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ABSTRACT: The costs and risks associated with America's military alliances have always been more visible and easily understood than the benefits. In reality, however, those costs and risks are frequently overstated, whereas the benefits are more numerous and significant than often appreciated. This article offers a more accurate net assessment of America's alliances in hopes of better informing current policy debates.
President Donald Trump has shaken up the foreign policy debate in the United States, and nowhere more so than in relations with America's longstanding treaty allies. Since Trump emerged as a presidential candidate in mid-2015, he has often put US alliances squarely in his crosshairs. Trump labeled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) "obsolete" and suggested leaving its easternmost members to defend themselves. He floated the idea of encouraging nuclear proliferation by Japan and South Korea to enable US geopolitical retrenchment. As president, Trump pointedly refused to explicitly affirm America's Article 5 commitment at his first NATO summit, and he publicly dressed down the European allies for failing to spend more on defense.1
In a subsequent trip to Europe, Trump offered a more robust statement of US commitment to NATO, but nonetheless vented his frustration with allies for not, in his view, shouldering sufficient burdens.2 Underlying these critiques has been the idea that US alliances are fundamentally sucker bets-one-sided relationships in which a guileless America bears all the costs and parasitic allies derive all the benefits. "We're taken advantage by every nation in the world virtually," Trump commented in February 20l7.3
Not surprisingly, the bipartisan US foreign policy elite has generally reacted with alarm at the administration's rhetoric and policies. Leading commentators have warned that Trump is threatening to harm the alliances Washington spent decades building, institutions generally considered to be among America's most precious geopolitical assets.4 Likewise, international observers have worried that the United States seems to be turning away from its most important friends.5 Yet despite the reaction they have provoked, Trump's critiques have nonetheless revealed a fundamental asymmetry in the cost-benefit assessment of US alliances.
The fact of the matter is that the costs and risks associated with America's alliances have always been more visible and easily understood than the benefits. Moreover, because US foreign policy elites have long become...