minister Harold Holt and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Very much less intense and less productive of anything really positive for us here was the relationship between Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke and U.S Secretary of State George Schultz and through this with U.S Secretary of Defence Casper Weinberger.

The less said about how things really were between any of our governments and good old Tricky Dicky Nixon and Dr. Strangelove ( Henry Kissinger) the better . It is sad, but typical, that so called self-styled neo-conservative experts of so called 'realist international politics'- especially those not young enough to remember Nixon's betrayal of us of us over the overly abrupt ending of the Vietnam War, and the recognition of China lecture us- on and on and on -about this!

Until we fall asleep from boredom we hear just just how masterful and Talleyrand like were these two geniuses in international affairs!- Talleyrand, perhaps is the best analogy and those who actually look deeply into the latter's career will know why the analogy is apposite. What is worse, we also often have to hear left-wing inclined local commentators proclaim that their high genius in almost all matters, bar keeping the sun and planets in their orbits Whitlam was streets ahead of even these two in being 'realistic' about both mainland China and ending the war in Vietnam.

Both these events merely indicate that in 1972-1978 we were as lacking in the capacity to exercise our own independent foreign and military policy as we were in 1939-1912 and as we remain today!

Returning to the specifics of the 1930's and the early 1940's

If the Australian British Dutch American (ABDA) command had had proactive, intelligent, bold, resourceful commanders, not just on the ground, but at the headquarters level and at the even higher level of the lobbying and engaging level with the United States, British and Australasian ( and Dutch in exile) High Commands and governments it may have seen a different outcome! Yes, once MacArthur came to become Supreme Commander South West West Pacific, he fought -off the Navy and had a slight success at stopping even further diversion of effort to the Mediterranean and the build up the projected French landing.

If the United States had been more than junior partners and in effect, observers in the American, British, Dutch Australian (ABDA) area High Policy making area from early 1941, then it is likely we would not only held Singapore but also been properly established in Java and New Guinea.

If the United States had been in the War from early 1940, and if its level of aircraft production and arrangements under Lend Lease had not been very badly hampered and minimized by the present day right wing in Australia's best friends in America, the Republicans, then it is still likely we would have maybe have been able to buy 50- or 60 modern fighters and fighter/bombers and a score or so two extra of bombers stationed in Australia. Also had, possibly, at least another 20 to 50 in Singapore, even if we had foolishly ( but inevitably given the mindset of the time) had also sent off about as many again to the Middle East.

Anti anti-rearming and anti-appeasement voices

There were voices throughout the 1930s' and even more so from 1935 onwards calling for 100-300 modern fighter bombers to be bought for Britain, from British makers, and if needed be also bought from the United States, the Netherlands and other European manufacturers.

That is, even if, they had to paid for by Australia!

Even if most of these ended up being stationed in several places north of Australia but east of Suez and maybe 1/3 of these kept in a reserve capacity in Australia and New Zealand itself.

Now these were the same voices asking for a doubling or even a tripling of the planned total number of aircraft to be made ready for use, housed in active and appropriate airfields with trained pilots ready to fly them!

If Churchill or Field Marshal Smuts had been listened to, as early as the earlier 1930's, Britain would have had about 3000 aircraft able to take part in the Battle of Britain, rather than about 900 to 1000. If they had been listened to from 1938 onwards Britain would still have made another 500- 800 or so by early 1940. If Baldwin and Chamberlain and 80% of Tories, and 70% of Labour MP's had not been been listened to & Smuts & Churchill where just a little bit more Britain would have had about 400-500 more aircraft, than it did end up having for the Battle of Britain!

(Interestingly, if we had had this extra 500 or so aircraft then we might have been able to provide the air cover the French defeatists, fools and cowards ( as we see them anyway) said they needed to continue sacrificing their men against the Germans, and General André Beaufre in his famous book is correct and General Spears in his equally famous two-part Assignment to Catastrophe both outline & emphasize, as they should, the over 130,000 brave French soldiers who sacrificed themselves fighting the Germans in 1940.

That is before the duplicitous, panic driven and defeatist failure to develop a pro-active redoubt in North Africa took place ( That is, even if Beaufre blames perfidious Albion for not sacrificing its own capacity for defence by not sacrificing, as the French wanted them to, the RAF. That is to possibly keep the French Cabinet (already dominated by traitors and defeatists) in the war until maybe the end of May and into June.

French politics, even today, makes it impossible to release the Intelligence material that does exist, that shows how unlikely the rabid anti-Communist rightists would have been to allow the war to keep going for even another 1-2 months as it would have had the RAF been destroyed supporting a major tactical withdrawal of the French army & navy to North Africa & the UK.

If the left-wing and right wing appeasers in Australia ( like the majority of the Australian Labor shadow Cabinet, Sir Keith Hancock, Rupert's father, our own High Commissioner Bruce in London, Lord Halifax and Chamberlain and others had not had their way between 1935 and 1939 we would have had maybe between 500 & 1000 more aircraft. This would have just been enough to allow a million strong French Army to be moved away by a pro-War French government in exile, still led probably by Reynaud ( sans his pro German spy mistress one might hope being with him by then).

The War would have been between 1-2 years shorter if Hitler has still invaded East and still betrayed the Communists who most now forget were white-anting our war effort here and in France and in the UK too, as much as the rabid pro Nazi right wing elements were also doing!

The still fortunate victory of General Smuts, supported by Churchill, to at least build 500-800 more planes than the Labour Party & the Conservative government wanted to be built between 1930 and 1939!

Fortunately, slightly stepped up measures were taken between the late 1920s' and the late 1930's but had General Smuts or Churchill or some others been listened to fully Britain would have had about 3000 aircraft able to take part in the Battle of Britain, rather than about 900 to 1000 it actually had!

Even if they had been listened to from 1938 onwards then Britain would still have made another 500- 800 or so by early 1940. If Baldwin and Chamberlain and 80% of Tories, and 70% of Labour MPS had not been listened to even by the disaster of the Fall of France Britain would have had about 400-500 more aircraft, than it did end up having for the Battle of Britain! ( and/or to throw away in the hope that the French might keep fighting !)

It is no coincidence and I am afraid to say, no surprise, and not necessarily morally unjust when Margesson, who had become Secretary for War in Churchill's government, and leading proponent of a go slow on aircraft production throughout the 1930's, was sacked and used as a scapegoat for the Surrender of Singapore!

Margesson was included, albeit in the peripheral outer circles of those named in the famous book The Guilty Men by Michael Foote, Frank Owen and Peter Howard ("Cato"), published in 1940, as an attack on some who called to themselves, more than the average of the others with whom they worked, opprobrium for failure to re-arm and for appeasement of Fascism/Nazism etc.,

The Surrender of Singapore was like the "Fall" of France two examples of defeatism, war-fear, cowardice and self-limited thinking, but far worse than that, a barely sub-conscious & an often openly expressed view by some Appeasers that the enemy might soon become our friend in some wider fight against Bolshevism and anti-coloniality and similar forces around then world!

Even today, in early mid June 2024, as I edit again this article, a piece of flotsam candidate for Farage's new party in the UK general election has said that Britain should have done a deal with Hitler and made a peace with him as France did under Field Marshal Philippe Pétain whose open admirer and follower J-M Le Pen has bequeathed to us his execrable pro-Putin daughter who is now is very likely to become the next French President.

I am sure it was no comfort at all to the Australians who spent the War in Changi or along the Burma Railroad etc., that on 1 May 1942 after Singapore was handed over, the to the Japanese that Margesson was made first hereditary Viscount Margesson, of Rugby in the County of Warwick.

Margesson typifies the whole pathetic house of cards that had begun sometime in the earlier 1920's when the neo-conservatives of the day like himself, took it into their heads, that in order to avoid any more useless and unneeded wars with major European powers war just might need to be avoided at all costs. This was even more so the case when the putative enemy's main problem was that were merely more vicious, more ugly, far more disgusting, and even ultra-extreme in their neo-conservative ideology than 'us' or 'we' were! - So that it might be better to tolerate, appease, negotiate with and in the long term use them as bulwarks against further major gains by Marxist or even merely centrist-leftist type policy regimes operative some in other countries.

