Wars are easy to start.

Something the US should keep in mind as we define our relationships with key partners and allies. Currently we have empowered and emboldened far too many foreign "tails" to wag the American dog and drag us into wars we would never start on our own, and that are not in any way in our interests.

It would be an epic tragedy of misplaced loyalties if some day Iran and the US, or China and the US, or North Korea and the US found themselves much like England and Germany in 1914, wondering how things had somehow come to this between them.

We help our longtime allies and partners more when we posture ourself to be an effective mediator of small (but important) points of friction far more than we do when we simply commit to back their every play with a blank check of American influence, blood and treasure.