If you prepare for a crash to happen on September 23rd, you're a fool. You can't point to a crash that happens a year later and say you got it right.

But if you prepare for a crash to happen at some point, that's just good sense. Only a fool would think that there would never be a crash. If you arrange your finances to withstand a crash, and there's eventually a crash, then that was the right thing to do even if it took a long time.

Ensuring the independence of your nation is more of the second kind. And it pays off even when there isn't an outright crisis. The policy wasn't "wrong" for decades. It was fine the whole time.