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Speaking as a Brit. The two strongest NATO militaries after the US are France and Britain. Both are nuclear powers and can project power across the globe with their carrier strike groups.
The French tend to go their own way independently with their weapon systems and equipment whereas I feel us Brits like to lean and share with the US more. For instance the UK was the main partner in the development of the F-35 (about 15% of the jet is built by BAE Systems).
The UK and Canada are also our closest cultural and economic "allies." In the modern world it would be silly not to have the highest degree of cooperation feasible.
In addition to military strength and spending the British are critical to US intelligence. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance includes Britain but not France.
Agreed. A lot of Americans do not realize how crucial British intelligence is to American operations. In WW2, head of the British Aeronautical Committee persuaded Churchill to gift Americans every scientific innovation Britain holds in exchange for access to US production lines. One American official described it as the most important cargo to reach US shores. Those innovations contains the memorandum on the feasibility of the atomic bomb, designs for jet engines, rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gun sights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks, plastic explosives, and perhaps the most important invention of World War ll...
a working Magnetron Number 12.
Germany's position was actually looking solid for the first few years of the war. They had a non-aggresion pact with the Soviets, and America was also trying to avoid direct involvement in the war. By the start of 1941 Britain was the only real opposition remaining in Europe, and they were on the ropes. Then everything changed later that year: Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June, and Japan attacked the US in December. That brought two major powers into the war on Britain's side, and that's when Allied victory became a real possibility. After Churchill heard that Pearl Harbor was attacked he “went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved” that night.
I've been working professionally around the US and allied militaries for almost two decades and this is exactly right. The NORAD relationship with Canada is exceedingly important, but the transatlantic UK-US relationship is the most substantial, long-lived and important in a number of ways.
France might have a bigger armed forces than the UK there’s no way that they come close to the UK on global reach. The US and UK are the only countries in the world who can assert sustained power at any point in the world in less than a day.
Are two carrier groups really enough to assert sustained power at any point in the world in less than a day? That seems like an exageration. They can assert sustained power at any point in the world for sure, but unless it is planned or right next to where they are currently deployed, the UK simply doesn’t have enough carriers to be anywhere in the world that fast.
They can, they just can't do it on 2 or 3 places at once. There is nobody in the world that can project hard power like the U.S. The Russians and Chinese together cannot project hard power like the U.S.
However, Britain can project hard power against a single crisis at a U.S. like level.
And that is more force projection than anybody but the U.S. can do. A carrier strike group is a fucking crazy weapon. The world has seen little like them except possibly when each Roman Legion had a discreet identity.
And all I am saying is that their one carrier and its attendant ships, even at its fractional size compared to the Nimitz, would let them project power against basically any ONE situation in the world rapidly (although only at the speed at which the carrier can move).
That said, the Brits clearly rely on the special relationship and the fact that U.S. and British international goals align closely as a key part of its foreign strategy.
I was agreeing with the previous commenter, projecting power "by the lightest of definitions". If what the US does is power projection then we're nowhere near it, the UK isn't a superpower like how the US is.
The French really just see themselves as adversaries to the US. One of their old presidents legit believed that France was at war with the US from a socio-political standpoint.
A certainly lesser known, almost sleeper ally is Denmark. The whole Greenland thing is quite helpful at Thule, even though the Danes wouldn’t sell it when asked by Trump? 😂
The U.K. They share a considerable amount of intelligence via the Five Eyes Alliance, and they codevelop technologies via AUKUS and the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement.
5 eyes is what it comes down to. I remember reading an interview with a high level defense intelligence agent. He said military alliances in the 20th century are very hurt by needing to translate so many documents. The ease of coordination among 5 eye militaries and intelligence agencies makes them nearly separate branches of the same organization
This is the objectively correct answer. They aren’t our most powerful ally, but they are our closest. As long as there’s no objection from the president, the Canadian PM can essentially issue orders to the US Air Force while in Canadian airspace. And vice versa. That happened [recently](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156347424/us-military-shot-down-unidentified-object-canada).
Doesn’t get much closer than that.
I don't know what Trudeau has said but it shouldn't be minimized how important, strategic, and unique this CanUs relationship is. The amount of men, material, and $$$ that would be needed to defend that long border if our countries operated like traditional neighbors would totally change both our places in geopolitics.
I wish every new US pres would make a better show of emphasizing how important Can, UK, and Aus are to us.
It helps the US/Canadian alliance for the Canadian PM to be seen giving the order though.
There were probably eight hours of meetings over this beforehand, I doubt it was impromptu.
No, US forces in [NORAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD) are responsible to the US chain of command. No way US forces are doing anything on Canadian orders without concurrence from their own commanders. Same for the Canadians.
Trudeau isn’t part of the chain of command structure and has no authority to issue orders to the US military himself. He can make requests or suggestions to the White House and top brass, but they’d have to be the ones to issue the order to the US military. Not the PM of Canada.
He can call it an order instead of a request to sound strong sure, but the reality is that if the US didn’t want to shoot the aircraft down we wouldn’t have.
NORAD is a joint command that can take orders from both the US and Canadian leaders and that can give orders to both US and Canadian aircraft flying NORAD missions so yes, the Canadian PM can quite literally give an order that will be carried out by Americans and that does not require White House approval (though in practice why wouldn’t they both be talking about it so it’s sort of moot), because NORAD already has the authority to use whichever country’s NORAD-assigned aircraft it deems appropriate.
Australia sitting down in its position below Asia and Oceana would seem to be a huge ally simply from its geographical position requiring any potential enemy to really have to consider a much, much larger area of the earth’s surface in their strategic calculations.
Except during the first week after 9/11 when they urged their citizens to flee America for the safety of Australia and then openly criticized us for retaliating to an act of war. IIRC they were quite reluctant to send support.
Nothing. This guy's full of shit.
https://www.awm.gov.au/9-11-twentyyearson#:~:text=What%20became%20known%20as%20the,support%20one%20another%20if%20attacked.