Prior to the War, and between 1938 and August 1939 such figures as Percy Spender and Arthur Coles and William Morris Hughes had regularly called for the Government to spend more on buying British and United States modern aircraft, which might have been possible between 1938 and 1939 if we were prepared to pay a premium for them. If we had secured even 30 or 0 or so more planes than we had and if these had been available to send to Singapore in later 1940 and throughout 1941 then not only Singapore but much of a decent perimeter up the Malay Peninsular could have been held onto much longer.

But under that particular What If scenario then Great Britain would have had possibly also have shed its own insane right-wing Conservative Party supported Appeasement mentality and a Churchill Government say coming to power in, say 1938, would have ensured that at least a 100 to 300 or more fighters and bombers would have been made there. Also, then we maybe might have been able to lose 200-300 planes in trying to defend the crypto-fascistic and defeatist riddled French military, and likely, possibly, a centrist French Government may have then survived into 1941- 1942.

That is long enough to either hold off the Germans in part of France in and/or establish a pro-active anti-German redoubt in French North Africa. So, please not more lectures by the Sydney Branch of the Young Republicans about 'realist foreign policy' being their hallmark since the 1930's! No Battle of Britain, either, as such, and likely no meta-defeats like Dunkirk either!

By the serendipity or Fortuna as Machiavelli calls it, of war, there may have been, even with the inadequate and indeed morally culpably neglected fore stationed at Singapore, a successful bogging down of the small Japanese expeditionary force in Malaya by late 1941 and into early 1942.

Maybe, then this may allowed led to the withdrawal of at least some of the American troops and forces stationed in The Philippines, as a temporary measure across, over to Singapore with as much of their matériel as possible, which would have at least held up the Japanese well into 1942 and maybe into 1943. This is unlikely, but even if a few thousand troops had arrived with MacArthur from The Philippines in January or February 1942, because Singapore was holding out and had beaten back the Japs from Johore or at east create perimeter inland some way then he might have least had been asked to stop-off there. Is this something that anyone at the time though might have been possible?

Yes, General Gordon Bennett thought so and said so, and not just after the event, that is after he, like MacArthur had left to avoid capture by the Japanese, of course he did so against the express orders of his superiors in Singapore! They key relating to him, however, is that he said so at the time, in later 1941 and into 1942 before his superior officers handed over the Johore shoreline and the island itself, without a fight to the small force that approached the island.

Bennett had not been alone in querying the capacity, the judgement, the hutzpah, the capacity and the actual decisions being made by the on the ground British dominated local High Command. Back at Whitehall it has also been the asinine lack of foresight of people like Margesson and his decision to let Winnie and 'anyone else' but them ultimately take the moral blame for not coming up with some idea to pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat relating to Malaya and Singapore from at least April 1941 when there was a little bit more pressure coming from Canberra about doing something to augment the vast Army already assembled there.

Now the mentality I am talking about pervaded the new Labor Government in Australia too, which took office in April 1941. Even thirty or forty new planes and a few more ships able to at least move troops around of off the island in some form of partial withdrawal might have just enabled a competent field commander to hold off or even defeat an initial Japanese force for two or so months. But the emphasis from April 1940 until well into September 9141 was, as it had been in Appeasement mentality ridden Europe and the Dominions in regard to Germany between 1938 and September 1939, every time a cable went to and forth London, Tokyo, and it was related back to Canberra and eventually through to Singapore, absurd, irrational, group-think was maintained that somehow, it would all end alright!

Somehow the Japanese would see sense and not do anything to Britain or even the United States. More than once in the conservative War Cabinets in London and Canberra between 1939 and May 1941 and in national all party Cabinet in London, after April 1940, and the Labor War Cabinets in Canberra and Wellington Ministers can be cited saying if we add to any more men or throw away and waste in a garrison situation any new planes or send more ships it might just anger the Japanese and that it is better not to poke any sort of stick at what we have already got there!! The Battle of Britain was over by at least a year by the later part of 1941, Germany had begun is insane invasion of Russia, fifty or so planes could have in theory have been flown out to give decent air cover to our vast army at Singapore why did this not happen?

Margesson is as much a guilty man for this as he was for his obsessive pursuit of Churchill to seek to have him dis-endorsed as a Conservative MP earlier in the 1930's! Yes it would have required standing up to Churchill, yes it would have required working with either the earlier Conservative government in Canberra, at least Menzies one, not the one run by the Country Party Prime Minister led one, as that was so cack-handed it would merely have seen the see sending of any large enough to make real difference air force to Singapore as a wasteful threat to the Budget bottom line and likely to upset Japan!

If, instead of Margesson and frankly too Louis Mountbatten and those who preceded Wavell in India, and most of the Australian High Command, had we, in fact, had had a few other men capable to seeing ahead of their noses, between at least after Christmas of 1940 and Christmas of 1941! Then things might have been different!

Then someone , somewhere, somehow, might have found the fifty or sixty aircraft to get out to Singapore by Christmas of 1941. That is especially after Japan's declaration of war after Pearl Harbour on December 8th when the only two Division sized or so small Japanese force (that had been assembling inside on the Thai border and back beyond this into in the Vichy French Indo China for at least six to eight months prior to this) invaded.

It might then been held back well into December, January, February and not go even as far as southern Malaya by March or April or even May of 1942.

Even without nothing more than 10-20 plus modern enough aircraft that we if the British ( say via Margesson) had ordered their own troops and the Australasians and the Indians to fight to the death, as the troops so ordered to do so at Calais had done!

Then something much more pro-actively useful to the Allies than mere withdrawal might have been achieved - a holding -off of the Japanese taking Singapore and a small area of Johore and a holding up the wider Japanese advance further to the south and south east might well have happened, and happened from January-February -march-April- and maybe into May or June or July or later in 1942.

If MacArthur had still been given command there, it is unlikely the Navy and the Washington Europe-first cabal could have denied him the capacity to reinforce Singapore and maintain a line of communication through to there from Australia! That is even if he was still forced off The Philippines by April or so or even earlier ( as maybe the Japanese would have had more forces to throw at him there under this scenario.) (As whatever reserves they assumed they might need to deal with a siege in southern Johore/Singapore might have been diverted back to Corregidor.).

If Singapore had held out, even if The Philippines had not, then "dug out Doug" might have, perhaps almost certainly would have been asked to withdraw not to Melbourne Australia, but to Singapore!

Then, between May 1942 and May 1943 if sufficient aid had got to Singapore, to hold out there, or at least well drawn up plans made to allow a good withdrawal to Batavia or to Rabaul or ideally to hold Singapore and then to establish credible back-up forces in both places.

Then John Curtin would not have to break the thought-patterns of this entire adult life and become just like many Commanders in the Great War, a man who decided, as he did indeed he did decide, to order thousands of Australians to just fight to the death, just to show others, enemy and ally, that Australians would fight, as there had been considerable doubt about this since and due to the Surrender of Singapore.

The Australasian quiescence in tolerating the withdrawal down the Peninsular and allowing Perceval to surrender rather than fight on, was a key source of the view that the Aussies would not fight! That is even if this meant trench warfare and the huge losses that might go with this, maybe beginning just north of the island, but it would not have begun on the island anyway. That is had they used the opportunities of the many months they had to dig in at least one or two places points further up the Peninsular properly.

Then made the Japanese fight for the water's edge and the Singapore shoreline. It was this largely British but Australasian immured group-think that panicked, became defeatist that was the real origin of the false belief about Australian cowardice, stupidity, and inability to grasp the need to change tactics to just jeep fighting!

That is so as to then at least have some chance of then being able to turn around what might appear to be strategically an improbable outcome, by winning -out with unlikely to succeed but actually do end up succeeding tactical activity!

If you do not try, you do not know, as Colonel de Gaulle tried to argue to the French High Command.

The same defeatist, hysterical group think and myopia prevailed as did in the "Fall" of France as did in the "Fall" of Singapore in relation to the 50 or 60 could have done something else' - better than was done, tactical and minor or mid -level beyond tactical strategic mistakes that were made after December 8th 1940 and up until at least the end of January 1942.

So that even in this time, if 50 or 60 things had been done differently, even given the often since discussed and debated ideas that nothing would have changed the outcome, even with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it would have been technically/materially/logically possible not to have had any Surrender, at least as early as February 15, 1942!

