In today’s fragmented world—where “might is right” increasingly undermines the rules-based international order—even the strongest alliances can falter. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, the United States hesitated to fulfil its long-standing NATO guarantor role, while months later at The Hague summit Europe bowed to US pressure with a historic pledge of five per cent of GDP for defence. Those back-to-back shocks send a stark warning to small states: guarantors can waver when great-power interests shift. For Armenia—sandwiched between Azerbaijan and Turkey—and for Taiwan, which depends on Washington’s promise to defend it against Beijing, reliance on distant patrons is no longer a strategy but a gamble with national sovereignty.

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