Friend or Foe? Stan's Law of International Relations

One of the CNBC anchors just said that they are running a poll on whether we consider China to be an enemy or an ally. Now I don't advocate starting a trade war because Smoot-Hawley showed us how trade protectionism (effectively a large tax increase) can unleash a huge depression. But I do have a real simple way to figure out when another nation is unfriendly. Call it Stan's Law of International Relations:

When the other country has lots of nuclear warheads on missiles targeted at your country -- they ain't your friend.

Think how different our State Dept would be if we taught our diplomats this.