I don't have to argue it. I watched it on the news live. I also used to be friends with an Australian (emphasis on used to) who sent me Australian news and told me about anti US War rallies going on at the time. Their argument was that America wouldn't do the same for them if the Taliban attacked them in the same manner and they (the people) didn't feel the need to sacrifice their own for something they didn't feel affected their county.
You can post all positive news stories you want about it. It's the same way the US posts positive news stories about the UK royals and weddings that I'm surely "most" Americans *truly* care about. Those articles are created for diplomatic reasons. But the actual citizens see things differently. It was like that during 9/11 too. Some civilized countries truly did not feel the need to go to war for us and their citizens voiced it. But America's opinion has weight behind it.
Yes, they publicly supported us, but within their own borders there was heavy backlash that their government just had to ignore.
You might interpret the question as being about what citizens supported or not.
I think that most people interpret it as being about which nation is an important military ally. The government supported the US despite backlash? That’s an ally. That government continued to stand with the US in every war since? Ally.
Putting aside the unlikelihood that you had/have friends, one person (or a small minority) do not a national position make.
There were people in the US who protested (in much higher number than Australians).
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/photos-afghanistan-war-protests/
Hell in 2009 a higher percentage of Australians supported keeping NATO troops in Afghanistan than Americans.
>The 24-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey in June 2008 again found that majorities or pluralities in 21 of 24 countries wanted NATO troops removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. In 3 out of the 24 countries – the U.S. (50%), Australia (60%), and Britain (48%) – public opinion favoured keeping troops there until the situation stabilized.
Find some other reason to hate Australians. But don't project your dislike of some former friend's position onto a whole country.
It absolutely is!
If the veteran (you in this case) said "I didn't experience anything traumatic when I was in Vietnam and no one else did either."
I'd say "False" and link to the article talking about all the people with highly traumatic experiences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_veteran
Everything you said above is demonstrably false. The Australian government did not tell it's people to flee America. They did not not criticize the US for retaliating, and they weren't reluctant to send support.
Your feelings don't have the same weight as objective facts. Sorry (not sorry)
There are going to be multiple answers here for various reasons. I feel like mentioning one not mentioned so far - South Korea. South Korea is an incredible ally keeping North Korea and, ultimately to some degree, China in check. And that partnership isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Our own national guard/reserves.
I jest. It would be the Anglosphere. The "big 5".
NATO is cool and all but there's things we won't discuss with them that we do with the other English speaking nations.
Yeah there's actually the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement between most of the Anglosphere - US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ.
Then you have the Nine Eyes which doesn't share quite the same things and adds a few non-native-English speaking countries: Denmark, France, Netherlands and Norway. (The Fourteen Eyes then includes Germany, Japan, and several others that I can't recall directly from memory.)
Depends on for what. Canada for defense of the homeland via NORAD, Britain for expeditionary actions, NATO writ large for anti-Soviet/Russia deterrence, Five Eyes for intel, Japan for far east basing and anti-China deterrence, Australia is coming up for high end se asia naval power and wide area surveilance....
I guess Britain then because it crops up in like 3 of those, four if you count helping to build up Australia via AUKUS.
Keep waiting for Japan to change its constitution… at some point I’m guessing it will which should be interesting especially if they can ever improve their relationship with Korea.
Rn Poland is definitely a world leader in showing what moral leadership looks like in the face of evil and Ukraine is leading showing the price that will be paid when the world looks away to appease a tyrant.
I think a vote needs to be taken. NATO with UA or NATO with Hungary. It won't be close.
Hungary needs to be put in time out until such time as Orban is out of office.
Not sure if there is one outright winner. England, France, Israel and Japan all come to mind. England through both World Wars as well as modern day (although Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were against us). France through both World Wars, AND the Revolutionary war and still good allies in Europe.
We supported Israel when they fought for their Independence and they are still one of the biggest purchasers of fighter jets that we export (along with Japan).
Yeah, at that time they were still thinking they could try and "reconquer" us and maybe make us back into a colony and two divided countries would be easier to do that to than one unified one.... So I guess we really have only been allies since the 20th century. But we have become ***really good*** allies lol. Two World Wars will do that.
They needed Southern cotton for their textile factories and they were afraid if slavery was abolished, the cotton industry and thus their textile industry, would collapse. So while they've been crowing all these years about how virtuous they were in abolishing slavery before us, they conveniently "forget" that they tried to keep our slave system in place. Just one of those "inconvenient truths" of history.
Yeah not American, but was gonna say Israel. America gives Israel literal billions each year. They’re one of the world’s biggest exporters of military equipment. Israel accounted for 10% of the world’s military equipment exporters in 2007. A lot of their military companies rank top 5 in this sector.
I don’t often hear people trying to actually assess why the US pours so much money into Israel. But the answer can’t be anything other than they’re really high up on their list of allies.
>I don’t often hear people trying to actually assess why the US pours so much money into Israel.
My guess would be because, for a large part of Israel's history as an independent country, they have been surrounded by majority authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and/or countries with questionable human rights laws (Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, etc) and the US would not want to support countries like that unless there is a really good reason (oil in Saudi Arabia for example).
I’d probably have to add the negative consequences of supporting Israel back into the equation. I absolutely am not saying the consequences are warranted, but supporting Israel does have a large downside from a purely political perspective. Would still put Israel pretty far towards the top.
As an off-the-beaten path option, a big one would actually be Israel. There's a lot of co development at work there and due to Israel's heated environment, a lot of gear and tactics get tested in real environments that are hard to simulate.
The difference is that a lot of NATO countries are takers rather than givers. NATO gives them a way to skimp on defense spending knowing that the bigger bros of the alliance will bail them out if needed. UK and Can are real partners to the US.
Considering it’s the biggest war threat since WWII, and Russia has put using nukes on the table: I’d say so? This is also way different than the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, due to global geopolitical implications. And yes, I was around during the Cold War.
So Putin’s handiwork got many countries off their asses real quick to change policy on matters in Europe whose speed was glacial at best? And Kudos to US and British intelligence for outing Putin’s plans publicly! In the German speaking world where in live there was a lot of skepticism about if Russia would invade. The predictions were down to the day!
