Freedom, Democracy and the American Alliance

The American alliance has been at the very core of the political life of all major capitalist countries (and of many minor ones as well) ever since the end of World War II, and has served as a crucial element of agreement between conservative, liberal and social democratic leaderships in the realm of defence and foreign policy. Even to raise the question of the desirability of the alliance, and of possible alternatives to it, such as some form of 'non-alignment', was until quite recently, in countries such as Britain, to infringe a very powerful taboo, and was certain to invite accusations of naivety or eccentricity, or of harbouring perverse and sinister predilections for Soviet Communism. Adapted from the source document.