360° View of Alliances: How They Benefit America—And How They Must Evolve

Alliances at the Crossroads
By Mark R. Kennedy, Founding Director, Wahba Initiative for Strategic Competition

Alliances are America’s most underappreciated strategic asset. They extend our reach, multiply our capabilities, and give our actions legitimacy. They deter adversaries not only through collective military strength, but also by weaving together economic, technological, diplomatic, and cultural ties that deepen mutual commitment.

In security terms, alliances provide forward-deployed presence, shared intelligence, and interoperable forces. Economically, they expand market access, attract investment, and strengthen supply chains, including global shipping and ports. In technology, they spur innovation through joint research, talent exchanges, and coordinated standards-setting. Diplomatically, they amplify America’s voice in multilateral forums and reinforce the rules-based order. Culturally, they foster people-to-people connections that build trust across nations and generations.

Yet the world in which many of these alliances were forged has shifted. Strategic competition today is waged as much through supply chains, technology platforms, and standards bodies as it is through military might. Winning in this environment requires alliances that not only defend territory, but also shape the flows of capital, data, energy, talent, and ideas.

This collection highlights that imperative. Jerry Haar underscores how alliances propel innovation and entrepreneurship by linking diverse ecosystems across borders, creating networks that accelerate breakthroughs and spread opportunity. Alex Botting shows how digital infrastructure has become a frontline test of alliance credibility, where choosing trusted networks over untrusted vendors determines both security and economic advantage. Barry Rabe demonstrates how democratic allies can share best practices to turn nuclear energy into a credible, competitive, and safe source of reliable power. Jim Cooper reminds us that the “final frontier” is inseparable from earthly alliances, and that only through cooperation can space remain an asset rather than a battlefield. And Jeff Kucik and Keith Rockwell remind us that America’s enduring strength lies not in isolation, but in the alliances that amplify US power, prosperity, and global influence.

Together, these perspectives illustrate the breadth of alliance benefits today—and why modernization is urgent.

Alliances have underpinned our security and prosperity for decades, but their future strength depends on our willingness to adapt them to the realities of today’s strategic competition.

Four imperatives stand out in this environment. The US and its partners must:

1. Integrate Economic Statecraft – Embed trade, finance, industrial policy, and development tools into alliance frameworks so that coordinated economic resilience is treated as integral to security.
2. Align Technology Governance – Coordinate on standards, regulations, and safeguards in AI, digital infrastructure, and emerging tech to protect innovation and values.
3. Build Resilient Supply Chains – Develop shared strategies for securing critical minerals, components, and energy flows.
4. Modernize Alliance Mechanisms – Update structures, decision-making processes, and scope to reflect geoeconomic priorities alongside defense, making alliances more agile and responsive.

The essays by our Global Fellows underscore these themes. Whether in securing trusted digital networks, advancing energy resilience, or shaping the rules of the final frontier, America’s alliances are not a legacy to be maintained—they are a living network that must be strengthened, updated, and expanded. If we invest in their modernization with the same vision and urgency that built them, they will remain the backbone of American leadership and the free world’s best defense against authoritarian coercion in the coming decades.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Propelled by Alliances

Dr. Jerry Haar, WISC Global Fellow

Among the most powerful catalysts for innovation and entrepreneurship are alliances. These entail the pooling of complementary resources, expertise, and market access creates exponential value that individual countries cannot achieve alone.

Transformative advantages are gained through innovation networks that transcend traditional organizational boundaries, fostering creating powerful ecosystems for collaborative growth and breakthrough solutions.

The main drivers of growth of innovation networks in recent years include: globalization and the increasing complexity of technologies; the need for companies to access new markets, technologies, and expertise; the rising costs and risks associated with R&D; government policies and initiatives to promote innovation and entrepreneurship; and the growing importance of open innovation and collaborative research

Essentially, innovation networks accelerate the pace and quality of innovation by harnessing diverse expertise and resources. These networks enable companies to share costs and risks associated with R&D while accessing new technologies and expertise from partners. The collaborative approach creates environments where new ideas and moonshot-type innovation can flourish, often delivering more sustainable streams of innovation than internal efforts alone.

Within this context, cross-border alliances serve as critical enablers for expanding innovation networks globally, creating bridges between different innovation ecosystems and facilitating knowledge transfer across national boundaries.

Examples of cross-border alliances include the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance in the auto industry, Starbucks and Nestlé’s global coffee distribution partnership, the Corning-Siemens joint venture for fiber optics, and Air Asia and Tata Sons’ airline venture. These collaborations allow companies to share resources, technology, and market access to achieve mutual growth and enter new markets, combining complementary strengths and creating value beyond what they could achieve independently

Overcoming geographic barriers can allow companies to access new markets, pool resources internationally, and gain diverse perspectives from different cultural backgrounds. By collaborating teaming with partners from different countries, organizations companies can tap into untapped markets and expand their customer base while combining expertise, technologies, and resources. Finally, yet another advantage of alliances is firms’ ability to transfer and integrate innovative resources within multinational partnerships.