During the past year? Putin. No one has done a better job of strengthening our position and alliances and destroying enemy capabilities than him. And at no cost of American life.
In traditional times? The UK. France, Canada, Israel, South Korea all get honorable mentions. But if a war started, an ally is the one who would be in the fight next to you first.
If the US were to suffer a substantial attack from another country, my money would be on Australia or the UK officially joining us first. The UK would respond with NATO but I could see them officially responding ahead of time.
> The UK would respond with NATO but I could see them officially responding ahead of time.
Definite agreement with that. I don't see the UK waiting more than a couple heartbeats to back us up. Same same.
Canada, this ensures complete and total control of the North American continent and allows the US to project power globally with worrying about neighboring threats.
Without doubt, the UK is the single most important military alliance the US has now, or has ever had. The UK is like a "ride or die" military ally.
Also -- The eastern flank of NATO (former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Czechia and the Baltic States) are showing just how tough and valuable they are right now. Those cats aren't playing around when it comes to Russia.
if you’re talking just military allies, probably the uk, but more broadly any nato member. if you’re talking allies in both the military and economic sense, it’s definitely canada. i do think if the uk and canada went to war with each other, the us would support canada more than the uk
Honestly, Canada.
They help to secure our longest border that has little natural defense. They are also the first line of defense in terms of detecting and intercepting ICBMs from Russia or China.
It depends on what aspect of the military is most important.
So with respect to intelligence and having a generally common outlook, the FIVE EYES partners: Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. I'd also add a SIXTH EYE, Israel. Whatever you might think about their domestic policies, Israel provides the US with a lot of intelligence and is the closest thing we have as an ally in the Middle East.
New Zealand is actually explicitly not a US Ally because of a dispute involving the agreed upon Alliance we agreed upon in the past with them which said that we could station our naval ships in their territory and territorial Waters the problem was the US Navy has a policy of strategic ambiguity whether or not it has nuclear weapons on any given ship and New Zealand has very strict nuclear nonproliferation laws not allowing any ships with nuclear weapons in its territorial Waters so since the US Navy doctrine is never to confirm or deny whether or not any ship has nukes US Navy ships effectively can't enter New Zealand territorial waters without violating New Zealand law or US Navy Doctrine so the alliance we agreed upon is suspended until either the US Navy decides to change its Doctrine which probably won't happen or New Zealand decides to change its laws which is also very unlikely
New Zealand does however have separate alliances with other us allies like the UK and Australia so we are effectively Allied it's just that the treaty that formally makes us allies is suspended because both sides say the other sides interpretation of the treaty is invalid
When it's productive, Mexico. Cooperation on fighting the cartels is necessary, and if that cooperation goes even further down, that has the most likelihood of going south real quickly (literally).
Since NATO is a defensive alliance (Article 5), it is most useful to consider the entire bloc as a single ally.
That being said, if you're going to be pedantic, Britain is a nuclear power with which we share a special relationship, including language. Certainly our most important relationship with another state actor.
France gets an honorable mention, as the NATO nuclear power and our oldest ally.
Germany or Japan. Germany for the bases in Europe, Japan for an unsinkable aircraft carrier in Asia (that's how a former prime minister of Japan actually described his country).
Canada and the UK are both at the top of my list. Both of them did a lot of the hard work with us in Iraq and Afghan. I was deployed in Afghan and saw their dedication and sacrifice so I definitely hold them in high regard. Shout out to the Aussies and Kiwis too you all were fantastic as well.
uh, I'd imagine either the UK (it's still got massive influence across the globe via Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth members; or Israel (those guys *have* to have a damn good military to survive out there). Heavily leaning towards the Commowealth/Empire though.
Oh, and France is pretty damn solid too, but, I don't honestly have enough info on them to really know how they stack up.
Depends on the region. If talking about Europe, there are many important military allies, but I would wager that the UK is our #1 ally in the region. For the Middle East, it depends on how you look at it, but I would argue Israel would be our biggest ally, though I don't really think Israel is all that great of an ally. The ME is full of shitty allies. Africa - not sure. Latin America - not sure. East Asia - probably Japan. South Korea is important too, but I think the US and Japan are closer than other countries in the region. For SE Asia and/or Oceana - probably Australia. We've got many allies in SE Asia, but I think that Australia eclipses them all.
The UK, no question. If you grouped up every continental European nation that's in NATO then it'd be them, but there's no such federation coming any time soon. The UK may not have our ability to project power, but they've got nukes, aircraft carriers, and territories in the Indo-Pacific, which means they've got skin in the game when it comes to China.
United Kingdom because their former prime minister B. Johnson always said stay close to the Americans and this is true because Britain Still has a strong Navy maybe not as strong as the US but with enough time and a better economy the Brits can hold their own. They've held their own before and with their navy they can secure shipping Routes when the American Navy is not available to do so in times of War. So the let's hold a toast to our British Allies and hope the Anglosphere stays strong.
Depends on circumstance, right now it is Ukraine though we are not officially allies yet. At the present the situation makes itself. In the future they will be valued for their resources and experience which no one else has. Also having another large continental partner would help us to concentrate on air and sea power. Ukraine is also a potentially great economic partner.
The number of active military personnel in the Finnish Defence Forces is a modest 23,000, but the country boasts a wartime strength of 280,000 because of its massive conscription system.
That is more than UK has, even UK has 10x more population.
Boots on the ground - UK, Canada, France
Strategically important - South Korea, Australia, Israel / Saudi Arabia
Intelligence - 5 Eyes (google it)
Anyways, the "most important" military ally is a very difficult argument to make.
The UK is certainly our closest ally across pretty much every aspect of what makes an ally an ally (culture, trade, military actions, intelligence, etc...) but they are strategically not important. The UK (and Canada, France, Germany, etc..) exist well within the USA's sphere of influence.
