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[fortzi]

Alliance is not about love and trust. It’s about interests. Indeed, for an alliance to be possible, trust is needed, but only to a certain extent. Don’t mistake alliance for friendship. The former is between political entities, while the latter is between people.

[MichaelZuo → fortzi]

A bonafide alliance must necessarily entail sometimes acting faithfully even to the detriment of one's interests.

If the 'allies' are only faithful and only believe each other until the moment that threshold is crossed then it's just regular diplomatic relations.

e.g. Nearly every country cooperates with nearly every other country on such terms in the areas where they share bonafide mutual interests.