Who have been protected throughout their history, though they know it not, by the Rangers of the North. Who they dislike and mistrust.
It's sort of like the European/American relationship.
I’ll agree with that at the point in the story where Tolkien brings us in. The hobbits had repelled an orc invasion a couple of generations before Bilbo at the Battle of Greenfields. This event is famous for the invention of the game of golf.
It really is like the European/American relationship, especially in the context of the Cold War, when it was written.