'I find it odd to the extreme that the american right thinks 'alliance' means:
"agree with everything we do and fight every war we determine eeds to be fought, don't try to sway us, and in general shuddup and siddown."

This is sort of how Russia treated the old soviet block... Not a good model for the maintenance of an alliance. '

The "old soviet block" wasn't an alliance. The only alliance the Russians ever had was with the US (WWII: we helped them stop Germany from rolling through it, [recall, that was after Germany broke it's agreement with Russia to share Eastern Europe]). Eastern Europe wasn't an alliance, it was an occupation- you been living under a rock?