Returning back to the lack of insight the continuation of Appeasement era myopia and stupidity and group think in Australasia and in Britain in relation to the Far East prior to the Japanese declaration of War on December 8th 1941.

Then, had Singapore and/or southern Johore they held out for three, four, five, six or seven months, then likely as not then sufficient naval and air forces would have been provided to either keep defending Singapore and much of southern Malaya until 1943 or 1944.

Or at least hold out there, long enough into later 1942 or 1943 and to create a good fall back position with some capacity brought up a bit earlier in preparation for it, either in the Netherland East Indies and/or in British/Australian New Guinea. Japanese capacity to go where they did after March 1942 would also have been decreased!

The Battle of the Coral Sea of 4-8 May 1942 might have become an earlier taking place the Battle of the Sunda Straits or Battle of the Java Sea, we might never had to have fought along the Kokoda Trail. The Japanese would be kept busy trying (if Fortuna and Providence was on our side) to plug the gap that allowed us to keep supplying our forces defending the lower Malay Peninsular, even if we had lost some of part of the flank to the South ( in parts of the NEI) and to the East ( heavier fighting over insular New Guinea and the Solomon's etc.,)>

What if history has its limits but we are entitled to ask what if Australia had lived up to and not buried its head in the sand regarding the Far East, even as early as the later 1920's and the early 1930's as indicated in the Simon Commission, the situation would likely have been very different indeed!

This is so, despite later historians often seeming to miss it, and other discourse, generated by myopia and self-delusion at the time, even mentioning the need not to try to waste time or effort on achieving it ! There were voices who for a whole generation had called for a force of several hundred next generation modern fighter bombers' to be needed stationed in the Far East and for the British Dominions there to commensurately match this force with their own forces totalling about air forces of about of the same size.

Had this happened, then quite frankly, this was all that was missing to have made ABDA policy between 1939-1942 vaguely credible, instead of more or less wishful thinking and the deep, sick tragic farce it actually proved to be!

The British Imperial and Australasian policy about South East Asia between the mid 1920's and March 1942 was wishful thinking, cobbled together by ( of the Left as well as the Right) designed mostly to ameliorate any fears held by anyone about Imperial defence and the 'world situation'.

Hence we went into the War in September 1939 with blasé, incredibly na?ve, but most importantly self-deluding group think besetting local settler colonial populations, pro-British native elites, and other minorities, and of course, the ever gullible, but also ever self-deluding Australasian elites and general publics!

Even then, this ABDA policy for South East Asia was a square-peg forced into round hole, cobbled together, one chance in twenty of working out, might have worked out, or at least partly worked out, but only if Singapore and southern Malaya held out for some undefined length of time, but even so, had this happened, it would only have formed part of a credible back-up plan or fall-back plan. The plan was not predicated on the United States entering the War but once it did, had we had put even 1/4 of the needed resources in place, in the period 1938 to early 1942, then it is likely that the Pacific war might have taken a year or even two years less to see the Japanese possibly pull back to at least Thailand and Indo -China.

A plan that would have probably shortened the War in the East by a year or maybe two years. Yes, even so, it would have required MacArthur or someone of equal capacity, standing and clout to argue for the diversion of far more force to the East and the Pacific than was allocated until well into 1943 and early 1944.

However, even without the basic air and naval forces in place by later 1941 had Singapore held-out, very likely MacArthur would have got at least between 1/4 and 1/3 of what he said he would need to finish the job far quicker than he actually got them!

Also, if so, then maybe several million less lives would have been lost, at least 5-10% of these Western allied troops, and the rest mostly Chinese troops and civilians, and of course Japanese and Koreans trapped inside the Fascistic nightmare of Japans polity.

Very likely the Nationalists would have maintained power in China or won the probably inevitable Civil War anyway. And for What if fans I'll throw in that India today today would be fifteen or sixteen smaller quasi -independent states mostly based on the pre-War royal states there, with possibly some form of amorphous Confederation level of government not dominated by the Nehru/Ghandi family for fifty years, but one that forever had to juggle the Muslim and Hindu dichotomy

History as it played out

But where were the aircraft ? The new Labor government in Canberra knew from the time of its formation in mid 1941 that it needed at least fifty or sixty modern new British fighters, set aside for homeland or maybe able to be sacrificed at Singapore or wherever the Japanese advanced to, and they hoped also to get at least the same number from the United States. We got nothing from nobody until over 12 months later when they flowed to us in about these numbers but by then we did not need them or rather we needed them but we had needed them much more 12 months before by the end of the Australian Autumn.

Sadly, Menzies never seems to have confided in anyone about this, perhaps, save the my maternal grandfather's old boss Sir John Storey, and if he did Storey took this to his grave.

That is Menzies, unlike almost anyone else, save Billy Hughes, Spender and maybe about 1/4 of the Conservative MPs and perhaps 1/3 of the Conservatives in the Cabinet ( and less than 2 or 3 out of the entire Labor Party shadow Cabinet of about 12 people) had any clue at all that we re utterly, totally defenceless after about April 1940!

Menzies tried in later 1940 and into early 1941 to get between fifty and a hundred modern aircraft made and sent out to use within about six months. He was effectively white-anted by Lord Halifax and our own High Commissioner S.M Bruce and those within the Conservative Party who still hoped to eject Churchill and probably arrange an Armistice with Hitler and Mussolini, another Munich so to speak. In that context given away a good proportion of British air capacity so soon after the Battle of Britain was seen even by the arch Appeasers and Anti-Churchill-elements as strategically na?ve as it made Britain too weak to negotiate from any position of strength with Germany.

There is even a school of thought, that indicates that Australasia might be used as some form of Appeaser bargain chip with Germany, or at least with Japan to keep them out of the War and neutral! So that by this master stroke, thus render Germany less likely to try to ask for too much when the Appeasers would likely try to hand out most of the French Empire to them, and try keep what they could for the Empire in the Middle East and India and Africa. Australasia, I'm sure we might have been asked to join the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, perhaps accept relatively large numbers of Japanese or Korean migrants, maybe hand over our northern third to Japan or something like that.

However Menzies' greatest failure, as man, as states person, as war leader was this time, at the end of the height of the Battle of Britain , when he lived in Britain for almost five months between late 1940 and early 1941, when he failed to get shipped out to us in crates and/or flown out to us here, fifty to a hundred mostly Spitfires and Hurricanes, and maybe a brace of two of the other fighter bombers in production at that time!

Let us not forget that it took another 12- 18 months ( from Mid 1941 to early 1943) for Herbert Vere Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, and key War Cabinet member, aided and assisted, earlier on, by Menzies' arch nemesis Sir Earle Page - even though he was in the Opposition- to get the fifty to a hundred British top of the range modern fighters and fighter bombers' to arrive in crates.

By that time the United States had situated at least 300 if not more of their own aircraft of similar or even better performance either on shore here, or on nearby circulating or stationed for a time nearby, naval forces.

If we had even fifty aircraft in in situ by mid 1941 ( and not sent them off to the Middle East that is) we could have easily held off the initial Japanese advance in Malaya and then if need be fall back to the NEI or to New Guinea. Even then, this still would have very soon ( within a month or two) required far more air forces to be at the defenders disposal but this likely would have come via the Americans anyway!

As the Japanese would still be held up far more than they in fact were, by this recalcitrance and would need to at least keep the defenders busy while they continued to defend. The world saw how long a besieged city can hold out in Leningrad and then a bit later with the tables turned with the Germans at Stalingrad. Even in China, the Nationalists and the Marxist forces did, at times hold up, and parry back and forth with the Japanese for many months, even if in the context there they had far greater resources and far greater capacity to fall back and regroup.

So a besieged Singapore and southern Johore would have become a major psychological and tactical thorn in the side of the Japanese had it held out for another five or six month or even half that time! The Japanese, even if thus enraged, and while still remained emboldened (as they still probably would have been) were to then still throw as much as they could ( but not as much as they actually had due to Singapore falling). Their would have been gloss taken off their ( as happened in history0 push much further south and south west to the rest of the NEI and Australia, and also beyond that their maintaining, at least until 4-7 June 1942 at the Battle of Midway, their bizarre plan to create some form of strategic curtain pushed -outwards and extending their power west to and beyond Hawaii.

