In the part of his Edinburgh keynote that follows his warning about the hubris of military power, George Yeo, Singapore’s former Foreign Minister, turns to a practical question: what can the United States still afford to defend?
He begins in the Gulf. American bases there, Yeo says, were badly damaged, and he asks who now wants them rebuilt. He puts the question to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, and then to the Pentagon itself.
Then he brings it home. Under a 1990 memorandum of understanding, Singapore lets US forces use its military facilities for transit and logistics, and Yeo lives near one of them. He describes a conversation with his wife about what a war between the United States and China could mean for the island.
From there, Yeo follows a chain of decisions in Washington. The National Security Strategy released in December 2025 made the Western Hemisphere America’s top priority, a shift Yeo reads as a retreat to its own hemisphere. He ties that shift to the public finances. When he spoke in June, he put the debt at nearly $40 trillion; Treasury figures show it passed that mark by the end of September 2026. The Congressional Budget Office projected in 2024 that net interest payments would exceed defence spending that year.
Yeo then sets out what Washington is asking of its allies: 5% of GDP on defence from NATO members, agreed at The Hague in June 2025, and 3.5% from allies in Asia, the figure Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May 2026.
His closing questions concern how long this direction can hold, whether a new administration could change it, and what a smaller America might become. His answer draws on a precedent fifteen centuries old.
Why it matters for Asia
Asian allies face a far higher bar than before. Japan brought its target of 2% of GDP forward from fiscal 2027 to fiscal 2025 under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The 3.5% that Washington now cites sits well above that level.
Hosting American forces is becoming a calculation as well as a commitment. Singapore’s 1990 memorandum was extended in 2019 for another 15 years. The questions Yeo raises about the Gulf bases apply to every Asian government that hosts or supports US forces, from Japan and South Korea to the Philippines.
The Gulf itself is an Asian concern. A large share of the oil that East and Southeast Asia import comes from the Gulf, so the future of the American presence there bears directly on the region’s energy security.
How quickly Asian capitals build up their own defences, and on what terms, will shape the region’s security order through the next decade.
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Further Reading
- Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
The classic study of how economic strain and military commitments shape a great power’s fortunes. - Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton University Press, 1988).
How Britain’s leaders responded when the costs of empire began to outrun its means. - Ray Dalio, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (2021).
Debt cycles and the rise and fall of reserve powers.
Excerpt from George Yeo’s keynote at the New Enlightenment Conference, hosted by Adam Smith’s Panmure House, Edinburgh, marking 250 years of The Wealth of Nations. Used for commentary and analysis. Views expressed are the speakers’ own. Watch the original
