Pacific Fleet to Singapore?: Deterrence, Warfighting, and Anglo-American Planning for the Defense of Southeast Asia, 1937-1941

Abstract

ABSTRACT For the 20 years before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Great Britain based its grand strategy in the Far East around the presence – and potential – of the Singapore Naval Base. The Americans, for a time, agreed in the project’s potential in the face of increasing Japanese belligerence. This analysis examines the place of the Singapore Naval Base in Anglo-American planning for the defence of Southeast Asia. It focuses on British efforts to lobby the Americans to deploy the Pacific Fleet to Singapore to deter Japan, the evolution of American plans for the defence of the Far East, and how all these interacted. It argues that the British desire to use the Pacific Fleet as a deterrent force based at Singapore, and the American assessments of how the Pacific Fleet would actually fight Japan from Singapore, represented a conceptual disconnect they could not overcome until faced with imminent hostilities. Scrutinizing the discussions and plans related to this understudied episode provides additional understanding not only how the aspirant allies viewed the growing threat from Japan, but also how they viewed each other.