About France, and other good suggestions for worst alliances

I think we need to clear up some terms. An ally would be a nation that shares not just values, but responsibilities as well. A client would be a nation that does what we ask them, usually with the prospects of money, weaponry, forgiving debts, etc. Pakistan is clearly a client state - it does not do anything until the check clears. When Indonesia was faced with rising Islamic terrorism in the early part of this decade, that government undertook religious reform, improved its law enforcement agencies, and streamlined its court system to handle terrorism suspects. Now, Indonesia is in much better shape than it was in 2002. By contrast, Pakistan still tries to draw a line between "good" jihadis (those that target India and extend its influence in Afghanistan) and "bad" jihadis (those that blow up Marriott hotels in Islamabad and Karachi).

Israel has changed over time. After the Six-Day War, it can be said it was an ally to the U.S. But, once the Soviet Union dissolved and we were no longer worried about Russian expansion into the Middle East, Israel's usefulness to America declined. And when Israel was called upon to do something useful for the U.S. (and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt) - and weaken Hezbollah, they made such a hash of it that America's reputation was in a poorer state after Israel's actions. Unless Israel can change its poor record of strategic thinking, it will become tougher to make the case that Israel is a valuable partner in the region.

Saudi Arabia deserves as much criticism as it gets here. A nation that basically hit the geological lottery by simply being over vast oil fields, and that rather than deal with dissidents, simply sends them overseas where they wreak havoc.

On the plus side, Canada has been punching far above its weight in Afghanistan. After the U.S., it has the next highest number of casualties among the Western nations. Other NATO nations which have substantially larger defense budgets are not doing a fraction of what Canada has done.

The least well known of America's failed alliances (but one of the most useless and expensive) has to have been China under the KMT. Billions were spent supporting the KMT government during the war to little effect, most of the money given was siphoned off into the bank accounts of various KMT officials, with Chiang Kai-Shek (the Generalisimo of China who General Stillwell labelled 'Cash-My-Check') and his wife taking the lion's share. After the war further billions were spent supporting the KMT government, whose soldiers mostly either ran or went directly over to the other side in 48/49. The US navy then had to go in and stop the communists invading the last scrap of territory controlled by the KMT - Taiwan. If there was ever a chance of the US tempting the Chinese Communists out of the Soviet sphere, it was killed stone dead by the US's unthinking support for the KMT - which was anything but the Christian-oriented democratic organisation that many in Washington, taking Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's wartime speeches at face value imagined it to be. In fact the KMT started life as a pro-Moscow Leninist party, and did not allow anything in the way of proper elections until 1996. The only positive to have come out of this alliance, which still continues in the form of the Taiwan Relations Act, is America's defence of the modern, prosperous, and free ROC on Taiwan - but even this comes at a cost to relations with Beijing.

Really, the US would have been much better off ignoring the KMT - US aid didn't affect the fighting in China during WWII much as little of it actually reached the front line. After the war most of this materiel ended up in communist hands - the long-range 105 mm howitzers which so crippled the French during the battle of Dien Bien Phu, for example, were most likely US guns given to Chiang's army captured in battle and then supplied by the Chinese to the Viet Minh. A lot of the US weapons found in the hands of Chinese soldiers in Korea were also originally given to the KMT's armies to use in fighting the communists.

Finally, the collapse of the KMT regime in Mainland China served as the catalyst for the McCarthyite witch hunts of the 50's - with those State Department officials who had pointed out the corrupt nature of the KMT regime being the prime scapegoats for 'losing China'. In pretty much every way this relationship hurt the US more than it helped it, and that's why the KMT should be considered America's worst friend.

Israel - In the build-up to the USSR's collapse, Israel was handing out passports to anyone who had mild to severe claims of persecution and mild claims of actually being Jewish. Through these passports, international criminal syndicates were able to move all manner of illegal goods in and out of the Middle East. While this might be precisely a foreign policy issue at this time, the flow of international crime has been known to cause wars and intern those wars allow for international crime to prosper.

