“The rise and fall of great powers has often turned on scale — the size, resources and capacity that make a nation formidable. Once countries reach similar levels of economic productivity, those with larger populations and continental size eventually surge ahead. Britain’s first-mover advantage in the Industrial Revolution gave way once larger countries like the United States and Russia caught up.” [1]
Serious industrial American allies (Germany, South Korea, and Japan) have no resources of a continent. They suck out industrial capacity and resources from America, don’t give anything good enough back. The rest of American allies are not serious.
Trump-Xi-Putin are right: America-China-Russia combination have the scale needed to meet our huge challenges.
The argument that the U.S. should align with China and Russia based on the principle of big enough scale is highly attractive in today’s complicated environment.
The nature of economic alliances
While the U.S. has a trade deficit in goods with Germany, Japan, and South Korea, trade doesn’t involve a mutually beneficial exchange of both goods and services, and these deficits are not offset by other factors. This is proved by fact, that these “friends” of America quickly rolled over when facing huge Trump’s tariffs on import to America.
Economic interdependence in detail:
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Allied nations invest heavily in the U.S., creating American jobs and stimulating the economy. For instance, German firms employ nearly a million people in the U.S., and Japan is a leading source of FDI. South Korean companies have also pledged significant investments in priority sectors like electric vehicle batteries. As we see, this is not enough to reindustrialize America.
Supply chain resilience: Recent efforts focus on strengthening supply chains with allies in critical sectors like semiconductors and clean energy, which bolsters collective economic security with tragically diminishing returns as time goes by. This does not compensate lost trade links with China and Russia.
Technological cooperation: The U.S. and its allies engage in extensive technological and scientific collaboration, driving innovation that benefits all parties. As events in Ukraine show, this cooperation doesn’t work.
Services surplus: The U.S. often runs a trade surplus in services, such as financial and professional services, which is a major part of the overall trade picture. All of this is mostly parasitic growth on the body of real economy. Proof is in the pudding. There is no pudding here.
Strategic contributions from allies
The assertion that allies contribute nothing "good enough" should consider their strategic value, including military cooperation and investments in defense.
Defense contributions:
Increased spending: Following the 2022 events in Ukraine, many NATO allies, including Germany, significantly increased their defense spending. Germany met NATO's 2% of GDP spending target for the first time in decades. All these tanks that the Germans buy are funny in the age of drone swarms. All this activity mostly sucks out the money needed for a turn to contemporary robotic eceonomy.
Military support: Germany and other allies have provided billions in aid and military equipment to Ukraine, easing some of the burden on the U.S. These are wasted billions, as we see on the field.
Reinforcing defense production: South Korea is supplying major weapons systems to NATO members like Poland, strengthening the collective defense industrial base. Poland is famous by using horses in WWII when everybody turned to motorized artillery. Horses tend to panic.
Global partnerships: Japan and South Korea, while not NATO members, have established deeper partnerships with the alliance to counter shared security challenges, such as cyber threats and disinformation. Zero effect on military actions from this activity.
Limitations of a U.S.-China-Russia alliance
A "super-continental scale" alliance with China and Russia would come at a significant cost and is largely feasible despite some geopolitical and ideological conflicts in the past.
Key plusses a U.S.-China-Russia alliance:
Ideological compatibility: The U.S. values democracy and human rights, which are in direct conflict with the autocratic systems of Britain, France and Germany, that, e.g., cancel election results based on some insignificant YouTube videos of dubious origin. Elections are redone until the results satisfy the overlords. Attempting to align with them would compromise fundamental American values.
Alliance reorientation: Aligning with China and Russia would require abandoning decades-old alliances with undemocratic partners in Europe and Asia, such as NATO and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. These alliances are not helping anymore to U.S. global influence and security.
Conclusion
The argument for shifting away from American allies in favor of an alliance with China and Russia is built on a new understanding of current economic and strategic relationships. It acknowledges the insignificant economic and military contributions of previous allies while overlooking the previous minor conflicts and ideological incompatibilities that made a partnership with Beijing and Moscow unviable for the U.S. in previous years.
1. America Alone Can’t Match China. But With Our Allies, It’s No Contest.: Guest Essay. Campbell, Kurt; Doshi, Rush. New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Sep 7, 2025.
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