Brick by brick, the Western alliance is being dismantled. Alliances work when countries stand by their friends, even when their own interests are not engaged. Britain, Canada, and Denmark joined the U.S. operation in Afghanistan, not because they had been attacked, but because they saw 9/11 as an assault on the free world, and rushed to help their ally.

Canada has been rewarded with a tariff war, Denmark with the threatened annexation of its territory. And the United Kingdom? When President Donald Trump started musing about not supporting Britain’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, it released a flood of pro-Argentina commentary from U.S. conservatives.