There are many times where God sent His prophets to rebuke the kings of Judah and Israel for their foolish foreign entanglements. His call each time was for the nation to look to Him for protection. This, however, is not something we can just lift wholesale into our circumstance. The United States is not God’s chosen nation. He has not promised to go before us against our enemies. It would be an abuse of God’s Word to argue that on the basis of these prophetic messages that no nation can never enter into an alliance with another.
That said, foreign policy is one of those places where we swiftly run into our own limitations. We don’t know as much as we like to think we know about the future. Often alliances lead to more harm than good. It was for this reason that our founding father, George Washington, in his farewell address after two terms as president, warned against foreign entanglements. He understood that the function of a given nation’s government was not to police the world, but to protect its own citizens from aggressors, foreign and domestic.
What typically follows on the heels of, or what typically drives the pursuit of foreign entanglements is more often than not political egos than genuine need. When we create an alliance of sufficient power we soon throw our weight around. When we become the most powerful nation on the planet, alliances can swiftly become little more than a thin veneer over the reality of an empire. Such is our circumstance wherein our “partners” are our vassel states. The key difference between our day and Old Testament times is then the weaker nations paid the stronger for protection. In our day the strong pays for the protection of the weak.
We are living through a living illustration of the dangers of alliances. We are, in fact, on the brink of war not because an enemy is about to invade a literal ally but because a “friend” is fearful about its neighbor joining our alliance. Ukraine is not even yet a part of NATO. Yet somehow the reasoning is that it should be treated as such, that when Russia invades American lives and treasure should be poured out in its defense. Why? Status. Standing. Russia and the US are rattling symbolic swords over Ukraine and the end result could soon be the all too real horror of war.
The Bible doesn’t teach that it is always wrong to fight in a war. The church has, over the centuries, sought to discern those circumstances in which fighting in a war is just. Just war theory, at its most basic level argues that wars of defense are legitimate, wars of offense are not. The genuine destruction- wives losing husbands, parents losing children, while politicians plot out strategies to increase their power, is evil. Defending our wives and children from such politicians that have sent their armies over our border is an ugly necessity. Telling the difference is something we have forgotten, to our shame, how to do. The result is flag draped coffins, and shame.
Christians over the last century or so have tottered between two errors, some embracing pacifism that denies a man’s obligation to his family and country, and war mongering for American glory, calling it patriotism to send our sons and our neighbors’ sons off to die for no reason. Would that we would be those most eager to protect our nation, and the most vocal on the evils of empire.