Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances

The Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances, sometimes called the caution against entangling alliances, was an early realist guide for US foreign policy and the nation's interaction with others. According to the policy, the United States should consider external alliances as temporary measures of convenience and freely abandon them when national interest dictates. The policy has been cited as a rare example of an explicit endorsement of what in international relations is known as renversement des alliances ('reversal of alliances'), a state abandoning an ally for an alliance with a recent enemy, sometimes against the former ally.