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Making America Alone Again

History Offers Few Parallels for Washington’s Repudiation of Its Own Alliances

July 21, 2025
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump, Kananaskis, Canada, June 2025
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump, Kananaskis, Canada, June 2025 Suzanne Plunkett / Pool / Reuters

MARGARET MACMILLAN is Professor Emeritus of International History at Oxford University and the author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us and The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914.

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Henry Kissinger once compared himself to the lone cowboy who rode into town to sort out the bad guys. But the U.S. secretary of state, who also served as national security adviser, knew different when it came to dealing with major powers. His hero was the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, who somehow brought together the unlikely combination of Austria, the United Kingdom, Prussia, Russia, and a number of even smaller allies and their incompatible leaders into the alliance that finally defeated Napoleon in 1815. As Kissinger understood, even lone rangers need friends.

It is an insight that appears to

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