The United States is moving away from the grand strategy of primacy that defined the post-Cold War period, but it still wants many of the privileges that primacy once provided. For decades, the American alliance system rested on a relatively simple bargain: the United States provided security, military presence and access to its extraordinary strategic capabilities, while its allies accepted varying degrees of political dependence, bought American weapons, supported the broader U.S.-led international order and, in many cases, helped sustain the financial architecture underpinning American power...
