America First Means America First, Nothing Less
COMMON SENSE: In international politics, when considering the power position of the USA against our foes, the strength of NATO is always added to our side of the ledger, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a few other nations as well. On paper, it looks impressive, almost unbeatable, but is this an accurate assessment of our power? I don’t believe it is.
If I’m correct and it isn’t, then what is the problem? In my opinion, our commitments are asymmetrical. Every aspect of our alliances is based on our regional and global partners leveraging our military strength to their advantage, while doing very little to maintain their end of the bargain. It’s as if we are in a marriage where we are committed to better or worse, while our partners are only in it as long as we shoulder the burden and pay for everything.
Having done this since the end of World War II, we find ourselves in a situation where we have accumulated massive debt to be the world’s peacekeeper, while our allies sit back, watch us spend trillions to defend them, and do almost nothing to help. They don’t even say, “Thank you.” In this marital analogy, we are wed to lazy, entitled, self-serving, bitchy spouses.
I think my analogy is a pretty good one, but foreign policy isn’t a marriage. We are not married to these nations. Our allies would like us to believe that we are, that our commitment to them is like that of a husband to a semi-invalid wife, but this isn’t true. At least, it shouldn’t be.
Our foreign policy should be based on promoting the best interests of the United States first, nothing more. If our regional and global partnerships are one-sided, like they are now, especially where NATO is concerned, then they need to be reassessed. Spain, for example, does nothing. It should be dropped from the alliance.
For years, decades really, we have spent good money after bad, paying for things that help others while being counter to our interests. As my dad was fond of saying, it is as if, “We have been pissing in the wind,” hoping to avoid the spray, which we definitely haven’t.
If our partners refuse to be there for us, then we need to let the know that, when the you-know-what hits the fan, and at some point it will, we will remember how they’ve treated us with their one-sided commitments.