How America could lose its allies | 2020 Election

 For 150 years, the US avoided formal alliances. It occasionally went to war -- fighting the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, and World War I -- but did so without entangling itself in promises to other countries. Then, after World War II, it abruptly changed course, and began to build a network of alliances unlike anything that had come before.

Over the next few decades, the US used those alliances to keep countries around the world close, and to fight Soviet expansion, by making a promise that it would go to war if any of its allies were ever attacked. After the Soviet Union fell, the initial purpose of those alliances was gone, but the US recommitted to them, signaling again and again that the central promise of those relationships was still in effect. It kept doing so for the next 25 years.