Comment by microtonal

The western alliance as of today is about as strong as its ever been.

No it is not. Very few people in Europe believe that the US would uphold NATO Article 5. The US did arguably not uphold the Budapest memorandum. Allies have stopped sharing intelligence with the US in many areas because they don't trust the US anymore (Trump would burn allied assets in a Truth Social post). Trump has done a lot of bidding for Putin in the Ukraine-Russian war because he does not care about a good outcome for the rest of the Western alliance, he only cares about some peace prize or whatever.

The Western alliance is almost shattered, NATO is on its lasts legs (well, technically, NATO with the US, I think a new NATO with Canada and Europe would rise from its ashes).