Concept
Isolationism
Overview
Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts. In its purest form, isolationism opposes all commitments to foreign countries, including treaties and trade agreements. In the political science lexicon, there is also the term of "non-interventionism", which is sometimes improperly used to replace the concept of "isolationism". "Non-interventionism" is commonly understood as "a foreign policy of political or military non-involvement in foreign relations or in other countries' internal affairs". "Isolationism" should be interpreted more broadly as "a foreign policy grand strategy of military and political non-interference in international affairs and in the internal affairs of sovereign states, associated with trade and economic protectionism and cultural and religious isolation, as well as with the inability to be in permanent military alliances, with the preservation, however, of opportunities to participate in contemporary geopolitical alliances in the interests of the state along with permanent membership in international organizations of a non-military nature."
This contrasts with philosophies such as colonialism, expansionism, and liberal internationalism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The matters in which the interests of nations are supposed to clash are mainly three: tariffs, which are a delusion; the exploitation of inferior races, which is a crime; pride of power and dominion, which is a schoolboy folly. The economic argument against tariffs is familiar, and I shall not repeat it. The only reason why it fails to carry conviction is the enmity between nations.
Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals
States what Isolationism is.
The scope of the Great War furnishes an urgent as well as convenient starting point for the discussion. The extent of that war is unparalleled, because the conditions involved in it are so new. The dynastic conflicts of the seventeenth century are called by the same name: we have only one word, “war.” The sameness of the word too easily conceals from us the difference in significance. We think of all wars as much…
John Dewey, The public and its problems
States what Isolationism is.
But the mutual implication of the two, which makes what is true and concrete in them, would have to be wrested from the obscurity and confusion in which they were left even in Kant's Metaphysical Rudiments of Natural Science.--In modern times the importance of the atomic theory is even more evident in political than in physical science. According to it, the will of individuals as such is the creative principle of…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Isolationism is.
Related ideas
- Internet
- Japan
- Korea
- Empire of Japan
- Vietnam
- North Korea
- Political philosophy
- Bhutan
- Qing dynasty
- Taiwan
- United Nations
- Joseon
- Ming dynasty
- Dutch Republic
- China
- Mainland China
- Catholic Church
- Absolute monarchy
- Democracy
- Dictator
- Tokugawa shogunate
- John Lewis Gaddis
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.