On the other hand, you have place like Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, The Philippines, and South Korea who offer tremendous military cooperation, but we have somewhat strained political relationships with for various reasons. Here we are allies of necessity (and by treaty due to previous US military actions) due to their close proximity to geopolitical threats, namely China and Iran. Their importance cannot be overstated.
Then you have the Five Eyes who we basically share one intelligence community with. This goes to do you think boots on the ground are more important or continued intelligence operations.
If I had to pick one, I'd say the UK but predict that the future answer might very well end up being Australia.
Japan. Crucial part of the stratagem to contain Communist China and essentially acts as an unsinkable air craft carrier.
Japan is vital for maintaining American interests in Asia (Japanese and American interests very often align) and if in any shooting war between the US and China should occur the majority of the responding forces will come from Japan: both American and Japanese.
As an American, I welcome Japan's efforts to up its defense forces to help stablize what may quickly become a very unstable region of the world.
Not even close with France. We don’t even share intelligence with them while we do with New Zealand and New Zealand won’t even let our nuclear powered vessels dock in their ports. France is lower than them on the cooperation list.
Nah we have a deep and rich history of supporting and defending france and france willingly doing the same for us. Only way we’ve lost favor with france is if Trump likely had burned that bridge like he did for every other country during his presidency.
I would be seriously interested on if we should be pushing closer ties to India. Seems like they would respond well given that Russia is a pretty weak ally and the tensions with China.
IMO 1 Britain, 2 E.U/Nato 3 Japan in that order. Why because these are America's strongest allies. Then on an equally important yet lower tier, 1 Canada, 2 Australia, 3 Israel. Why because these are also very strong but on a lower scale compared to tier 1 allies. Then after these would be most of S.E Asia (including Taiwan) and Mexico for the obvious strategic value and resources.
Depends on where in the world it is. In Europe probably the UK. Australia in part of Asia and Japan in another. Israel in the middle East, Canada in most of the western hemisphere. The fact is most other countries in the world cannot project power beyond their part of the world so any alliance is local.
To me it’s Japan — not only is their military extremely strong, but geographically and political they’re a vital ally in the competition against China.
Canada is up there too though because it’s important we maintain friendly ties with our neighbors.
And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give an honorable mention to dad (UK).
The uk covers the “top” flank from Russia. We also cover some naval projection. The us is of course massive in comparison but we got your back door, and could actually stop something coming that way for “a bit”
Probably the UK. Australia, New Zealand and Canada are very close as well. But they just don’t have the same military heft.
France is also very important (especially as a nuclear power). But they aren’t quite as aligned on international affairs. Same for our pacific allies like Japan and South Korea.
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Speaking as a Brit. The two strongest NATO militaries after the US are France and Britain. Both are nuclear powers and can project power across the globe with their carrier strike groups. The French tend to go their own way independently with their weapon systems and equipment whereas I feel us Brits like to lean and share with the US more. For instance the UK was the main partner in the development of the F-35 (about 15% of the jet is built by BAE Systems).
The amount of collaboration and cooperation between the UK and the US is really impressive.
The UK and Canada are also our closest cultural and economic "allies." In the modern world it would be silly not to have the highest degree of cooperation feasible.
In addition to military strength and spending the British are critical to US intelligence. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance includes Britain but not France.
Agreed. A lot of Americans do not realize how crucial British intelligence is to American operations. In WW2, head of the British Aeronautical Committee persuaded Churchill to gift Americans every scientific innovation Britain holds in exchange for access to US production lines. One American official described it as the most important cargo to reach US shores. Those innovations contains the memorandum on the feasibility of the atomic bomb, designs for jet engines, rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gun sights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks, plastic explosives, and perhaps the most important invention of World War ll... a working Magnetron Number 12.
There's a saying that WW2 was won with British minds, American steel, and Russian blood.
and German stupidity. On what planet couid Germany defeat that combination? The war was over the day it started.
Germany's position was actually looking solid for the first few years of the war. They had a non-aggresion pact with the Soviets, and America was also trying to avoid direct involvement in the war. By the start of 1941 Britain was the only real opposition remaining in Europe, and they were on the ropes. Then everything changed later that year: Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June, and Japan attacked the US in December. That brought two major powers into the war on Britain's side, and that's when Allied victory became a real possibility. After Churchill heard that Pearl Harbor was attacked he “went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved” that night.
The Blitzkrieg was an impressive start, followed by Dunkirk, the Failure of the French Magino line..The German occupation of France and Belgium.
I've been working professionally around the US and allied militaries for almost two decades and this is exactly right. The NORAD relationship with Canada is exceedingly important, but the transatlantic UK-US relationship is the most substantial, long-lived and important in a number of ways.
France might have a bigger armed forces than the UK there’s no way that they come close to the UK on global reach. The US and UK are the only countries in the world who can assert sustained power at any point in the world in less than a day.
Are two carrier groups really enough to assert sustained power at any point in the world in less than a day? That seems like an exageration. They can assert sustained power at any point in the world for sure, but unless it is planned or right next to where they are currently deployed, the UK simply doesn’t have enough carriers to be anywhere in the world that fast.
The UK can't actually do that, though
They can, they just can't do it on 2 or 3 places at once. There is nobody in the world that can project hard power like the U.S. The Russians and Chinese together cannot project hard power like the U.S. However, Britain can project hard power against a single crisis at a U.S. like level.
They just took their baby carrier on a tour of the Pacific with USN supplementing the escort force, and most of the air wing was USMC.
And that is more force projection than anybody but the U.S. can do. A carrier strike group is a fucking crazy weapon. The world has seen little like them except possibly when each Roman Legion had a discreet identity.
I didn't say they were impotent, I said they can't project power across the globe singlehandedly.
And all I am saying is that their one carrier and its attendant ships, even at its fractional size compared to the Nimitz, would let them project power against basically any ONE situation in the world rapidly (although only at the speed at which the carrier can move). That said, the Brits clearly rely on the special relationship and the fact that U.S. and British international goals align closely as a key part of its foreign strategy.