Mexico - If Juarez is any indicator, crime levels in this country are becoming absurdly high as well; so much so that military aid may be requested in the future to bring down drug cartels. . . wait that sounds like, and it probably the fault of. . .

Colombia - Another country that has been the subject of military action and aid, in this case to bring down the Medellín cartel: certainly one of the most deadly groups that south America. Even as America assisted and trained the Los Pepes group, whose primary membership was those whose family members had been murderd by the Medellín, and the Columbian military it took nearly two years plus blood and treasure and even after the U.S. made it clear they would bring force to bear, Columbia continues to one of the most corrupt nations in the world.

And the pettiest of all of these:

Venezuela - Seriously, anybody who wants to get their name in the papers will talk trash about the U.S. It's a safe bet that citizens of Venezuela are as tired of it as some U.S. citizens get ("Yeah, yeah, we suck Hugo, thanks, I see you still want to sell us oil. A lot.")

I was a little disappointed no one mentioned the current incarnation of the Republican Party.

peut-etre, much of french anger is vitiated love?

Let's hire better pr-teams for both countries?

dlw

If Hussein is a bad allie, then so was the Shah.

Just think how much less mid-east turmoil, Global Warming, over-dependence on cheap oil there would be in the US, if we hadn't regime-changed Mossadegh in '53.

dlw

Keep in mind that when the Shah finally toppled the government, it was not "if" but "when" with regards to Mossadegh's collapse - he was being targeted by all of Iran's factions, including the religious ones. Had we left him alone, one of them would have made a move, and probably succeeded; Mossadegh was not very popular in Iran at the time when his regime was driven out.

Sure. I've heard that argument before. "The locks on that jewelry store were so bad somebody was going to break in, so I figured why not me?"

The Shah always had more sympathy for the Soviets even while he took our aid and support, and he was incompetent enough to get himself overthrown after having one prior second chance to get his throne back.

If we'd let them sort it out themselves somebody might have taken over who was at least competent.

Or who knows, they might have tried to set up some kind of democracy. Stranger things have happened.

Sure. I've heard that argument before. "The locks on that jewelry store were so bad somebody was going to break in, so I figured why not me?"

The international arena isn't a downtown commercial center. It's a nasty place, and to be honest, I'm not that repentant over the US and UK (since the UK was still the major foreign actor in Iran)putting the Shah in power. As I said, he was going to come down anyways, quite possibly to a regime that would be much worse at the time (a religious fundamentalist regime, since that was one of the major factions threatening to overthrow Mossadegh), and we got in and put in our guy in the midst of that instability. It's not particularly moral, but it's not as if we overthrew a highly popular leader and a long-standing democratic government.

If we'd let them sort it out themselves somebody might have taken over who was at least competent.

Would you have preferred a Communist Iran (since that was one of the major factions) or a religious fundamentalist Iran from the 1950s onward? Those were the major factions, and my money would have been on the fundamentalists getting into power.

Or who knows, they might have tried to set up some kind of democracy. Stranger things have happened.

Mossadegh was democratically elected.

"Or who knows, they might have tried to set up some kind of democracy. Stranger things have happened."

Mossadegh was democratically elected.

Sure, and they wanted to throw him out but their democracy didn't have a way to do it quick enough to suit them. They might have wanted a democracy that let them throw out unpopular leaders quicker. Hard to know what things would have been like if they were different.

Unlike mainland China, the Japanese, although ruthless in beating down opposition to colonial rule, had built an efficient civil service,

Efficient civil service.

decent infrastructure

Decent infrastructure.

and education,

Education.

and the beginnings of a strong national industry.

National industry.

Throw in the much greater ease of managing an island without having to juggle regional warlords who only obeyed central government when it suited them,

No regional warlords.

as well as substantial US/Japanese aid post-war,

Substantial US aid.

and you have the tiger economy that still largely exists on Taiwan.

So, what does afghanistan have going for it?