If Singapore had held out then the Japanese probably would not also have probably gone eastwards towards British India either. Again would have made it even easier for the Allies to use it for their own strikes further eastwards and northwards into China.

Indeed India remaining British was a key reason why Japan lost the war as with India still there the Allies had a major base ( even if psychological rather than one providing much net mass or force for much of this time.) Australian troops might have been diverting to Singapore along with more of the Indian and British troops deployed, as history actually played out, in Burma. Mountbatten would have had to have been found another appellation than Mountbatten of Burma. The late Duke of Edinburgh, instead of spending time in an obscure country Pub in small factory town outside Melbourne called Sunshine, might well have been sent to and forth on supply convoys to Singapore.

Considering what was at stake, Singapore was the greatest single strategic defeat in world history since Napoleon’s loss at Waterloo, even including, of course, the then, relatively recent defeat that had taken place during the War, at Dunkirk. Noting that the defeat in Singapore and prior to that the absurd panic that saw the withdrawal down the Peninsular to Singapore was also on micro-scale, analogous to the implosion of the vast French forces in the face of an inferior in numbers German advance in 1940 as well. Defeatism, panic, a certain ultra-right-wing mindset that perhaps we were fighting the wrong enemy and the last hurrahs for Appeasement by the Left and the Right all played their roles in getting into the heads of the patently inferior, General staff the ABDA powers had assembled on the ground in Singapore!

This latter defeat ended Britain's reign that had begun with John Churchill, Churchill's great ancestor, which saw Britain always being being the necessary, though not always the sufficient player, in the determination of the Balance of Power in Europe.

The Surrender of Singapore ended the British Empire, it died that day, with that shameful and unnecessary capitulation. That is rather than live on to fight on in far more robust and pro-active form that it could have then taken, had it had the self-initiative, to see the need, as it did not, to ensure that the vast army assembled there there was not just wasted!

Winston Churchill tried to defer the inevitable handing over to the United States of, at least, this role Britain had played from John Churchill's time and up till Dunkirk, as the arbiter of the balance of power in Europe, and he was able to continue to hold onto this role this reasonably well right up to Singapore.

After Singapore's surrender the United States became the necessary new addition that then supplanted and took on Britain’s surrendered roles in the Far East, the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific. Also, too it took on Britain's role in the Atlantic. If Singapore had held out Britain would have been able to leverage its s the Imperial weight and panoply to prop itself up just that little bit more in the new power-paly between Stalin and Roosevelt over the fate of Europe. Another fifty to a hundred planes based in Australasia and in Singapore between mid 1940 and mid 1941 would have also secured this additional extra fragment of power. It is then likely that one or two to or more countries would not have been handed over to Stalin's nightmare and Britain been far more of a major power player across all the other key zones of the world!

Finally, and most humiliatingly of all, the United States even took over this key and most seminal great power role of being the arbiter of the balance of power in Europe, a role, as we noted Britain had had from John Churchill's time. A role, quite big enough for any one nation to shoulder, which Britain had then added to its serendipitously acquired role as the world hegemon. This latter role it acquired at roundabout the time it had come to head the European coalition that had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

Both roles could be shared roles, but it is just that Britain after about mid-way through the United States War and just a bit over half-way for the Soviet's engagement in the War, on our side, that is, became a minor bit player in what it just lacked that little bit less power, prestige and clout to maintain as multi-polar game and which became until the early 2000's or maybe the later 1990's a bi-polar world game, bi-polar in Europe, in effect and in fact, bi-polar across the world.

General Perceval, in a very real sense represented a sort of Anti-Duke of Wellington figure, as it was Wellington who, perhaps with Nelson and Pitt who had facilitated Britain's coming to its role as not merely a major European power but as the major world power.

A role it was to hold for at least one century until it was mortally wounded on the insanely wasteful blood sacrifice to Moloch that the Western Front was! As is usual the self-understood realists of the time like Halifax thought that if they have to Hitler Britain's role as kingmaker in Europe then they could hold onto the Empire! Churchill knew that Britain's Empire was a parasitical growth on Britain's role as the guarantor of the balance of power in Europe and if it lost this role it would inevitably lose its Empire!

At Singapore Perceval, a silly, small minded fool of a man threw away any chance of proactively taking on and defeating, as was at least theoretically possible, the small exploratory force that had been sent through and down Malaya over the previous four months. Four months of totally and utterly wasted failure to prepare an iron-clad holding-out last ditch stand from which using Great War tactics they could have exhausted the enemy and gained his surrender. Or at least planned to withdraw first to Java or to the other three back-stop positions back to Timor then Rabaul which had already been envisaged as a planned tactical withdrawal as opposed to merely the emotionally frozen failure to do anything proactive at all as, in fact, occurred.

There then comes the nonsense about having no capacity during the Malaya Campaign -at all- to compensate for having no air cover! (The old French saw used by them during the Western Front debacle in February and March 1940.).?

Then the utter bull... about the guns being turned the wrong way, about not having the capacity to usefully employ another half million local Chinese and loyal Malays, use local cars, trucks, sampans, road, telegraph and phone systems, local Police auxiliaries, ambulances, hospitals, other infrastructure, modern trawlers, small fast launches, trawlers, trains.

Then the other nonsense that the 100 old fashioned and 20 or so good up to date modern Dutch and other aircraft they did have could not have employed better.

Why not have got all the Europeans civilians off well before Christmas? Or even earlier begin several back up plans as soon as it was plain that the newly put into power pro Japanese Thai Royal family were conniving with the Japanese?

Then had two or three lined up rows of shipping and based made ready in advance for a gradual or partial withdrawal?during which much or some of the force might hold on until Singapore became entirely besieged?with no lines of communication open to the South?

None of this was not only not done but none of it was allowed to be even planned about between June 1941 and the New Year of 1942 when any competent Canteen officer would have decided to at least put down on paper some basic?orders and few calculations and ways of how to do all of these things!

The Australian Governments of the day as well as the Indian based British High Command are as to blame for this as are the High Command on hand based in Singapore. No leader of the calibre or foresight needed emerged on the ground East of Suez between January 1940 and January 1942 – a damn long time in World War-!

No leader able to even create a general probable alternative model or even a vague idea that an alternative to being rolled over like Nine Pins was a possible option! In France de Gaulle emerged as Field Commander of about ? of the French’s armoured vehicle capability and in that role he showed how it was possible to fight on. !

Also, that is was possible to fight on even in the context of an 1870 like collapse and not to give in the fear, defeatism, panic, fatalism and ennui and that occurred in 1870! Also which almost occurred again in 1915 and again in 1917 and even arguably 1918 when the Germans??almost made it to Paris and beyond and to the coast!?

The Left have nothing to be proud about they were very active contributors in the helping of the Japanese especially between September 1939 and June 1940

It is a curious fact of left-wing histories of this period that they fail to blame their own side their general bloc of leftward leaning elements in Australia as much as the rightward leaning bloc for being part of this general state of mass myopia and failure to try to even think about being more pro-active.

I mean by more proactive at least raising and training and equipping between September 1939 and September 1941 another five to six Divisions of fully kitted out, trained battle ready troops, with three to six months of ammunition, artillery and other means of offensive capacity. With cobbled together landing craft and landing gear, communications, etc.,)?Plus,?have assigned and rostered and waiting to be ordered to be used-?all and every available piece of coastal and on hand in dock at the time international shipping to transport them where needed.

And instead of going cap in hand to the Blitzed out United Kingdom to have found some way to buy and beg borrow and steal parts and spares and boxed aircraft.

Why did we not beg borrow and steal or make here thirty times the specialized lathes and fabricating and crimping machinery, electrical wiring, riveting and engine assembly teams in the effort that did we DID put into our own aircraft making capacity? That is via the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory and the other manufacturing hubs we had in place by mid-1940?

