 Others are now liabilities. Like nobody's sure, for instance, whether the Rio Treaty signed in 1947 among us and most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere still exists. If it does, the total number of our allies, full and quasi, is above 70, over one-third of the nations on Earth. Alliances are like all commitments. It's not how many you make, but how well you choose them, that you withdraw from those no longer useful, and how devotedly you honor those that you decide to keep.