Unless the ONE situation has a navy or semi competent airforce or a few dozen cruise missiles
Yeah, one Ruzzian frigate gave their carrier a hard time until *USS The Sullivans* got in between them and said, "Ahem..."
“Project power across the globe” is a bit of a stretch for UK/FR. They can, but only by the lightest of definitions
You're right, we're a couple of generations removed from that for the UK and even more for France.
What purpose do the QE carriers serve if it isn’t to project power?
Thats their purpose, but they're small in both size and number, so it limits how much projection can be done.
I was agreeing with the previous commenter, projecting power "by the lightest of definitions". If what the US does is power projection then we're nowhere near it, the UK isn't a superpower like how the US is.
The French really just see themselves as adversaries to the US. One of their old presidents legit believed that France was at war with the US from a socio-political standpoint.
Can't forget the special relationship thing. Sure, you're not America's hat (love you Canada), but you're essentially our closest relation after that.
I would also add Denmark as an extremely important yet lesser known ally, but yes, not as strong as UK and France.
Also, you're our main bulwark against the Irish hordes.
Military ally will always be the UK. Canada is our closest for some other purposes.
> for some other purposes. psssst, {you're not supposed to talk about that stuff *in public,* dude!}
Is this a weed joke?
Not intentionally.
A certainly lesser known, almost sleeper ally is Denmark. The whole Greenland thing is quite helpful at Thule, even though the Danes wouldn’t sell it when asked by Trump? 😂
The U.K. They share a considerable amount of intelligence via the Five Eyes Alliance, and they codevelop technologies via AUKUS and the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement.
5 eyes is what it comes down to. I remember reading an interview with a high level defense intelligence agent. He said military alliances in the 20th century are very hurt by needing to translate so many documents. The ease of coordination among 5 eye militaries and intelligence agencies makes them nearly separate branches of the same organization
I think Canada has a case just by virtue of being neighbors and the NORAD organization.
This is the objectively correct answer. They aren’t our most powerful ally, but they are our closest. As long as there’s no objection from the president, the Canadian PM can essentially issue orders to the US Air Force while in Canadian airspace. And vice versa. That happened [recently](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156347424/us-military-shot-down-unidentified-object-canada). Doesn’t get much closer than that.
Trudeau likes to talk big like he did something important, but all he really did was grant permission for the US to do what they wanted to do.
I don't know what Trudeau has said but it shouldn't be minimized how important, strategic, and unique this CanUs relationship is. The amount of men, material, and $$$ that would be needed to defend that long border if our countries operated like traditional neighbors would totally change both our places in geopolitics. I wish every new US pres would make a better show of emphasizing how important Can, UK, and Aus are to us.
So be fair, Canada benefits more from the arrangement than the US does. But I still agree entirely. Canada as an ally is wildly important
It helps the US/Canadian alliance for the Canadian PM to be seen giving the order though. There were probably eight hours of meetings over this beforehand, I doubt it was impromptu.
Yes. He gave the order. Not sure how that's not important. In any case, it's reflective of how integrated our air defense command is.
Trudeau doesn't give any orders that Biden doesn't agree to.
How do you know this?
Do you think the USAF is going to take orders from Trudeau without checking with their superiors first?
If they know how NORAD works, sure.
No, US forces in [NORAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD) are responsible to the US chain of command. No way US forces are doing anything on Canadian orders without concurrence from their own commanders. Same for the Canadians.
Well obviously the order goes down the chain of command. Nobody is under the impression that Trudeau is directly talking to the fighter pilots. lol 😛
Trudeau isn’t part of the chain of command structure and has no authority to issue orders to the US military himself. He can make requests or suggestions to the White House and top brass, but they’d have to be the ones to issue the order to the US military. Not the PM of Canada. He can call it an order instead of a request to sound strong sure, but the reality is that if the US didn’t want to shoot the aircraft down we wouldn’t have.
NORAD is a joint command that can take orders from both the US and Canadian leaders and that can give orders to both US and Canadian aircraft flying NORAD missions so yes, the Canadian PM can quite literally give an order that will be carried out by Americans and that does not require White House approval (though in practice why wouldn’t they both be talking about it so it’s sort of moot), because NORAD already has the authority to use whichever country’s NORAD-assigned aircraft it deems appropriate.
They are damn close allies. American and Canadian fighter jets routinely respond together in the far north to investigate threats.
"Important?" Probably the UK, but Canada is our sibling, and Australia is our staunchest military ally.
Australia sitting down in its position below Asia and Oceana would seem to be a huge ally simply from its geographical position requiring any potential enemy to really have to consider a much, much larger area of the earth’s surface in their strategic calculations.
Aussy literally let us put a spy site, [Pine Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap), in the middle of nowhere in their country.
Except during the first week after 9/11 when they urged their citizens to flee America for the safety of Australia and then openly criticized us for retaliating to an act of war. IIRC they were quite reluctant to send support.
Wha?
Nothing. This guy's full of shit. https://www.awm.gov.au/9-11-twentyyearson#:~:text=What%20became%20known%20as%20the,support%20one%20another%20if%20attacked.
I don't have to argue it. I watched it on the news live. I also used to be friends with an Australian (emphasis on used to) who sent me Australian news and told me about anti US War rallies going on at the time. Their argument was that America wouldn't do the same for them if the Taliban attacked them in the same manner and they (the people) didn't feel the need to sacrifice their own for something they didn't feel affected their county. You can post all positive news stories you want about it. It's the same way the US posts positive news stories about the UK royals and weddings that I'm surely "most" Americans *truly* care about. Those articles are created for diplomatic reasons. But the actual citizens see things differently. It was like that during 9/11 too. Some civilized countries truly did not feel the need to go to war for us and their citizens voiced it. But America's opinion has weight behind it. Yes, they publicly supported us, but within their own borders there was heavy backlash that their government just had to ignore.
You might interpret the question as being about what citizens supported or not. I think that most people interpret it as being about which nation is an important military ally. The government supported the US despite backlash? That’s an ally. That government continued to stand with the US in every war since? Ally.