One of my grandfathers worked closely with Sir John Storey the Chairman of this Corporation. Though he never explicitly discussed it with me he did many times tangentially raise with me the fact that Britain's loss of its major power role had its origins in its failure in the pre-Great war period and in the early years of the Inter War period, then again between September 1939 and later 1941 in necessarily ensuring that it accelerated its industrial output !- Also too the output of the wider Empire - so as to come to try to match the vast production capacity of the United States which was gearing up after the Great depression of the 1890s' to come to be exceeding that the Empire as whole!

Not that the Inter War lag could have been made up for, just between 1939 and the time the U.S entered the War, but far more (even in this period) was easily possible, much more than many had thought.

After the Second World War my grandfather told me that such a catch up was still possible, in the period between 1945 to 1965. That is had Britain been able to use the vast resources of the wider Empire better! Also, genuinely re-tooled and re-fashioned into a pro-active post mid 1950's Japanese like post-war and post-post-war industrial and manufacturing and technology sectors seeing its old Dominions as key partners in something akin to what the European Union did become by the early to mid 1970s! Something that Britain with its Commonwealth could have easily become, had it put its mind to in from the later 1940s and up until the later 1960s'.

Also had, Britain, forged a better and more amenable outcome with India one that was favourable to an ongoing working relationship between a pro-active Empire or refashioned Commonwealth and India!

It was not to be, and in retrospect and in actuality, it was not inevitable that nationalism, or anti-colonialism or decolonization finished off any chance of this happening. It was in fact the ending of the great foundational pivot of British greatness and power, that finished any chance of this happening. That is when Britain lost its role as the guarantor, at least as the necessary but not always sufficient power, in relation to the deciding of the balance of power in Europe.

Once France and Germany, in the spirit of 1848, rather than of any of the earlier or later originating Neo-Conservative ideological conflations come to successfully deal with Russia (hopefully by negotiation and diplomacy and not War) we will see Europe rise again as the world greatest power.

This time, however, Britain especially led as it is now by Neo Conservative ideologists, cynically using the politics of mass cultural nostalgia to fool and drug its population into idle self-delusion will play no part in this great determination of the European balance of power. The writing is also on the wall for the United States extending itself across the Atlantic to play Britain's part in this process too. Trump's Buffoonish ascendency has merely highlighted and made quicker and more obvious this decline and withdrawal of the United States' role into being one of being merely one of five or ten major world poles of power.

Sadly Britain and certainly not Australia or Canada or South Africa have risen or not declined so far to even become one or hope to become one day one of these top ten world poles of power. Of course India, has so risen to this role as may one day possibly Nigeria (So two out of all the other major former British Empire countries.). There is an argument that maybe Pakistan is among the top ten world poles of power and even once derided and pitied Bangladesh may within fifty years be seen as we today see South Korea. South Korea, has the potential to become one of the top ten world poles of power - something that makes China want to keep North Korea as the giant Gulag and living nightmare it is today!

As a free, democratic .pluralist liberal capitalist and united Korea would become another Japan almost within a generation! France remains in the top ten and more so now that Britain has self abnegated itself from the role of being an adult and self-actualizing nation and chosen the mass fantasies of its hiding from the reality of the greater Europe!

Germany of course, and Russia and of course the great new giant mainland China round off the world great ten poles of power. The top seven poles of world power meet a smaller world of about half a dozen micro-poles of power who probably can mount a major war offensive, use nuclear weapons and exercise considerable capacity as meta-regional powers. Britain, I again leave off the list as it lacks the internal capacity to assert itself thus anymore. It was beginning to re-find this capacity as part of the tripartite relationship with France and Germany but it threw that away. It forgot what Churchill already knew when he began championing the idea of a united Western Europe in the 1950's! That if you have lost the capacity to become the necessary but not necessarily sufficient player in the Concert of Europe then you must, at least go back to the meta strategy of the pre John Churchill period, and seek to become at least one of the sufficiently engaged key players again.

Pakistan, Iran, are more or less contenders for the bottom three places as world polar powers. Turkey now is too, though no one thought it ever possible, and it is rising again. Fortunately Brazil lurching as it does from Greek-style centrist populism to cannibalistic hatred of of the poor Neo Fascism has not yet emerged as a full-on military bully boy and assertive micro regionally assertive and wider micro pole of world power, sadly, however, it might. If Nigeria can deal with militant Islam and avoid a final and catastrophic Civil War between North and South then it may become what South Africa could have become. The latter now will never will become a top ten world power or even a rising micro pole of power - pole of power and even really of regional influence. Vietnam may rise to this status if it one day sloughs off its command and control Chinese style party power monopoly.

Professor Medcalfe is writing about the past, the present and the future in his work that is focused, of course, mostly on the future. But in order to talk about the future we need to mention the present, as we just have and the past as we will now return to. As the great Admiral Yi Sunsin, the Korean national hero showed in the 1500's CE., proactivity in the use of smaller and outnumbered forces, is a key ingredient in tactical successes. It is what Machiavelli called the Fortuna of War- which at times, serendipitously, favours the technically outnumbered side, as that is what does and can happen in War, at least sometimes!

Such tactical successes, even such amazing against the odd ones, as the key Korean military hero can then open up new strategic options even for the fools in government who brought about the need for the major near miracle to occur- to be brought off- on the battlefield - or at Sea - or in the Air.

Options open at the time, and which were debated at the time, in the 1920's and even more so in the 1930's and advocated by some! However they were laughed off by the majority, as militarily unprofessional, stilly, stupid and financially wasteful, even if more or less not going to break the national bank!

One tactical option open to the fools in Government who brought about the disaster of Singapore that ended the British Empire (and the chance of this Empire evolving into the a major world economic and military power of the twenty first century) would have been between 1939 and late 1941 buying off the venial and Appeasement mentality soaked and lacking taste for much further combat Canadian Government. Canada might have handed over, say 20 to 50 of their British and 20 to 50 of their top modern and up to date United States originating fighter bomber aircraft - especially if it was stated that these were for the defence of Singapore.

Or ghost ordering might have taken place through any number of very easily and cheaply bribed Latin American governments to get via this route at least 10-20-30 - maybe- even 40-5--60 such aircraft not subject to the United States Neutrality Act. Or to get around the secret and other openly know to Australia arrangements the Americans had with the British Government which locked us out of considerable aircraft buying capacity from the US in 1939, 1940 and 1941!

Then also to find more ways, and not be let be given the run around as much as they were, to find ways to get around the British and United States reluctance to give Australia much of the 100-250 aircraft we vaguely began to realize we needed to mount an adequate defence of our area and of any troops we had formed of our shores in Asia??

They stated that they felt that we needed about this number of aircraft too, but that we couldn't expect to receive them until 1943 or even into 1944! If somehow we had worked on them another way? Who knows? For sure we did try but we certainly tried as it if this might have been a slight possibility! So maybe some other way might have been found to find cracks in the door to achieve one third or one half of this by mid 1941, and in the initial rush and surge that occurred just after Pearl Habour in September and October of 1941!

Make friends with Howard Hughes or with any of the fifteen other major aircraft manufacturers, play some off the others, see if even if a bit of an underhanded way we might not get fifty or sixty or a hundred crated aircraft on ships bound for Australia by later 1941 or early 1942. Had fifty or sixty such aircraft been sent up to Singapore by Christmas of 1941 or even by January of 1942- even Perceval - might not have surrendered when he did. He might have decided to fight on for another month or two or three months.

Had he fallen under bus then virtually anyone else likely to be in charge there might have then fought on for another four or five or more months and again things might been very different. Yes still maybe a fight until a last stand, a fight to the death, but at the expense of holding down many more enemy forces as they tried to dislodge a force at that at least, as had also happened some times before in China, successfully defied them for at least between three to six months.

One example of a possible course of action (possible within the context?of that era) would be buying off the venial and Appeasement mentality soaked and lacking taste for much further combat Canadian Government. A government that might have been persuaded to part with even 20 or 40 or 50 of their British and 40 or 50 of their top modern up to date fighter bomber aircraft (Unlikely but still possible even fifteen modern aircraft?would have helped.).

Or ghost ordering through easily bribed Latin American governments at least 10-20-30 -40-5--60 such aircraft not subject to the United States Neutrality Act and their secret and other arrangements with the British Government which locked us out of considerable aircraft buying capacity from the US in 1939, 1940 and 1941?

