Why America Doesn’t Need “Allies”

The title is a bit crude and is deliberately mocking in tone. But it has to be because there is a deeply-entrenched, almost sacred presumption embedded in the nation’s foreign policy catechism that “allies”, “alliances” and “coalitions of the willing” are the be-all-and-end-all of enlightened, necessary and effective foreign policy.

American policy-makers and diplomats perforce should therefore never leave these shores for the wider world without them. This dogma perhaps reached its epitome in S...