Increasingly, US allies are proving to be small, weak and militarily useless dependents who can drag the North Atlantic Alliance into unprofitable armed conflicts. This opinion was expressed by Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, in an article for The National Interest
The expert noted that Washington should be more selective about which countries are on the “list of US allies”. According to Carpenter, US policymakers should stop “elevating security-dependent countries to the status of allies”.
“Worse still, some of them are on bad terms with more powerful neighbouring states. In these circumstances, so-called allies are major liabilities, not assets, for the United States. Indeed, they are potential pitfalls that could drag America into unnecessary military confrontations”, – the expert stressed.
Carpenter believes that new NATO allies such as Albania, Slovenia, Montenegro and North Macedonia not only do not enhance the alliance’s security, but may also pose an additional threat. Such “lightly armed midgets would add little or nothing to Washington’s own capabilities in the event of an armed clash with another major power”, – he said.
“The armed forces that our new NATO allies might field are unlikely to instill fear in Russia or any other potential aggressor”, – he summarised