We were told by the British to wait, while Menzies begged and never stopped begging in London between late 1940 and early 1941, told to wait at least another year (until at least late to mid-1942.). That is for the 100 or so aircraft they said they might be able to give us by then. By September 1940 when Menzies arrived the Battle of Britain was over and aircraft production was exponentially greater than it had been in May and June 1940 - even three months before! When we had begun to talk to the British (admittedly before the Collapse of France) they and agreed to give us at least fifty to hundred modern fighter aircraft to be sent out to us in crates between then and the end of 1940.).

Menzies personal lobbying between September 1940 and April 1941 -like the lobbying of the delegation in Washington felt there was some chance of getting fifty or so aircraft loaded on ships and sent to Australia! - Otherwise they would not have lobbied as long an as hard as they said they did in London or Washington! That is hoping to achieve this not necessarily impossible feat even during the ongoing Blitz, and even during the continuation of the Lend Lease context and the Neutrality Act context of pre September 3rd 1941.

Yes it is true that the U.S also ignored- while being actively encouraged by the British to so ignore and block any chance we might have had to get another 50 to 100 aircraft we would have needed to have any chance of defending our forward outpost at Singapore! Such a force being needed, if needed, if that was lost to cover withdrawals or mounting of further defences south and closer to the Australian mainland.

By the time the Curtin Government came to power in October 1941 there had been a full eighteen months from May 1940 when MANY senior locally based Generals, such as Vernon Sturdee and senior business figures like Arthur Coles had been openly regularly, every day not just now and then been calling to beg, borrow, steal, lie cheat and if needed quadruple our budget deficit to bribe or force open the various avenues that had been close to us by the Anglo-American arrangements on aircraft and other military equipment.

Between the beginning of the summer of 1940 and the Easter of 1941 Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, had stayed away from Australia and lived full time in England. In this time our local Australian wartime government descended into the worst moral and political and intellectual morass ever seen from any government in Australian history!

Left wing historians let the reasonable, proactive in the know key leaders of the Labor Party off the hook about this but they are just as much to blame as Menzies if Menzies, is to be blamed for this. ‘Doc’ Evatt was in secret and for “several years” was in secret and regular negotiation via such ‘back-channels’ as the Victorian Country Party Premier Albert Dunstan and the notorious to many but highly influential John Wren in Victoria and Jack Lang in New South Wales.

The idea was for Evatt to become Prime Minister if he could bring, at least himself, and hopefully three or four or more Federal Labor MPs with him if he was offered the Prime Ministership of a multi –party wartime government.?Nothing came of it bit neither too did anything come of the dozens of time that the local Governor-General, many senior Generals. Key conservative leaning and key centrists and at times Labor leading business people who tried to persuade Curtin or others in the ranks of senior Federal Labor leadership to join an all-party war time government.

All the ex post facto rationalization in the world by special pleading left –wing or right wing revisionist historians will not let either the of the major Australian Party elites off the hook of failing the Australian nation and failing the half million Australia, New Zealand, British, Dutch, British Indian and Dutch Javanese colonial and local supporting Chinese and Malay militia members. A betrayal of a total of close to 400,000 troops abandoned to their fate by a corporate failure to beef up the war effort in the period September 1939 to January 1942.

The much vaunted not diverting of the two Divisions of troops being sent home for Rest and Recreation from the Middle East by with John Curtin is classic example of this left-wing revisionist approach!?Labor’s Appeasers and Labor’s ultra-left wing as much as the right wing Appeasers and snail’s pace is all that is needed elements among the political conservatives got us into the situation where we had no more than half a Division of fully equipped battle trained and ready troops on shore in later 1941 and early 1942 (without the two Australian Divisions returning home as planned.).

People forget we had two full Division as Singapore and we also had up to five if not six Divisions of Reservists, and hastily gathered but at least more or less half trained school cadets, plus others called up via the National Service system by Christmas 1941.?These were troops the raising of which Labor had hastily committed itself to supporting the equipping and after they came to power in October.

As one of the promises they were required to make to the two conservative maverick independent MPs who put them into office was to fully and wholeheartedly equip these troops, train them for jungle and desert warfare for warfare not just within Australia but at least in the Jungles of Dutch East Indies and Malaya and the Pacific Islands. This was a key part of the deal they made to put Curtin into power.

As up till then Labor had not fully supported the equipping and training even of the volunteer reservists, school cadets and anyone conscripted to do de facto military work but work re-labelled as “civilian conscription” work. As up till October 1941 Federal Labor had tended to be suspicious of using anyone who was conscripted locally being integrated fully into a mainstream military force wanting to pick and choose where and how and why such conscripts would be sent to fight.

Labor had bene hamstrung since the mid 1930’s by its need to mollify its Communist fellow traveller and definitely ideologically connected ultra- left wing who especially after the Stalin Hitler pact and until June 1941 were completely opposed to Labor cooperating fully with any Conservative War time government! These elements coalesced with a large group within it who still held a lingering hope for a Peace Deal whether motivated by genuine Anti-War views or what we could call mainstream Appeasement views. There was even a group that I called in my thesis (Hayman 2005) “Irish neutralist” elements.

John Curtin was actually quite happy to have to tell his fractious party that he depended on appeasing the two balance of power Independents who were both quite in favour of very proactive war time measures, in fact far more measures than?the Conservative government had been able to deliver – even wanted to deliver!). This promise being only one of its many promises John Curtin had openly declared in public that he had needed to make to head a Labor Government. A Government that would seek to be far more proactive than the outgoing Conservative administrations had been in gathering far more decent sized defence forces force.

But all this new found war-spirit by Curtin and wider Labor and the merciful withdrawal of the moral and intellectual dogs breakfast of the Conservative War time government came at least twelve months too late to see Singapore get the necessary reinforcements any rational Military High Command in Australia and any competent War time Government should have ensured Singapore had got by Christmas of 1940 let alone the Christmas of 1941!

As we know as in economics most military decisions are not made in rational context despite the fantasy ideology of Neo Conservative influenced usages of Neo- Liberal ideology posing as empirically referable common sense.

Soldiers are often asked to do what is either close to impossible or near to impossible. That is the problem of Singapore that if the leadership there had proven historically unusual almost genius like then Singapore could have possibly held out. Held out long enough to see most troops withdrawn by mid-1942! Or even acted as a bridgehead for an early revival of Allied fortune to years earlier than actually occurred - in South East Asia!?

Had an proper non Appeasement mentality non mean spited stupid narrow head in the sand almost pathologically fearful and small minded fiscally frugally obsessed mean minded Conservative government been in power from 1932 until October 1941 then, yes it is likely that Australia may have had about 100 and 150 modern up to date Spitfires and Hurricanes and long range bombers and three or four Divisions on hand of easily raised from Reservists ready to acts as homeland reserve while still sending forces overseas. With then, very probably, a far easier capacity to raise another five to or then or so Divisions within 12-18 months as would have easily ensured our defence commitments to Britain.

And also provided for our own local pro-active defence. Yes we might still have given Britain all our aircraft to fight the Battle of Britain or wasted them in the Middle East with the British then withdrawing the 200 or so they had there and taking then back to Britain.

But has this been the policy context in Australia from the early 1930’s or even from about 1938 it is likely that the wider Empire would have seen more proactive approach to defence. Britain probably would have encourage us to lend more from the City and to buy a quite large air force and to then commit ourselves to defence of the Empire East of Suez. Then it would have been a case of Curtin or whoever the Australian Prime Minister was in 1941 arguing with Churchill or whoever the British Prime Minister was to divert our Australian paid for squadrons of aircraft from India or Burma to defend Singapore!

In such a context- the end of Appeasement mentality, say by the mid 1930’s in Britain then the United Kingdom, may not have needed reinforcement to use the Home Air Squadrons b as a final back –up to any unacted total collapse of the French on the mainland.

This is straying into 'What If' history but it is also pointing out the options were there and had there been better cross-party deliberation and genuine working together between 1939 and 1942 then I believe Singapore would not have fallen!?

