What Trump Gets Right About Alliances - Michael Schroeder

Michael Schroeder

Ms. Gordon

AP U.S. Government and Politics

8-29-16

The article that I selected is titled: What Trump Gets Right About Alliances. Doug Bandow writes about how he believes that America has made alliances with too many countries and that Trump won’t back certain alliances. Bandow believes that America has made alliances with countries that wouldn’t defend us if we got attacked, so we shouldn’t continue defending them. He points out that in Trump has said that he will not continue to give aid to and continue defending countries which don’t defend us back, and countries that can defend themselves perfectly fine. Bandow describes how no nation has or will soon have any reason to attack the U.S., so we don’t face any threat which would need an allies assistance. He thinks that using our resources to defend other nations, and believing that they will defend us if anything happens is a waste. He doesn’t cover once in the article about how large groups such as Isis have already declared war and hatred towards all Americans.

The idea that Trump plans to not defend our allies is important because it causes a widespread panic. It causes the citizens and leaders of the countries to question the legitimacy of our commitment to defend them. There may not be an obvious reason why we should care about other countries being worried about America withdrawing or not supporting our alliances, but there is a reason to care. What if something bad happens to America and we need help? Some people believe the idea that America may need foreign help is unpatriotic, but that is not true. The “American Dream” is starting from nothing and through smart decisions making a great life. We don’t want to be so overcome with pride that we don’t ask for help, possibly making our situation worse. Some other people may believe that nothing bad could happen to America, well that’s not true. We could be attacked by a foreign power, but some people don’t believe that is possible. We could also have a natural disaster. We could have a hurricane twice the size of Katrina hit us, have the San Andreas Fault let out a gigantic earthquake, or even have the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupt and cause earthquakes at the same time. The volcano is roughly 10,000 years overdue to erupt, and the fault is overdue as well. I know that I have gone a little off topic from alliances, but the point is that no one would want to give any foreign aide regardless if we are allies or not, to a country that only helps out itself.

America’s profound sense of individualism is a leading factor to why some people believe that it isn’t right to help out other people when they have nothing in return to give. Another one of America’s four core political values is equality, but how can we claim to believe in equality, when we let our own individualistic self desire prevent us from helping out others to can’t help out themselves?