The Test For An Ally--What's In It For US?

Israel is our friend. Is Israel an American ally?

We get a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia. We're selling 20 gigabucks of weapons to the Saudis. Is Saudi Arabia an American ally?

We have a lot of disagreements with France and Germany. Are either France of Germany our allies?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about that simple word, "ally." To some, the word is used synonymously with "friend" or "friendly." To many, the simple fact that American companies do business in or with those of another country means that the US and that country are "allies." Sometimes it seems a word that once, a long time ago, had a simple and precise meaning has become so distorted that it now can denote anything to anybody.

A simple, precise definition is in order. An ally is a country with whose government the US has a formal political or political-military relationship, an alliance.

This definition implies that each country, the United States and Country X, sees that the alliance is in each State's better interests. The key word is "interest." That's a polite way to say, "Looking out for Number One."

Get a grip on this. Whether any of us like the idea or not, nation-states are like sociopaths in one key way. Nation-states look out for themselves first and foremost. Selflessness is a characteristic of individual humans, not the nation-state.

Here's another key consideration to grab hold of. Nation-states do not have friends. Individual people may have friends. Nation-states never do. Generations ago, a British statesman put it this way, "England has neither lasting friends nor lasting enemies, only lasting interests."

He was close. Nation-states may have enemies, but they never have friends. They only have allies. Allies, like enemies, are never forever. Allies, like enemies, change as the self-defined interests of a nation-state change.

Comes a voice from the back, "Huh?"

Geeko nods, goes for clarification (just like a State Department spokesman). "Example. In January 1945 the Soviet Union and China were US allies. Germany and Japan were US enemies. Right?"

Voice from the back, "Sure. Everybody knows that."

"Flash forward precisely five years," urges the Geek. "Now, the Soviet Union and Red China were enemies of the US. West Germany and Japan were allies in the making. Why?"

VFTB, "Things changed, I suppose."

The Voice is right. Things had changed. While the American interests at stake stayed the same, survival, economic considerations, an awareness that the peace and prosperity of the US was interdependent with the peace and prosperity of other regions of the world, the nature of the perceived threat had changed. Nazism was dead. Imperial Japan was one with the Roman Empire. The US saw the new threat as coming from something called "global" or "monolithic" communism with Moscow as the brain.

New alliances were formed. The US and the other countries involved all saw the new structures as filling needs and serving the better interests of each.

Alliances, the making of allies, is a process of self-interest identification and definition resulting in the determination that the formation of a formal relation serves subjectively defined national interests.

Alliances are not friendships. They're not even marriages. They are more like business agreements.

This means that the status of an ally is always open to scrutiny. The US must keep an eye on the meshing of its changing interests, the changing nature of threats to those interests, and the relevance of any particular ally to countering threats and securing interests.

Sympathy and other emotions have no place in the process. Neither does the other country's capacity to lobby Congress or woo the media and other apologists.

One question and one question only must be asked and coldly, analytically answered. "What is in this alliance for us, the United States?"

The respected journal, Foreign Affairs, recently polled a number of experienced foreign policy professionals and academics regarding whether or not continued alliances with several named countries would be in the better interests of the United States. Fourteen percent responded that a continued alliance with Israel would not be in America's best interests.

That is a minority to be sure, but not many years ago, none of the more than one hundred experts would have suggested that the days of an alliance with Israel serving US better interests were behind us. None would have suggested that the nature of interests and threats had altered such that the perceived "special relationship" between the US and Israel might be detrimental to our interests.

The Geek is not bashing Israel. While he may think (and be able to demonstrate from the historical record) that the Israeli tail has too often wagged the American dog in large measure because of lobbying efforts that might make the Gucci Gulch denizens in the hire of the Health Care Industry drool with envy, he is not singling out Israel for opprobrium.

Rather the Geek is using Israel as an example of a process. The process of carefully examining all current alliances for their continued utility to our needs, interests and perceived threats to these. Perhaps the time has come to cool relations with many countries. Possibly money we spend on troops or weapons sales to the Mideast would be better spent on developing means of genuine energy independence from the oil resources of the region.

Is the time ripe, perhaps over ripe to redefine our relation with Russia from one of rivalry to one of alliance? Do the Russians and us face a common enemy in the Peoples' Republic of China? Or in the Islamists? Do we and the Russians face increasing opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation as we have shown in the International Space Station?

What is the current relevance of our strategic alliance with Japan? South Korea? How can these alliances be made more effective in meeting changing interests, threats, and opportunities?

There are many other areas and long standing alliances of various sorts which must be reexamined. Many are relics of the former Cold War and may not meet our needs and interests now. Alliances must not, if they are going to work in our better interests, be allowed to age gracefully, to become warm little reminders of times and needs long gone.

Alliances are not warm, fuzzy security blankets to be held on to against the forces of change. Alliances and allies are mutual protection of identified interests, insurance against the perils of the world. Alliances and allies are not the products of domestic politics or lobbying. They are cold, realistic appraisals of our needs, our interests, even our aspirations in the world.

We must never ask a nation-state, "Will you be my friend?" We must always ask, "What's in it for us?"

Not the nicest, sweetest way to live, admits the Geek. It is however the way of the world, according to the Book of History.