The logic behind our alliances
Correction: An earlier version of this column referred to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. It should have referred to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This version has been updated.
Donald Trump at a news conference in Washington in March. Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of NATO. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
By Charles Lane Opinion writer July 28
Perhaps it would help, given recent events in U.S. politics, to review the rationale for U.S. security commitments to allies in Europe and the Far East.
The 20th century taught that our national security is inconsistent with the hegemony of a hostile power over either of those strategic regions. Preventing that might be expensive, but doing so collectively, through U.S.-led transpacific and transatlantic political-military structures, is affordable and far more cost-effective than isolationist or unilateral alternatives.
What’s held these alliances together over the past seven decades or so has not been U.S. nuclear weapons or conventional might, or U.S. money, but U.S. political consensus — a shared belief across our society that the benefits of the U.S.-Japan defense treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, U.S. bases in Korea and other institutions outweigh the costs and risks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-logic-behind-our-alliances/2016/07/28/701f8174-54d9-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