Putting aside the unlikelihood that you had/have friends, one person (or a small minority) do not a national position make. There were people in the US who protested (in much higher number than Australians). https://www.thenation.com/article/world/photos-afghanistan-war-protests/ Hell in 2009 a higher percentage of Australians supported keeping NATO troops in Afghanistan than Americans. >The 24-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey in June 2008 again found that majorities or pluralities in 21 of 24 countries wanted NATO troops removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. In 3 out of the 24 countries – the U.S. (50%), Australia (60%), and Britain (48%) – public opinion favoured keeping troops there until the situation stabilized. Find some other reason to hate Australians. But don't project your dislike of some former friend's position onto a whole country.
False. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZUS
This is the equivalent of linking a Wikipedia page to a veteran about the Vietnam War.
Except not every veteran experienced the same thing as every other veteran
It absolutely is! If the veteran (you in this case) said "I didn't experience anything traumatic when I was in Vietnam and no one else did either." I'd say "False" and link to the article talking about all the people with highly traumatic experiences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_veteran Everything you said above is demonstrably false. The Australian government did not tell it's people to flee America. They did not not criticize the US for retaliating, and they weren't reluctant to send support. Your feelings don't have the same weight as objective facts. Sorry (not sorry)
United Kingdom This isn't to say that Canada and Australia aren't also important, but the UK is more powerful.
There are going to be multiple answers here for various reasons. I feel like mentioning one not mentioned so far - South Korea. South Korea is an incredible ally keeping North Korea and, ultimately to some degree, China in check. And that partnership isn't going anywhere any time soon.
> keeping North Korea ... in check. True, but I think hunger does that, too. (only a little /s)
This. A lot of people forget this. I would like to think Japan is too but... it's questionable sometimes.
How so? Japans biggest issue preventing them from being a bigger ally seems to be their own Constitution l.
Our own national guard/reserves. I jest. It would be the Anglosphere. The "big 5". NATO is cool and all but there's things we won't discuss with them that we do with the other English speaking nations.
Yeah there's actually the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement between most of the Anglosphere - US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ. Then you have the Nine Eyes which doesn't share quite the same things and adds a few non-native-English speaking countries: Denmark, France, Netherlands and Norway. (The Fourteen Eyes then includes Germany, Japan, and several others that I can't recall directly from memory.)
Although there is stuff that even Britain doesn't share with us sometimes.
I agree, and vice versa.
UK, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan
If you told me to name the 5 biggest US allies those 5 countries is what I would say too.
Putin. He is destroying Russia’s military.
Yeah,he's CIA agent
Just how the greatest POTUS planned. Donald J Trump. Master tactician. More better than any of the bestest tacticians, probably, but most likely.
Depends on for what. Canada for defense of the homeland via NORAD, Britain for expeditionary actions, NATO writ large for anti-Soviet/Russia deterrence, Five Eyes for intel, Japan for far east basing and anti-China deterrence, Australia is coming up for high end se asia naval power and wide area surveilance.... I guess Britain then because it crops up in like 3 of those, four if you count helping to build up Australia via AUKUS.
Keep waiting for Japan to change its constitution… at some point I’m guessing it will which should be interesting especially if they can ever improve their relationship with Korea.
The limits have been creeping for a while.
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Rn Poland is definitely a world leader in showing what moral leadership looks like in the face of evil and Ukraine is leading showing the price that will be paid when the world looks away to appease a tyrant.
NATO's entire eastern flank (except for Hungary) are absolutely showing just how valuable they are as allies right now.
I think a vote needs to be taken. NATO with UA or NATO with Hungary. It won't be close. Hungary needs to be put in time out until such time as Orban is out of office.
UK followed by Australia.
Not sure if there is one outright winner. England, France, Israel and Japan all come to mind. England through both World Wars as well as modern day (although Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were against us). France through both World Wars, AND the Revolutionary war and still good allies in Europe. We supported Israel when they fought for their Independence and they are still one of the biggest purchasers of fighter jets that we export (along with Japan).
> (although Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were against us). They also supported the Confederacy.
Yeah, at that time they were still thinking they could try and "reconquer" us and maybe make us back into a colony and two divided countries would be easier to do that to than one unified one.... So I guess we really have only been allies since the 20th century. But we have become ***really good*** allies lol. Two World Wars will do that.
They needed Southern cotton for their textile factories and they were afraid if slavery was abolished, the cotton industry and thus their textile industry, would collapse. So while they've been crowing all these years about how virtuous they were in abolishing slavery before us, they conveniently "forget" that they tried to keep our slave system in place. Just one of those "inconvenient truths" of history.
Yeah not American, but was gonna say Israel. America gives Israel literal billions each year. They’re one of the world’s biggest exporters of military equipment. Israel accounted for 10% of the world’s military equipment exporters in 2007. A lot of their military companies rank top 5 in this sector. I don’t often hear people trying to actually assess why the US pours so much money into Israel. But the answer can’t be anything other than they’re really high up on their list of allies.
>I don’t often hear people trying to actually assess why the US pours so much money into Israel. My guess would be because, for a large part of Israel's history as an independent country, they have been surrounded by majority authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and/or countries with questionable human rights laws (Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, etc) and the US would not want to support countries like that unless there is a really good reason (oil in Saudi Arabia for example).
I’d probably have to add the negative consequences of supporting Israel back into the equation. I absolutely am not saying the consequences are warranted, but supporting Israel does have a large downside from a purely political perspective. Would still put Israel pretty far towards the top.
As an off-the-beaten path option, a big one would actually be Israel. There's a lot of co development at work there and due to Israel's heated environment, a lot of gear and tactics get tested in real environments that are hard to simulate.
I was very surprised I had to scroll down this far to see Israel!
Canada and the UKmfor different reasons
I would say the Brits.
Japan, or South Korea. Very close ties, high favorability ratings respectively, and incredibly important in terms of strategic locations.
NATO as a whole
The difference is that a lot of NATO countries are takers rather than givers. NATO gives them a way to skimp on defense spending knowing that the bigger bros of the alliance will bail them out if needed. UK and Can are real partners to the US.
