THE title above refers to the first speech given by Winston Churchill after becoming Prime Minister, delivered on May 13, 1940, when the power of Nazi Germany is on the rise with the swift conquest of Poland some eight months before and the looming defeat of France on the horizon (it would surrender on June 18, 1940).

While there may be no comparison at all, Churchill’s words kept ringing in my ears as the hype continues about the proposed “alliance triad” between the Philippines, Japan, and US.

The United States and Japan are our previous colonizers. We were oppressed as a people.

But if this proposed triad is to be credible and would have ended earning for us some measure of respect and prestige before the world, the contracting parties should have been relatively “equal” with each other. For example, in so far as their economic strength is concerned relative to each other for a nation’s economic strength would determine the potential military strength that it can contribute to any alliance.

Uncle Sam is increasing its war preparations against China, with one US Air Force 4-star general, Gen. Mike Minihan, telling his troops that he sees war with China “by 2025.”

For a long time now, US war planners have always considered Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan as its “first island chain” of defense should its planned aggression against China gets going.

Is it now any wonder that America has been using Taiwan every opportunity it can find as a “bait” to provoke China while supporting the rearmament of Japan?

Is it also any wonder now why the US is rushing, again to return our poor country back into one its biggest military installations in Asia courtesy of EDCA, VFA and the MDT?

But what does all the above translates into? Simply put, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines would be the first countries to be devastated when war occurs.

And should war finally break out and under this “military triad” with the US and Japan, what really are we going to offer? Nothing but the Filipinos’ “blood, toil, sweat and tears” as Churchill puts it. For other than them, let us be frank—we have nothing else to offer.

And we are going to shed everything we have for a war that has nothing to do with us. For a conflict that we are not really a part of and against a country which we have been friend and good neighbor for over 1,000 years now. Why?

Let the “lessons” of Ukraine have a sobering effect on all of us—the whole economy and 70 percent of its territory devastated, mired in debts to the West that it cannot possibly repay, millions becoming refugees overnight and needing at least 40 years of peace in order to bring back its society to the pre-war level.

Let that sink to all of us.