It's a truism of international relations that states don't have friends--only interests. Here's a case in point: in 1958 the British sold Israel twenty tons of heavy water, essential for the development of plutonium-based atomic weapons, without ever telling the U.S. The Americans had already announced that they wouldn't supply anything like that without solid assurances that it wouldn't be used in weapons development. The British, for "reasons of state" (including money) decided they wouldn't be so picky.
Friendship isn't trivial. But it only goes so far.
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