Friendship among Brothers in Arms

States have no friends. They have interests, suppliers and liege lords. The word “friendship” merely ensures that the weaker party experiences the bill as loyalty.

I. An old word

On 29 March 1909 Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow spoke in the Reichstag of the German Empire’s “Nibelung loyalty” towards Austria-Hungary. Five years later this loyalty drew Germany into a war that began in the Balkans and in which two million German soldiers died. The brotherhood in arms was genuine. It simply never asked where it would lead.

Sixty years before Bülow, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston had spoken more soberly in the House of Commons: England had no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. Only its interests were eternal. That is not cynicism but description. Whoever speaks of friendship between states describes not what is, but what he wishes for. And it is usually the weaker party that wishes for it.

II. The brother in arms as supplier

In 2021 Switzerland selected thirty-six American F-35 fighter jets and ordered them in 2022, at a fixed price of around six billion francs, as it was said at the time. They were bought not from the manufacturer but through the US government. In 2025 Washington announced that the fixed price had been a “misunderstanding” and demanded up to 1.3 billion dollars more. Under this procedure there is no court one could appeal to, nor any penalty for late delivery. In October 2026 the Swiss armaments chief Urs Loher drew the lesson: in future, buy directly from the manufacturer wherever possible.

In December 2022 Germany ordered thirty-five F-35s by the same route, for around 8.3 billion euros. The conversion of Büchel air base, where they are to be stationed, was estimated at around 700 million euros and, according to a report in Der Spiegel, now costs almost two billion. In February 2026 Reuters reported that Berlin was considering ordering another thirty-five. Switzerland learns a lesson; Germany places a repeat order.

III. The brother in arms as liege lord

Whoever buys an aircraft whose software, spare parts and mission data remain with the seller has not bought it but rented it. Turkey found out what that means. It was a partner in the F-35 programme, and its companies built parts for it. When it bought a Russian air-defence system in 2019, it was expelled from the programme. It never received the aircraft already built for it. Ankara had already paid around 1.4 billion dollars, which according to Turkish sources had still not been refunded five years later. Ten Turkish companies lost their contracts in the programme.

Britain found out earlier. In 1962 the US government cancelled the Skybolt missile, on which London had built its entire nuclear deterrent. Prime Minister Macmillan had to travel to Nassau and received the Polaris missile as a replacement, on American terms. Ever since, the British deterrent has sat inside American missiles.

And in February 2026 the European Commission received a letter from the Pentagon, co-signed by the State Department. Europe wanted to require a minimum share of European production in its new defence loans. Washington threatened in that case to review all existing exemptions for European firms under American procurement law. What that means we described in “The Protection Racket”: defend yourselves, but buy from us.

IV. The brother in arms as eavesdropper

In October 2013 it became known that the American intelligence agency NSA had tapped the German chancellor’s mobile phone. Angela Merkel said the sentence that has since become the epitome of naive diplomacy: “Spying among friends is simply not acceptable.” It was quite acceptable. In 2021 Danish public broadcasting reported that Denmark’s military intelligence service had helped the NSA tap leading European politicians via undersea cables, among them Merkel and Steinmeier.

Here one has to be merciless with oneself as well. In February 2020 the Washington Post, the German broadcaster ZDF and Swiss television revealed that the Swiss company Crypto AG, which sold encryption devices to more than a hundred states, had since 1970 been secretly owned by the CIA and the German Federal Intelligence Service. The devices were built so that both could read along. In this case the eavesdropping brother in arms was Germany too. Friendship among intelligence services means listening to the others together, and occasionally to each other.

V. The brother in arms as competitor

In September 2021 France learned only a few hours before the public announcement that Australia was cancelling a submarine contract worth the equivalent of around 56 billion euros in order to build nuclear-powered boats with the United States and Britain instead. Three allies had formed the AUKUS pact, and the fourth was the last to know. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called it a “stab in the back”. Paris recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, something it had never done before towards the United States.

And in January 2025 the American president, asked whether he would take Greenland from Denmark by military or economic coercion if necessary, refused to rule anything out. Denmark is a founding member of NATO. Its soldiers fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, with particularly heavy losses relative to its population. That was the friendship. Greenland is the interest.

VI. What friendship between states is

Between equals there are alliances. Between unequals there is dependence, and the word friendship makes it bearable. It turns a bill into loyalty, a threat into a misunderstanding and expulsion into a punishment for disloyalty. How language of this kind works we described in “Building Instructions for a Cult”: a word replaces the examination. Whoever speaks of a friend no longer asks about the contract, the place of jurisdiction or the exit clause.

This is not an American problem alone. Russia treats its allies no differently, nor China its debtors. It is the logic of every power that is stronger than its partners. And it is no reason to leave alliances. Europe needs them, as the situation in the east shows. It is only a reason to call them by their right name.

In Germany’s case there is an additional feature. Its dependence is built in. The F-35s at Büchel are to carry American nuclear bombs under NATO nuclear sharing. There is no European aircraft for this task. Switzerland can pull out in the last resort. Germany cannot. How this trap is built is described in “The Defense Trap”, and who profits from it in “Industrial Subsidy in Camouflage”.

VII. The thesis

A partner one cannot leave is not a friend but a liege lord. He grants protection and demands in return tribute, allegiance and the right to a say over the other’s land. Whoever withdraws loses what he has already paid, like Turkey. In private life there is a shorter word for this: racketeer. Between states he is called an ally. Contracts with him need what friends do not demand of each other: a place of jurisdiction, a penalty for delay, an exit clause and a second source of supply. The Swiss armaments chief understood this after paying dearly for the lesson. The German government keeps talking of friendship and places a repeat order.

The brotherhood in arms of 1914 did not fail for lack of loyalty, but from too much of it. Loyalty without examination is not a virtue but a risk. Between states, the most honest word for an ally is not “friend” but “contracting party”. Whoever says so is not a bad ally. He is the only one who can count on the alliance.

Further reading: The Protection Racket · The Defense Trap · Industrial Subsidy in Camouflage · The Discarded Key · Building Instructions for a Cult