Recognizably, most firms will want to “go it alone”; however, the benefits of collaborating with other companies—even the competition at times—can yield substantial benefits for enterprises of all sizes.

Trusted Digital Infrastructure as the New Alliance Test

By Alex Botting, WISC Global Fellow

Alliances are a cornerstone of America’s global strength, amplifying its diplomatic influence, military reach, and economic prosperity. Yet even as they align on key matters of security and foreign policy, many US allies undercut the strategic objectives of our alliance with domestic policies that prioritize short-term financial benefits.

European and Middle Eastern partners provided safe haven for the assets of Kremlin-linked individuals, even after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and assassinated dissidents in Britain. European and Asian partners built their digital infrastructure with Chinese vendors, even as the espionage risks were well known.

The associated geostrategic risks were historically ignored; such was our confidence in our advantage over those adversaries. Three developments force us to reconsider that calculus:

1. China is now a near-peer competitor to the US, a military threat to many Asian allies, and increasingly aggressive in the cyber domain.
2. Russia is at war in Europe, and its hostile grey zone activities target European allies directly and on a frequent basis.
3. Sino-Russian cooperation is on the rise, connecting both Asian and European allies directly to the competition in both theaters.

As the nature of strategic competition shifts, so too must our alliances. Domestic decisions can no longer be divorced from their geopolitical implications.
This is particularly true for digital infrastructure—including undersea cables, 5G, cloud and data centers—which underpin not only national security but also the innovation and competitiveness that drive economic growth. Money spent with untrusted vendors is money that doesn’t go to trusted vendors, enhancing our adversaries’ control of global digital infrastructure.

If we’re going to emerge successful in this strategic competition, domestic policies that exploit a free-rider advantage while strengthening the Sino-Russian axis can no longer be tolerated. We must ensure that foundational digital infrastructure is procured from trusted vendors, developed by clean supply chains, and secured against external attacks.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Venable LLP.

Allies Sharing Best Practices is Vital to America’s Nuclear Renaissance

Dr. Barry Rabe, WISC Global Fellow 

Nuclear energy is experiencing a global renaissance.  Mounting demand for nuclear power reflects its ability to generate large volumes of reliable baseload electricity free of air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.  Even in the hyper-partisan US, nuclear power has developed a supportive base that appears to transcend political divides.

However, proposed expansion faces many challenges in the US and globally.  Nuclear energy has a long track record of overruns, both in total costs and project durations.  It has generally remained heavily dependent on subsidies, shifting costs to taxpayers and ratepayers.  Nuclear also chronically struggles with spent nuclear fuel management, high-level waste that requires centuries of safe disposal.  And it has faced severe credibility challenges linked to high-profile accidents, from Three Mile Island in the 1970s to Fukushima in the 2010s.

None of these stumbling blocks are insurmountable.  Ironically, authoritarian nations such as China and Russia have made greater strides than most democracies in increasing nuclear deployment and export in recent years.  Can democracies up their games, independently and collectively assuring excellence in developing nuclear as a reliable, cost-effective, and safe energy source?

Nuclear waste represents one important area of opportunity.  Three democracies (Finland, Sweden and Canada) are finalizing plans to open permanent geological repositories.  Finland has pioneered a strategy utilizing hallmarks of robust democratic systems, including far-reaching transparency and public engagement processes.  It has successfully linked major nuclear energy expansion with a publicly supported repository scheduled to open in 2026.  Sweden and Canada have followed much of this playbook in identifying final sites.

These examples offer models for diffusion to other nations, including the United States.  The resurgent interest in nuclear energy underscores the need for America and its allies to share best practices and work collaboratively to develop coherent and credible plans to maximize its considerable potential as a major global power source.

Alliances in the Final Frontier

Hon. Jim Cooper, WISC Global Fellow

Nothing inspires like space exploration, and no technology has the reach of satellites. But neither is sustainable without Earthly alliances.

An estimated six billion people use satellite-enabled smart phones; many can’t get by without them. But their usefulness makes them ideal military targets.

Several nations now have anti-satellite capabilities that make all satellites vulnerable. Space has been weaponized. The next world war will begin in space unless enough nations agree that space should be a sanctuary, a global commons instead of a combat zone.