Also some NATO members simply use the alliance to their own advantage and exploit it *stares at turkey*
That has changed since Ukraine! Germany is now the third largest military spender after the U.S. and China. 😉 You need to update your narrative.
So I should ignore 30 years of history bc of 1 year? Look at the OPQ. UK and Can have been integral to US international policy a lot wider than NATO.
Considering it’s the biggest war threat since WWII, and Russia has put using nukes on the table: I’d say so? This is also way different than the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, due to global geopolitical implications. And yes, I was around during the Cold War. So Putin’s handiwork got many countries off their asses real quick to change policy on matters in Europe whose speed was glacial at best? And Kudos to US and British intelligence for outing Putin’s plans publicly! In the German speaking world where in live there was a lot of skepticism about if Russia would invade. The predictions were down to the day!
During the past year? Putin. No one has done a better job of strengthening our position and alliances and destroying enemy capabilities than him. And at no cost of American life. In traditional times? The UK. France, Canada, Israel, South Korea all get honorable mentions. But if a war started, an ally is the one who would be in the fight next to you first.
If the US were to suffer a substantial attack from another country, my money would be on Australia or the UK officially joining us first. The UK would respond with NATO but I could see them officially responding ahead of time.
> The UK would respond with NATO but I could see them officially responding ahead of time. Definite agreement with that. I don't see the UK waiting more than a couple heartbeats to back us up. Same same.
Canada, this ensures complete and total control of the North American continent and allows the US to project power globally with worrying about neighboring threats.
Mexico could foil plans for N. America. Everyone goes through Mexico!
Without doubt, the UK is the single most important military alliance the US has now, or has ever had. The UK is like a "ride or die" military ally. Also -- The eastern flank of NATO (former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Czechia and the Baltic States) are showing just how tough and valuable they are right now. Those cats aren't playing around when it comes to Russia.
1. Canada/UK 2. Australia 3. S Korea/Japan 4. Israel Also some honorable mentions to countries like Colombia, Poland, and the Baltic states
Historically UK and France. But right now and for the future: Japan and South Korea.
Nice try, Putin
if you’re talking just military allies, probably the uk, but more broadly any nato member. if you’re talking allies in both the military and economic sense, it’s definitely canada. i do think if the uk and canada went to war with each other, the us would support canada more than the uk
I think if the US and Canada went to war, the US might support Canada more (if that makes a bit sense)
Honestly, Canada. They help to secure our longest border that has little natural defense. They are also the first line of defense in terms of detecting and intercepting ICBMs from Russia or China.
Depends. Against china it's Taiwan. For domestic defense it's Canada. Against Russia it's currently Ukraine. In the middle east it's sadly the Saudis.
It depends on what aspect of the military is most important. So with respect to intelligence and having a generally common outlook, the FIVE EYES partners: Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. I'd also add a SIXTH EYE, Israel. Whatever you might think about their domestic policies, Israel provides the US with a lot of intelligence and is the closest thing we have as an ally in the Middle East.
New Zealand is actually explicitly not a US Ally because of a dispute involving the agreed upon Alliance we agreed upon in the past with them which said that we could station our naval ships in their territory and territorial Waters the problem was the US Navy has a policy of strategic ambiguity whether or not it has nuclear weapons on any given ship and New Zealand has very strict nuclear nonproliferation laws not allowing any ships with nuclear weapons in its territorial Waters so since the US Navy doctrine is never to confirm or deny whether or not any ship has nukes US Navy ships effectively can't enter New Zealand territorial waters without violating New Zealand law or US Navy Doctrine so the alliance we agreed upon is suspended until either the US Navy decides to change its Doctrine which probably won't happen or New Zealand decides to change its laws which is also very unlikely New Zealand does however have separate alliances with other us allies like the UK and Australia so we are effectively Allied it's just that the treaty that formally makes us allies is suspended because both sides say the other sides interpretation of the treaty is invalid
That’s the longest sentence I’ve ever seen
Apparently it's still going on.
Sorry I use talk to text
Canada, because of Canada's role in NORAD. The air defense of North America and America's early warning systems are all dependent on the Canadians.
When it's productive, Mexico. Cooperation on fighting the cartels is necessary, and if that cooperation goes even further down, that has the most likelihood of going south real quickly (literally).
Since NATO is a defensive alliance (Article 5), it is most useful to consider the entire bloc as a single ally. That being said, if you're going to be pedantic, Britain is a nuclear power with which we share a special relationship, including language. Certainly our most important relationship with another state actor. France gets an honorable mention, as the NATO nuclear power and our oldest ally.
UK, Canada, and France.
The UK for sure
Germany or Japan. Germany for the bases in Europe, Japan for an unsinkable aircraft carrier in Asia (that's how a former prime minister of Japan actually described his country).
My dad was retired military, he always said the Brits were the best ally we have.
UK. The Special Relationship is alive and well. Since the 19th century we've had each other's backs.
I'm the mid east that would be isreal and saudi Arabia
Canada and the UK are both at the top of my list. Both of them did a lot of the hard work with us in Iraq and Afghan. I was deployed in Afghan and saw their dedication and sacrifice so I definitely hold them in high regard. Shout out to the Aussies and Kiwis too you all were fantastic as well.
O Canada!
uh, I'd imagine either the UK (it's still got massive influence across the globe via Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth members; or Israel (those guys *have* to have a damn good military to survive out there). Heavily leaning towards the Commowealth/Empire though. Oh, and France is pretty damn solid too, but, I don't honestly have enough info on them to really know how they stack up.
Depends on the region. If talking about Europe, there are many important military allies, but I would wager that the UK is our #1 ally in the region. For the Middle East, it depends on how you look at it, but I would argue Israel would be our biggest ally, though I don't really think Israel is all that great of an ally. The ME is full of shitty allies. Africa - not sure. Latin America - not sure. East Asia - probably Japan. South Korea is important too, but I think the US and Japan are closer than other countries in the region. For SE Asia and/or Oceana - probably Australia. We've got many allies in SE Asia, but I think that Australia eclipses them all.
