To be successful, alliances must be built on carefully selected members, tightly defined objectives, and constantly maintained credibility.
I note this in light of Bill Kristol’s reaction to President Trump’s announcement that he’ll attend the 100th anniversary of World War I’s end in Paris this November. For Kristol, the president’s decision is a reminder that alliances are instrumental to American security.
I have no problem with the president attending the commemoration of the end of WWI in Paris on Nov. 11th. In fact his being there can remind us of the fallacies of America First and of the virtues of the American-led post-1945 alliance system that has prevented another world war.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 17, 2018
I broadly agree with Kristol. I believe that the post-1945 U.S. alliance, as rendered by NATO in particular, is the primary reason that the world has avoided a third world war. I also share Kristol’s understanding that “America First” foreign policy philosophies are destructive and dangerous. Isolationism limits free trade and thus raises consumer prices while preventing the U.S. from selling high-value goods abroad and generating high-value jobs at home. “America First” policies, equally rendered by former President Barack Obama as President Trump, also enable orders of power that are destructive to international security and freedom.
Nevertheless, World War I isn’t the best rebuke to “America First” policies. After all, that war was caused by the interactions of alliances, not the absence of them. Indeed, the pre-1914 alliance system was the antithesis of “America First,” involving interwoven and overlapping partnerships that elevated vague commitments and pride above national interests. The tragic absurdity of the July 1914 crisis that led to the war was its matching of deep mistrust and arrogant assumptions to loyalty pledges that made little sense.
In turn, World War I’s guiding lesson is to take a middle path between supra-sovereign alliances such as the European Union and isolationism of the kind that defined U.S. policy in the early 1910s and the 1920s-1930s. Expressed towards defending key objectives and understood as such by adversaries, alliances like NATO can spread opportunity and preserve peace. But history warns us that if poorly constructed, alliances can be just as dangerous as isolationism.
