The US Needs More Foreign Entanglements

Here’s a big idea in psychology that also applies to diplomacy and geopolitics. It’s the insight that the most toxic relationships aren’t the unambiguously negative ones we have with our enemies. They’re instead our ambivalent relationships with frenemies, which can unpredictably toggle from sunny to dark and back again, causing more stress than simple loathing would. In international relations, such frenemies are called allies.

The US has many kinds of “allies.” They include the 52 formal ones, those whom the US is obligated by treaty to defend if they’re attacked, and vice versa. Confusingly, though, the label can also refer to the large and growing club of nations that are better termed “quasi-allies” — Israel and Taiwan are prominent examples. These are friends who cooperate with the US for geopolitical purposes but lack mutual-defense assurances. Yet other countries are simply partners or, as one US diplomat optimistically calls them, “emerging partners.” In commitment terms, America’s relationships are therefore increasingly promiscuous, and range in status from polygamous marriage to passing dalliance.