Even when it comes to the closest allies, America’s alliances are imperfect. Still, the engagement of so many foreign militaries in ceremonies to mark America’s 250th anniversary underlines how America still has many friends and is stronger for them.The list of participants in this year’s celebrations is a long one. We’ve seen America’s respective oldest and closest allies, France and the United Kingdom, send their elite air force demonstration teams for U.S. flyovers. We’ve seen Spain send four warships to New York City’s International Naval Review. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Morocco, Norway, South Korea, and Turkey also sent warships to the review. Again, this does not mean we should close our eyes to challenges in our foreign partnerships.
NATO provides political and economic space for vast trade, tourism, and social engagements that make Americans, Canadians, and Europeans safer and more prosperous. But even as Germany, Poland, and the Baltic States now lead the way in defense spending, too many other NATO members, such as Italy and Spain, continue to neglect burden sharing. Nor did any of the alliance’s 31 other members provide adequate defensive support against recent, relentless Iranian attacks on international shipping. Indeed, America’s nominally closest ally, the U.K., failed on both these counts (the failure of the Royal Navy to deploy more than a patrol boat to this year’s celebrations testifies to this military decline).
