User:IronMike6/sandbox

The architect of Containment, George Kennan, designed in 1948 a globe-circling system of anti-Russian alliances embracing all non-Communist countries of the Old World. The design was met by the US administration with enthusiasm. Disregarding George Washington's dictum of avoiding entangling alliances, in the early Cold War the United States contracted 44 formal alliances and many other forms of commitment with nearly 100 countries, most of the world countries. Some observers described the process as "pactomania."

The first Cold-War collective alliance was the Rio Pact in 1947, followed by NATO in 1949. Dozens of bilateral formal alliances and informal defensive partnerships were added. Most of the Cold-War alliances remain intact, and NATO vastly expanded in the post-Cold War period. Shortly after the Cold War, US Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, promised that the United States will maintain its alliances "in Europe, Asia/Pacific, Middle East/Persian Gulf, Latin America, and elsewhere." "Remarkably, commented one observer, not much is left for 'elsewhere.'" In 1995, of 192 UN member states, 84 were allied with America. In terms of combined GDP, this was a ratio of almost 17 to 1 versus Russia, up from 1.8 to 1 versus the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In the 2010s, the network comprised of approximately 70% of both the world defense spending and of the nominal World Gross Product with the adversaries combining for less than 15%. Moreover, these adversaries avoid entangling in military alliances containing an article of "attack on one means attack on all" characteristic for US alliances. Such anti-hegemonic alliances do not form. The unipolarity of the alliance configuration is unprecedented in world history. With few exceptions, countries with the nominal per capita GDP above the world average, formally or informally, ally with the United States. The global network of alliances became the defining feature of the US foreign policy. The Pentagon was called the "Mecca" of national defense ministers.

These are not alliances in the Westphalian sense characterized by balance of power and impermanence. Instead, they were associated with the Roman client system during the late Republic. Scholars label the US network of alliances as "hub-and-spokes" system where the United States is the "hub." Spokes do not directly interrelate between and among themselves, but all are bound to the same hub. The "hub-and-spokes" analogy is used in the comparative studies of empires. By contrast to earlier empires, however, the American "imperial" presence was largely welcome. "Although all earlier empire, especially persistent empires, were in a measure by bargain, cooperation and invitation, in the postwar world this took extreme form." Disregarding national pride, large number of states, some of them recent great powers, "surrender their strategic sovereignty en mass." They host hegemonic bases, partly cover the expenses for running them… integrate their strategic forces under the hegemonic command, contribute 1-2% of their GDP to those forces, and tip military, economic and humanitarian contributions in case of the hegemonic operations worldwide.