Our Allies Must Abandon America, For Their Own Good | Opinion

The writing has been on the wall for some time, but our allies have been reluctant to read it. The United States, long the guarantor of the post-World War II liberal international order, has become an unreliable and even a potentially dangerous partner. For their own survival and prosperity, America's traditional allies must begin the difficult but necessary process of decoupling from U.S. global leadership.

The latest demands from Washington to its allies read like a protection racket rather than diplomacy between friends. Denmark continues to face pressure to sell Greenland to the U.S., a sovereign territory whose residents overwhelmingly do not want to be under America's thumb. Mexico and Canada, our only two neighbors, have endured repeated threats of punitive tariffs that they have only delayed thus far by agreeing to what were largely symbolic concessions that will do little to actually stem the supply of illegal immigrants or drugs into our nation. Most egregiously, Ukraine, while fighting for its very existence, was just asked to surrender half its mineral wealth to the U.S. in exchange for continued military support against Russian aggression.

These are not the actions of a responsible superpower, but rather the impulsive demands of a declining hegemon that has lost its way. Our allies must recognize this moment for what it is. Namely, they must come to terms with the fact that we are at the end of the American-led global order that was built in the wake of the Second World War. America can no longer be trusted to responsibly manage the international international system it was principally responsible for creating.

To be clear, this is about more than just President Donald Trump; it's about who Americans have shown themselves to be as a people. Our nation's electorate has demonstrated a repeated willingness to embrace a leader who views international relationships through the lens of extractive transactions rather than mutual benefit. Hence, our allies cannot simply wait this out in the hope that the next administration will be be a return to normal.

The path forward for allies is clear, if uncomfortable. Militarily, European nations must dramatically increase their spending and accelerate their defense integration in order to establish credible deterrence independent of American guarantees. This is precisely why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently called for a European army, as he recognizes that they "can't rule out that America might say 'no' to Europe on issues that might threaten it." Similarly, Asian allies like Japan and South Korea must build new security frameworks that don't rely on increasingly unreliable U.S. commitments.

This necessity for military independence explicitly extends to the need to no longer expect cover from the American nuclear umbrella. Our allies must endeavor on a quest of nuclear proliferation, particularly for the likes of Japan as it faces the reality that it will likely need to contend with China on its own. In Europe, the nuclear arsenals of France and the United Kingdom will need to be expanded, as should their investments in means that ensure a second-strike capability.

So too must the economic partnerships of our allies be diversified. Doing so will reduce their vulnerability to America's ability to exert economic coercion. Moreover, with its commitment to fiscal profligacy not looking to abate any time soon, the world would do well to abandon ship now before an inevitable reckoning comes due. The most critical step for our allies here is the abandonment of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. To effectuate this, their central banks must begin to dramatically reduce their dollar holdings, shifting reserves to a basket of alternative currencies, while developing new multilateral payment systems that don't depend on American-controlled financial infrastructure.

The sooner our allies accept that America can no longer be trusted with global leadership, the better prepared they'll be for the turbulent times ahead. While decoupling from U.S. leadership will be painful in the short-term, remaining tethered to an increasingly unstable and predatory superpower poses far greater dangers. The post-war order built on American leadership is over and in its wake our allies must now build something new without us.

Nicholas Creel is an associate professor of business law at Georgia College & State University.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.