America’s greatness, at least until Friday, was indisputable. But what President Donald Trump has failed to realise, and made abundantly clear in his posturing inauguration address, is that the country’s greatness is not made in America. It is made abroad.

For all his protectionist and “America first” rhetoric – he used the word American 35 times in his speech, more than any other president – the United States’ power in the world rests only partly on its military might and economic heft. Much more important are its alliances.

No country in the history of the world has had more allies, or has used them to more effect. It was in alliance with other countries that America beat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It was alongside allies that it won the Cold War.

And it was with allies that America rewrote the rules for a post-Cold-War world – globalisation, the spread of democracy, universal human rights, intervention to prevent genocide; a rules-based international order in which might is not necessarily right. These alliances are the foundation of the West – the rich, democratic and law-governed countries, with a population of more than a billion people, and a combined GDP of nearly £30 trillion, which is (or was) the world’s best hope of spreading justice, liberty, prosperity and stability.