The U.S. is allied with every major industrialized power on the planet. America's friends in Asia and Europe generally are prosperous and populous. Yet decades after the conflicts that led to Washington's security guarantees for them, the allied gaggle remains a bunch of "losers," to paraphrase Donald Trump.
North Korea recently staged its fourth nuclear test. Naturally, South Korea and Japan reacted in horror. But it was America which acted.
The U.S. sent a Guam-based B-52 wandering across South Korean skies. "This was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland," opined Adm. Harry B. Harris, Jr., head of Pacific Command.