In addition to kinetic threats, frequent electronic attacks on satellites emanate daily from many nations. Hacking, dazzling, jamming, and spoofing are cheap and difficult to trace. We need alliances to stop such state-sponsored and terrorist threats.

There is precedent. The world has agreements to limit pollution in space, but these need toughening because space junk is proliferating anyway. Even a paint chip is deadly at 17,500 miles per hour. Thousands of new satellites will be launched soon, increasing space debris and its dangers for all 80 space-faring nations. They all must learn how to orbit cleanly and to de-orbit their defunct equipment.

The most effective alliance regarding space governs the electromagnetic spectrum. You hear little about it because the International Telecommunication Union has done a good job allocating spectrum and reducing signal interference.

All nations would benefit from sharing resources such as scarce launch sites, talented rocket scientists, and rare-earth minerals. Only a few countries have ideal launch pads for key orbits. Brilliant and daring scientists are born in all nations but should be able to live and work where they choose. And certain precious minerals are plentiful on asteroids.

We Earthlings must form broad alliances so that all mankind may benefit.

America Once Needed its Friends. It Needs Them Again

Dr. Jeff Kucik, WISC Global Fellow

Amid escalating tensions with the Soviet Union, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that “the economic need of all nations—in mutual dependence—makes isolation an impossibility.” US leaders at the time, many with three major wars in their living memories, recognized that allies and partners were essential to peace and prosperity.

That lesson has been forgotten somewhere along the way. China is now America’s largest competitor. Yet the outward-facing economic policies that helped win the Cold War have been replaced by a new form of isolationism where treaties take a backseat to tariffs.

We’re often told America’s policy shift reflects US voters’ frustrations with trade’s economic harms. But the value of alliances does not require blind faith in free markets. The facts are simple. Trade cooperation helps reduce price volatility. It facilitates investment in much-needed infrastructure. And it ensures access to the inputs that fuel the US economy. America will never produce semiconductors from start to finish because it does not have its own graphite or gallium. But allies and partners do.

China recognizes the necessity of looking beyond its borders. It has already spent more than $1 trillion through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to lock in its access to critical minerals while expanding its control of processing and logistics infrastructure.

Of course, China’s approach isn’t altruistic. The BRI, sold to the world as an economic development initiative, has locked poorer economies into debt traps and dependence. And it has given China greater leverage over industrialized democracies by controlling critical supply chains.

America can—and must—adopt a different approach to allies and partners. It should be an approach that reboots trade deals to offer allies firm assurances that the US wants to do business. It should coordinate tariff concessions with investment capital to build out trade-enabling infrastructure. And it should invest in co-production of critical manufacturing in commercial ships, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals.

Ike understood the undeniable role allies play in shared peace and prosperity. He lived it. It’s time to remember history’s lessons.

From NATO to Trade: How Alliances Power America’s Strength

Keith Rockwell, WISC Global Fellow

America’s allies have, in Donald Trump, an interlocutor unlike any they have previously encountered. Transactional, brash, forceful and unpredictable, Mr. Trump has put governments around the world on edge as they seek to navigate their relationships with Washington.

Such is the economic, military and strategic importance of the US that many countries are prepared to suspend diplomatic convention and adopt unorthodox tactics in their dealings with the US commander-in-chief. European and Asian leaders profess that they have little choice. The US is the world’s biggest economy and the largest export market for many countries. US financial institutions dominate global markets, the primary unit of exchange for most international transactions is the US dollar and US military power is the only credible deterrent to Russian or Chinese aggression. Seen in this light, one can understand European or Asia acquiescence to White House browbeating.

But what is often unappreciated, not least by the Trump administration, is the importance of American allies in supporting US objectives around the globe. Much is made of NATO’s Art. 5, which states that an attack on one of the alliance’s 32 Member countries is an attack on them all. There are those in the United States who question whether the US could, or should, respond militarily to defend a NATO ally. But Art. 5 has been invoked only once, on 12 September 2001, less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Seven NATO AWACS radar jets patrolled US skies, flying more than 360 sorties.

Allies are also among the best customers for US businesses. While the US market is vitally important for many economies, the United States is the world’s second largest exporter of goods shipping $2.1 trillion of goods to foreign markets.

The US is also, by a wide margin, the world’s largest exporter of services at $1.1 trillion and the country runs a surplus in services trade of $295 billion. Foreign investment in the US directly and indirectly supports 16 million jobs in the US, while exports of goods and services support more than 10 million US jobs.

It’s worth remembering too, that when measuring the US against China, its only real economic and military rival, Washington has carefully built a matrix of economic, military and strategic alliances that for decades have supported the US economically and militarily. China can count only one – North Korea. As America navigates an era of intensifying strategic competition, its alliances remain the greatest multiplier of US power, prosperity, and global influence.