Exchange rate of allies for cash: why Washington once again chooses short-term gain – opinion

There is a feeling that the United States repeatedly appears as a country that abandons those to whom it gave promises yesterday. This is about perception — external, global. And today it works against the US no less than real decisions.

Author — Valeriy Pekar, lecturer at Kyiv-Mohyla Business School.
The original post was published on February 4, 2026 on Facebook.

The history of the Kurds is almost a textbook on disappointment. A people who are approached when the hardest and dirtiest work needs to be done. To contain ISIS — the Kurds are needed. To destabilize Assad’s regime — again the Kurds. Promises, political signals, hopes. And then — emptiness. Formally, there are always justifications: Turkey, balance of interests, a complex region. But from the outside, it looks simple: promised and then refused.

A similar logic worked in Iran. Young people who took to the streets, seized administrative buildings, risked their lives, did not do it in a vacuum. They were directly told about support, encouraged not to retreat. The outcome is known: the protest drowned in blood, thousands of broken lives. The price of this “withdrawal” for the US will echo more than once — both morally and politically.

Venezuela is a separate case, but with the same aftertaste. The opposition, which had a chance to restart the country, turned out to be a bargaining chip. The path chosen by Washington is unlikely to lead to stability. Rather — to a new wave of violence, and not only locally. In such scenarios, blood is often shed far beyond the region, including the lives of American soldiers.

The example of Ukraine is so obvious that it does not require a detailed retelling. It has already become part of collective memory — in Eastern Europe, in Israel, and across the ocean.

Against this background, it is especially indicative how the topic of trust in the US is increasingly discussed in the Israeli and regional context. Including on analytical platforms like NAnews — News about Israel and Ukraine | Nikk.Agency, where the conversation about allies has long ceased to be abstract and has turned into a practical security issue.

Even in Asia, the logic is the same. China is unlikely to go to direct war over Taiwan. Its strategy is slow strangulation, pressure, division, a classic game of Go. And here many are convinced: the US will again promise a lot, but at the decisive moment will fear escalation and blackmail. Retreat will be costly — both economically and geopolitically.

The scenario of Russia’s collapse also does not look comforting. The North and the Far East are zones of vital interests for the US. But if China actively enters there, Washington will most likely prefer to step back, shifting the burden of problems to Japan and Canada. This has happened before.

A special place in this chain is Israel. Within the country, pro-American sentiments are still strong. It seems that US support has always been there: the diaspora, values, common rhetoric. But it is worth opening the history of Israeli-American relations — and the illusion quickly dissipates. There are too many episodes that are remembered in Israel as cold calculation and refusal at a critical moment.

This is not about anti-Americanism. In US history, there have been different periods, different administrations, different approaches. Both under Democrats and Republicans. But the current stage increasingly shows: today Washington is not an ally in the classical sense. It is a partner in a deal where the terms can change at any moment.

And here the key question is not even about values, but about interests. Betrayal of allies or those who believed in promises often contradicts not only the declared principles of the US but also their own long-term benefits. However, short-term transactions repeatedly prevail.

The final conclusion is simple and unpleasant. If your interests constantly conflict with your values, perhaps the problem is not in the values. Perhaps it is worth carefully reconsidering the interests themselves — and asking yourself where they really lead.