But what is not straying into ‘What if” is that Singapore did not need to be surrendered when it was and even Malaya could have been defended better at last until mid-1942 had competent people been in charge there which they were not! It is possible that Singapore could have held out after far more proactive defence on the mainland until really the time the United States reinforcement especially of air and sea forces began to arrive. With MacArthur in charge it is highly unlikely that he would have tolerated Singapore not being at least tried to be relieved during mid to late 1942. That presumes no major Japanese reinforcements had arrived by say Easter 1942 as they had. However with a recalcitrant Singapore holding out until April or May the Japanese further advance towards the Pacific may have been held up.

The point is giving up –surrendering – as occurred at Singapore in February 1942 was NOT the only possible outcome even I we apply R.G Collingwood’s famous dictum for historical interpretations to judge historical actors?ONLY by the same factors, limitations, actual real and palpably self- evidently obvious options open to them in their context, in their time??

Nor was it an inevitable response, at about the latest possible time that it might have been able to prolong things to some fabled unstoppable Japanese advance from later 1941 until early 1942. This latter proposition has become the almost accepted historical interpretation and it is wrong.

Despite Australian gainsaying the Surrender of Singapore has its origins in Australia’s tendency in the Inter War period as today to a certain kind of tangential mass cultural and ongoing self-loathing. A certain kind of small mindedness and an incapacity to understand that despite being a minority within a minority within South East Asia, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, Australia still had (and still has) a considerable capacity to defend itself and even assert itself,?at least sub-regionally within South East Asia.

Singapore's surrender ended the thing 'we' has been madly gambling on since, say, around the time of the retirement of Austen Chamberlain, in the later 1920’s.

A complex game of snakes and ladders and of self-delusion, hopefulness and wishful thinking combined with the unfortunate rise of a new generation of so called experts and realists abounding across the political spectrum and the intelligentsia and mass media who all more or less as they say were right about refighting the last War again but wrong that it would be the last war that we would be fighting.

I remember with a degree of growing boredom, rather than alarm, the response to my own thesis completed in 2005 on this topic. As the reality is that today 95% of today’s experts in international conflicts, geopolitics, international trade, military affairs and the rest are as myopic, self-focused and silly as those of the Inter War were. They remain just as sure that there self-stated rational paradigms hold high and true! It was not the experts or the politicians but the whole total socio-cultural context that delivered up the British Empire to self-immolation on the day Perceval stupidly and unnecessarily ended a whole series of absurd blunders and miss-steps and surrendered in February 1942 to the small exploratory force sent against the whole of Malaya in later 1940 and early 1941 and then upon Singapore from late January 1942!

One can read Austen Chamberlain today with a mixture of extreme admiration for this complex and sophisticated world geopolitical outlook but also with a sense of growing dismay knowing, as we know now that the Great Depression, continuing weakness and Appeasement and pro-peace at all costs and war weariness prevailed. Also too crypto- fascist admiration for Fascism on the Right and war weariness and genuine but deeply defeatist generating disarmament principles held by the wider Left, and an overt desire for Soviet advancement geopolitically by much of the extreme Left.

All of this?all combined to destroy Britain’s chance and its wider Empire’s chances to stand?up to and ultimately move way from even if cause an open breach the absurd Isolationist and dog in the manger (overtly self-promoting too) demands of the United States. That is to have the guts and grit and to even feel the need to overcome the absurd disarmament ratios imposed during the Wilson era and all the rest. This combined with the same myopia, small mindedness, and fiscal meanness and general meanness of outlook personified by Baldwin and Austen Chamberlain’s baby brother Neville- as was also to be found in the Australian and Canadian governments of the day. Only Field Marshal Smuts held out against this trend but he was nonetheless as deeply disabled by his internal Boer opponents both within and without his own party bloc. That is as Robert Menzies became as a war leader by his own internal partisan enemies, the opposing Labor Party, and his own still not properly matured and politically educated self at that stage, anyway of his career.?

Also between 1936 and mid 1941 there was not within Australia any recognition by Menzies or any other members of the Conservative government who had some basic strategic nous nor the major bureaucratic war-planner Shedden, nor the top three or four Australian military leaders, that the garrison at Singapore needed:

A.???Better supply chain, B. 50-100 modern aircraft as a bare minimum.

B.???Obviously a better worked out fall back plan than the one agreed to just prior the War and then again during 1939-1940 and beyond by the Dutch, British, the Australasians and then after September 1940 (formally) and prior to then secretly and informally the United States. There was plan to fall back on Sumatra maybe if necessity gave birth to it to Java, Timor and then Rabaul.

C.???Much better local leadership than Perceval and the Australian Territorial amateur soldiers and Colonial garrison types who predominated in the Singapore Command.

D.???A real attempt to proactively engage and use those among the Malay State Princes, Police forces, local militias that were anxious, prepared and capable of being properly used and proactively set to task.

E.????As sub-set of D proactively engage rising Chinese hatred of the Japanese to much better effect than was done.

It is probably rewriting history to expect anyone but someone even beyond MacArthur’s capacities to have somehow brought all of Points A to E into play had such person been placed in charge of the defence of Malaya in late 1940 or early 1941!

However had Singapore held out till mid to late 1942 then the actuality of MacArthur possibly beginning operations there – had he been able to relieve to effect a Dunkirk like?withdrawal from there or reinforce?it as garrison point rather than at New Guinea might have seen very different war in the Pacific. The British and American government may not have been as easily able to pursue as much as they did their Europe First approach!??Australia, for once, may have shown by being proactive enough to reinforce and undergird whatever dog’s breakfast the British had offered it that at last it had arrived on the world stage as an adult proactive player!

?After 1940 Britain had lost its capacity to plan rationally ahead in its own home defence, and this certainly extended to its capacity to proactively defend the key zones of the Empire. There was no rational, real-power backed- up capacity to retain Britain's and the Empire's place in the Indo-Pacific of the 1930's (With our policy being, prior to this and after it to remain pro-actively only in our obsequiousness and passive aggressiveness within this.). Britain, by the time Austen Chamberlain's very inferior in capacity brother came to power, had lost its capacity to be play the necessary, but even then, the not always sufficient determinant in what happens in The Far East, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

The vision of Austen Chamberlain written in the 1920’s was of a Britain still proactively acting in mainland China more like it had done in India in the previous hundred years – but over the (then( next hundred years – from the 1930’s to the 2030’s. Had Britain out 20-30% more effort into its Empire militarization and encouraged the Dominion governments to do the same and then added about a third of its capacity to its Home Defence forces then this vision would still have been achievable even had France collapsed in 1940!

Turning to today’s meta-strategic environment and learning from Singapore!

Essentially if Australia was to triple its current military capacity it would, as Australia had to do between 1939 and 1943, when it increased its military capacity by about ten to fifteen times, be confident that it could participate as it saw fit in any regional strategic context that threatened its immediate survival and could then maintain a degree of surety that if could find the necessary linkages with other and greater powers it might then be able to sustain a better and easier world for itself!

If Australia was to increase by one third its current military capacity – genuinely so not just on paper and for the cameras the necessary satiation of Focus Groups in marginal electorates- then if it chose competent local Field Commanders and was prepared to accelerate back-up measure if meta emergency put a forwardly deployed force in peril then it would just avoid another Singapore!

Right now, of course this is not the case and Australia will face, as sure as the Sun Rises, another Singapore of its own and its Allies making- very soon.

Though I am merely a humble non participating observer who has no capacity to influence the course of events, I can say with some confidence, that the eventual winners in the constant power-plays within non Labor mass politics will, once they have eventually secured their hegemony, plunge us into an 'Inter-War' period like revival of this very same insane, anti-national interest politics that led to Singapore in 1942.

Low politics becomes High politics within a very short time and people NEVER, or very rarely, ever act in their own rational self-interest, especially people subsumed within the commensurability of mass politics. (Despite what some wannabe Lecturer of yours, Professor, with some idea of game-theory and/or other econometric decision-making formulae, or some such other idea guiding them, says guides High Policy making. (No offense to yourself Professor, but let us say, someone fresh from major triumphs on the 4th floor at KPMG, who tells us this is the case at the next Lowy /Sydney / conference. Or a private, ‘closed door’, briefing given by News, to 'those who count' (followed by canapes and/or high protein drinks.).

