In the official translation of a policy statement by a German politician it reads
Our greatest strength is our alliances.
As a German native, this makes me cringe, because the German rule is
Where "equational nominative" seems to be similar to what is called a predicative noun in the English language; also explained here.
The predicative nominative confers information about the subject. Therefore it makes sense to me, that if the predicative is a plural noun, a plural verb is used.
That seems not to be the case in english, right?
If the german sentence would be the other way around, the english translation would read "Our alliances are our greatest strength", correct? That sounds much better to me, but sadly isn't what the guy said.
Best Answer
Correct, that is not the case in English. If the translation were...
... it would sound awful and would be roundly called "wrong" by native speakers. On the other hand, the switcheroo that you suggested...
... sounds beautiful.