Victor Davis Hanson‘s latest column probes America’s continuing interest in supporting small countries such as Israel and Taiwan, despite the “smart-money” political calculations that would push the U.S. to drop those alliances.

All of these peoples — Israelis, anti-Communist Chinese, Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians — have a few things in common. They have relatively small — and often shrinking — populations, aggressive neighbors, few strong allies, many expatriates and refugees in the United States, and tragic histories of persecution and genocide. Half the world’s Jews were lost to the Holocaust. Had Mao Tse-tung — the most prolific mass murderer in history — gotten his way, the entire anti-Communist Chinese population who fled in terror to Taiwan would have been wiped out. In the early 1920s, nearly a million Greeks perished in Asia Minor — ethnically cleansed by a Turkey that had at one time conquered and occupied Greece for more than 350 years. A million Armenians perished in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The stateless Kurds have often been persecuted by Arabs, Iranians, and Turks. …

… Of course, these historically persecuted peoples can at times be testy allies, and they can even sound anti-American. Their national characters — reflecting centuries of oppression — understandably can seem prone to collective paranoia and conspiracy theories. Yet Israel, Taiwan, Kurdistan, Greece, and Armenia are democratic states, with rich histories, and have survived against all odds.

In the next few years, as never before, our small friends will be tested. Iran has promised to wipe out Israel and may soon get the bomb to do it. We are withdrawing all troops at the end of the year from Iraq, and Kurdistan will then be entirely on its own. Russia often talks about reconstituting its former Soviet states into some sort of new imperial federation. China thinks it is only a matter of time before Taiwan can be absorbed. The new Turkey is beginning to look a lot like the old imperial Ottoman sultanate.

Yet if protecting these small states is risky, our concern also reflects positively upon the singular values of the United States. The United Nations has neither the will nor the capability to ensure the security of these countries. The eroding European Union talks grandly of international values but rarely risks its blood or treasure to defend them.

Only America is moral enough and strong enough to protect the world’s historically vulnerable but culturally unique peoples.