Donald Trump’s admirers like to say the Republican presidential nominee’s critics are just defending the policies of a failed establishment. But his critique of a foreign policy built on longstanding alliances with nations from around the world couldn’t be more wrong because it overlooks two simple, indisputable facts. One, over the past 70 years, these alliances have laid the groundwork for the most profound gains in human well-being, affluence and peace in history. Two, the alliances are not responsible for the biggest U.S. foreign-policy debacles. The Vietnam War and the second Iraq War were self-inflicted wounds.

Since its founding in 1949, NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — has been highly successful in preventing the expansion of first the Soviet Union and now Russia. It also has bound together European democracies ravaged by two world wars. Such alliances bring stability and predictability to international order. To have a president who decided whether the U.S. would honor its treaty obligations on an a la carte basis is an extraordinarily destabilizing idea.

Yes, many NATO members should pay more for their defense. Trump’s point has been made by the Obama administration for many years. Only five of NATO’s 28 members meet the organization’s guideline that each spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. But a U.S. president threatening nations that don’t comply doesn’t advance U.S. interests; it makes us seem bullying and irresolute. Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s strategy of imploring our allies to do more paid off last year when Great Britain formally committed to meet the 2 percent threshold for the next five years.

But while Trump’s comments about NATO have gotten the most attention, his doubts about U.S. commitments to Asia are every bit as dumbfounding. He has said he would consider having the U.S. close its bases in Japan and South Korea unless they pay the U.S. more for protection.


× An examination of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s convention acceptance speeches and how they line up on several key issues.

Trump seems unaware of how much those nations already pay. Also, if there is any nuclear power in the world that is likely to use nuclear weapons against its enemies, it is North Korea. And if there is any nation in the world that needs containing, it is China — an economic superpower with a rapidly growing military and a growing habit of picking fights in territorial disputes.

Beijing claims sovereignty over nearly all the South China Sea, which the U.S. Department of Energy estimated in 2013 holds 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Energy companies have been reluctant to drill because of the competing claims of China with the nations of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Meanwhile, China has been building islands with runways and housing on reefs in the sea and may use its navy — the largest in Asia — to make its ownership appear a fait accompli.

A U.S. retreat from the region would invite chaos. It could fuel a nuclear arms race, and it could pit the nation with the world’s second-largest economy (China) against the nation with the third-largest (Japan) and other nations (South Korea and India) with big ambitions and booming economies.


In a world with highly interconnected economies, this would be awful for the nation with the world’s largest economy.

The United States doesn’t have to always be the world’s policeman. But it should be a reliable ally to the many nations in the world that largely share our values. Unfortunately, one of the two finalists to be U.S. president doesn’t agree. That’s why this November, the whole world will be holding its breath — not just Americans.