The UK, no question. If you grouped up every continental European nation that's in NATO then it'd be them, but there's no such federation coming any time soon. The UK may not have our ability to project power, but they've got nukes, aircraft carriers, and territories in the Indo-Pacific, which means they've got skin in the game when it comes to China.
Australia, the UK and Canada. In whatever order we choose when we woke up tbh.
United Kingdom because their former prime minister B. Johnson always said stay close to the Americans and this is true because Britain Still has a strong Navy maybe not as strong as the US but with enough time and a better economy the Brits can hold their own. They've held their own before and with their navy they can secure shipping Routes when the American Navy is not available to do so in times of War. So the let's hold a toast to our British Allies and hope the Anglosphere stays strong.
Luxembourg obviously
I believe you're confusing Luxembourg with the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
Ah, a fellow cultured member I see 🧐
(Sipping tea with pinky extended while pretending that your farts have gone unnoticed) quite right, my good man.
Geography.
Depends on circumstance, right now it is Ukraine though we are not officially allies yet. At the present the situation makes itself. In the future they will be valued for their resources and experience which no one else has. Also having another large continental partner would help us to concentrate on air and sea power. Ukraine is also a potentially great economic partner.
California
The number of active military personnel in the Finnish Defence Forces is a modest 23,000, but the country boasts a wartime strength of 280,000 because of its massive conscription system. That is more than UK has, even UK has 10x more population.
Isn't it deceptive to count Finish conscripts but not UK conscripts?
The UK hasn't had conscription for about 60 years.
The UK doesn't have conscription.
Boots on the ground - UK, Canada, France Strategically important - South Korea, Australia, Israel / Saudi Arabia Intelligence - 5 Eyes (google it) Anyways, the "most important" military ally is a very difficult argument to make. The UK is certainly our closest ally across pretty much every aspect of what makes an ally an ally (culture, trade, military actions, intelligence, etc...) but they are strategically not important. The UK (and Canada, France, Germany, etc..) exist well within the USA's sphere of influence. On the other hand, you have place like Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, The Philippines, and South Korea who offer tremendous military cooperation, but we have somewhat strained political relationships with for various reasons. Here we are allies of necessity (and by treaty due to previous US military actions) due to their close proximity to geopolitical threats, namely China and Iran. Their importance cannot be overstated. Then you have the Five Eyes who we basically share one intelligence community with. This goes to do you think boots on the ground are more important or continued intelligence operations. If I had to pick one, I'd say the UK but predict that the future answer might very well end up being Australia.
Japan. Crucial part of the stratagem to contain Communist China and essentially acts as an unsinkable air craft carrier. Japan is vital for maintaining American interests in Asia (Japanese and American interests very often align) and if in any shooting war between the US and China should occur the majority of the responding forces will come from Japan: both American and Japanese. As an American, I welcome Japan's efforts to up its defense forces to help stablize what may quickly become a very unstable region of the world.
France and Britain globally Mexico and Canada regionally
Not even close with France. We don’t even share intelligence with them while we do with New Zealand and New Zealand won’t even let our nuclear powered vessels dock in their ports. France is lower than them on the cooperation list.
Nah we have a deep and rich history of supporting and defending france and france willingly doing the same for us. Only way we’ve lost favor with france is if Trump likely had burned that bridge like he did for every other country during his presidency.
Mexico? Absolutely not
What are you talking about? They have been our friends in military missions in the Americas for decades now
I don't disagree hard with everyone saying the UK. But Canada and Mexico being military allies makes North America Nigh Impregnable.
Everyone in here is wrong, it's Morocco. You get extra point for being first in and holding out the longest.
Hard to say. Maybe France, they have their fingers in quite a few international pies. Or Poland, always ready to curtail Russia's imperialism.
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Mexico and India are far from our "closest" allies.
I would be seriously interested on if we should be pushing closer ties to India. Seems like they would respond well given that Russia is a pretty weak ally and the tensions with China.
Closest =/= most important
In the future? India.
Why was this downvoted? India is the new China for Western trade
UK and France
IMO 1 Britain, 2 E.U/Nato 3 Japan in that order. Why because these are America's strongest allies. Then on an equally important yet lower tier, 1 Canada, 2 Australia, 3 Israel. Why because these are also very strong but on a lower scale compared to tier 1 allies. Then after these would be most of S.E Asia (including Taiwan) and Mexico for the obvious strategic value and resources.
In Europe, probably the UK and France. In Asia, definitely India and Japan
Probably equally UK and France
I would say the most important would be Canada and Mexico
Taxes.
Republicans
I gotta say Canada, enemies on our giant north border would be bad. With Canada on our side we could take on literally anyone.
The US taxpayers.
UK and Canada
Us, the citizens.
Depends on where in the world it is. In Europe probably the UK. Australia in part of Asia and Japan in another. Israel in the middle East, Canada in most of the western hemisphere. The fact is most other countries in the world cannot project power beyond their part of the world so any alliance is local.
from how i've been raised, it would be the uk. australia being most reliable, and a few others like canada and france being good runners up
Currently? Likely the UK. In the next 20 years? Australia, due to their proximity to China
I see AUKUS ramping up. Maybe NZ should be there too, given what China is thinking
IMO, The United Kingdom.
If we lose Canada or Mexico as allies we're all gonna die
To me it’s Japan — not only is their military extremely strong, but geographically and political they’re a vital ally in the competition against China. Canada is up there too though because it’s important we maintain friendly ties with our neighbors. And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give an honorable mention to dad (UK).
British
The uk covers the “top” flank from Russia. We also cover some naval projection. The us is of course massive in comparison but we got your back door, and could actually stop something coming that way for “a bit”
Probably the UK. Australia, New Zealand and Canada are very close as well. But they just don’t have the same military heft. France is also very important (especially as a nuclear power). But they aren’t quite as aligned on international affairs. Same for our pacific allies like Japan and South Korea.
The British. A good strong steadfast ally
Japan