Or sad to say, and again, I mean no offense too by this, it’s just true , sadly; by what some really good military academic or ex-military, but still within ‘the network’, says about all this so as to retain the 'direct eye contact ' nodding respect and not generate the disapproval of some Pantaloon wearing, braid wearing chocolate soldier. Someone waiting to be the next Commander of the next 'Expeditionary Force mentality' thing that we will be doing.

I am not against doing ‘expeditionary force mentality’ things (such us doing WW1, Vietnam etc.,) But only if it means when the time comes for us to do something in our own national interest, that we have the savvy, the capacity and have had the foresight to have so equipped ourselves to be able to do this.. Which, of course when WW2 came around, we did not.

I was in Ballarat yesterday; a group of retiree historical walkers were walking down the main strip in the middle of the main street were walking past a statue of rotund man in general officers battle dress- not Blamey, but Elliot who committed suicided party because he had what we today would call unresolved issues from commanding men to go over the top in the errant and almost completely senseless waste of humanity that took place in the Great War. It is estimated that 9/10th of the Allied losses could have been avoided and almost all the basic objectives still achieved.

Whatever we may say of Blamey he had learned the lesson of the last War and did not want to be another General Haig, no commander who went into the Second War wanted this!

The 'low politics' of his many years as Victorian Police Commissioner, working for such genuine political geniuses as Albert Dunstan, and the latter was such a genius, only just equipped Blamey with just enough capacity to stay sane and clear headed enough, to deal with the very-very- very low compromises, questionable moral multiple choices, or no choices at all, the pure giving up to other's making policy either on superficial whim and chance that 'High Policy' always also becomes in time of World War or Regional War...

I know that many (not all) of today's people who might lead the actual spearhead, such as it is will be (and it is spearhead that is 3-4 times smaller than we will need it to be.. ) might be able to do as good or a better job than Blamey did when faced, in the future, with situations similar to those he faced.

In his case, Blamey faced such things as the nightmare of the group think of the Menzies governments of 1939-1941, the ostrich in the sand, Queensland Coalition mediated view of the extension of this outlook, that he would have faced had Fadden retained office. Then he faced the fortunate serendipity of the special relationship Curtin formed with MacArthur. ). Note this is not the so-called- special relationship which is largely non-existent, with …… the US (then or now); but the special relationship between these two men alone.).

A special relationship which required agility on Blamey's and other Australian military leader’s parts to ensure aspects of our national interest survived it, as well as being relatively grateful that we survived at all! That is thanks to MacArthur’s ability to get around certain decisions that others wanted to be made at the highest levels. Decisions that we just did not have then, (and still do not have) as today , as we do not have a MacArthur on our side with any real capacity to, help us get around them.). Without MacArthur's capacity to gainsay, to some extent Roosevelt and others whims and firmly held views, we would have faced invasion and mass slaughter at the hands of the Japanese. This despite all the last two generations of self-styled ‘realist’ historians with, their impeccable Japanese, say was never possible, or likely and no mention of which can be found in the ever so squeaky-clean Imperial, Military and other relevant archives in Japan.

As at last, via Curtin coming to power, (not Labor in general, as they were worse appeasers, defeatists and compromise lovers than ? of the Cabinet's and other forces that Menzies faced (but also to some extent self-generated, but those members of his family who know much more of what Menzies actually faced during this time would even disagree with that assessment). This serendipity, or as Machiavelli calls it the 'Fortuna', that can come with War, came for, whoever it was who was to become the first post -Fadden Prime Minister. As a chance set of conditions, either Providentially driven, or 'War as Fortuna' set of circumstances, that saw the right ‘critical-mass’ of political and military leadership come into place.

The right combination of political and military leadership capable of acting pro-actively in our own national interest was set in place, and was stationed on Australian soil, making decisions that directly benefited and allowed for the further security and the capacity for us to engage in pro-active policy making in our own national self-interest.

Another recent example of this was when Major General Cosgrove happened to be the one who led the "expeditionary force" that the Cabinet was dragged screaming and kicking into eventually deciding to send to Timor. Years of growing up seeing his highly intelligent, capable Dad treated, as NCO's of talent and energy can, at times, perhaps be treated, made him more aware than some of the way that the whole of an armed force interacts, perhaps, slightly more so, than those straight from the First XV in a private school to Duntroon. Also of the need to ensure that the whole chain of command is made aware of these issues, too.

I remember having a school friend when I lived in the suburb of Downer in Canberra, a suburb where generally only those occupying the ranks lived in allocated, off base, Defence housing. Downer in the later 1960's, early 1970's in Canberra, as reflective of the older Australia where some in the higher -classes and /or military ranks sometimes tried to play -down such distinctions. Hence, I think we did have one Air Vice Marshal, just down my street, though, in small Government house. 40 years later, not likely at all! Though, even today, some in the military, not all, sometimes still try to ameliorate aspects of those distinctions of rank, in marked contrasts, of course, to our British confreres of then or still (mostly) even today! time! My friend told me of his father doing his second, I think it was, tour of duty in Vietnam, and how afraid he was for him, as he had to do all donkey-work, always be there, make sure everything was working, for the officers and for the men.

Leadership is, of course, always vital, but so too are the tools needed to do the job.

Where it not for Field Marshal Smuts sitting on a few Committees relating to aircraft procurement and production in the 1930's; we today might be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hitler's death at a major ceremony held at the foot of a 50-foot bronze statue of him that might possibly have been situated out the front of our Australian War Memorial. At at ceremony attended, very possibly, by the recently abdicated Emperor of Japan or another proxy.

The 300 or 400 or so extra fighter planes, that Smuts more or less tricked the British government of the day (and the High Military) into agreeing to start production of in 1938-1939-1940 were the main reason why this did not happen.

Were it not for Smut's actions, we here in Australia might not have even been able to wait out for our United States friends to join the war, two years into the War, as they did!

Then quite a while later, a full eight months at least after this, to be accurate, after a good-deal of to and fro, during which this might not have ended up being their decision - the U.S came to the decision not to let us be invaded!

At anytime prior to this Britain may have been forced to give us up as a sop to appease the Japanese or the Germans or the Soviets. (Say if, 'we' (the Empire) or the Japanese had done a deal earlier.). Or had the Japanese invited Uncle Joe, in the interests of world peace and decolonization, to carve up China with him and carve up the rest of the European power's interest's in Asia (at least those not yet technically still in the hands of Germany's network of client European states.).

Or if Hitler had stayed rational a bit longer, and not launched Operation Barbarossa. Then maybe, on top of this had the Japanese remained rational and not struck North, South, East or West! Just sat tight as the Russian's did, anyway, in the Far East and waited to see the outcome of the lie of the land there. Then as a consequence of this had Japan courted the West and/or Russia after the Soviets had launched their so called Anti-Fascist moral crusade later in 1941- 1942. Or attacked Russia with the West deciding not to link this to any sanctions on their part. In any of these scenarios Australia's implicit or explicit suborning into the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, by some form of required British and/or United States orders for us to do so, could not have been resisted.

Many of the scenarios Professor Medcalfe talks about in his new book are re-runs of these sorts of probable or even possible outcomes that Australia faced between 1938 and 1942.

Sadly, I remain convinced that we are heading to new 1939 situation. The clock is ticking we have less than ten years, maybe 5 years, to create a defence force necessary size to retain our relative, weight, place and situation in the world.

Thanks to President Trump we have learned very fast that we might just have to face alone, and or possibly in tandem with one or more of Indonesia, The Philippines, the Vietnamese and their clients in Laos and Cambodia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the nefarious Burma, Bangladesh, Sri- Lanka; either just one of China, Japan and India and maybe Pakistan, or one or more of them concert or linked together in some way. Such as - by declaration of war or whatever, or in such a way as they will drag all the rest of us into a war with one or more of the others. A situation in which we will be asked, by telephone, to take sides in within 30 minutes of such a war starting.. at least.

If we had even 4-5 times the size of the military we had decided to create or work towards creating between September 1939 and January 1942 in 1938 then we would have been nobody's fools in the Indo-Pacific of 1939-1943.

Instead of a feckless troop of Boy Scouts bowing and scraping to save ourselves by grabbing the various strategic crumbs that fell off the table -that we became - and remain right up to this very day!

Will anything be different today? Will anything change to change this in the near or the foreseeable future? Of course not!