Isolationism has been less reviewed by scholars. So Patrick Callahan's explanation is a very important reference for that.

1. logic of Isolationism
in the US Foreign Policy
based on Patick Kallahan’s book, titled: Logics of American Foreign Policy
Presented by: @issa_adeli

2. Main concerns
• Interdependence does not create vital interests.
• Foreign commitments inflict serious domestic costs.
• The US does not have sufficient power to undertake objectives other than its vital interests.
• The US has not binding moral obligations abroad.
• Rejection of commitment is more prudential than principled.
• Some isolationist writers would include the sea lanes and air space through which the US engages in international
commerce. For the EU, the US must prevent any rival hegemonic power.
• Even China would not endanger the US national security if it passes the US economically and militarily.
• Prevent Canada and Mexico to align with a hostile power.
• Agriculture, higher education, and financial services are overly dependent on export markets and would suffer more. But if
some partners were to sever trade with the US, others would fill the gap.
• The basic cause of many foreign problems is other countries deficiencies. The US cannot solve them, and indeed are likely
to make them worse.
• One study shows that the public in reality is internationalist but appears to be isolationist only because they are
misinformed.

3. 7 ideas in Isolationism
• Autonomy
• Self-sufficiency
• Continentalism (only north America and the Caribbean)
• Unilateralism
• Coalitions must be ad hoc and temporary
• Scale of foreign policy must be compatible with ordered liberty.
• Minimize war

4. Supporters of Isolationism
• Libertarians
• Conservatives
• Populists such as Patrick Buchanan
• Democrats
• Political radicals
• Euphemism for Isolationism: republican foreign policy, offshore balancing, strategic
independence strategy of restraint, enlightened nationalism
• They all can be divided into two groups:
• Political isolationism = free economic exchange is independent of politics
• Protectionist isolationism = against globalization
(both deny that the economy requires extensive foreign policy commitments)
• New-isolationism is selective internationalism, not a principled isolationism.

5. American security rests on 6 pillars:
• The US economy is by far the world’s largest.
• Create and sustain powerful military forces.
• Oceans are tremendous moats.
• Power balancing to prevent the emergence of a dominant power in
Europe and East Asia. (The main obstruction to power balancing is the US who relieves its allies of
any need to take care of their own security.)
• Nuclear weapons would be enough if the first four pillars were to
fail.
• The US is largely immune to the supposed instability abroad. (Peace
is divisible.)

6. Isolationism in History
• Jefferson’s admonition in 1801 against entangling alliances
• 2 alternatives against Germany’s program of unrestricted
submarine warfare
• It could have been truly neutral before 1917, rather than favouring the
British.
• It could have kept American shipment out of the war zone.
• Dominant Germany could not threaten the US. It had to contend with the
land power of Russia and the naval power of Britain.
• It was destroyed with the fleet at Pearl Harbor
• The US should not have allied with China and Britain against Japan and
Germany.

7. Limited Petroleum Dependency
• It would be impossible to cut off oil exports to just the US. Oil
flows around embargoes. Those who thought that the embargo
would be successful, took action that created shortage.
• Production cuts raise the price. It increases supply from less
efficient wells and from other countries.
• The US should achieve energy independence.
• The military intervention in Persian Gulf has cost more than $40
billion to protect $14 billion of current oil imports from the
Persian Gulf.

8. Interdependence, Foreign Policy, and the
National Interest
• The US can never be totally immune to harmful effects of
interdependence. This, however, do not warrant political
engagement in the world:
• The amount of harm is controllable. Changing policies can lessen
vulnerability.
• People or businesses who choose to move abroad does not oblige the
community to protect them.
• The harms of insufficient involvement pale in comparison to the harms of
overinvolvement.
• To consider every situation in which the US might suffer as an occasion for
foreign policy response, is a recipe for unlimited international adventurism.

9. The Costs of International Commitments
• The costs of internationalism cannot be calculated precisely they vary with the type of internationalism.
• Political or protectionist isolationists would disagree over some of these costs.
• Creation of new threats to US security. They make the US a party to other’s disputes.
• The expenses of war and preparation for war.
• Weakening of the US economy
• Adds to the defense budget
• Political left prefer the money to be put into domestic policy programs
• Political right prefer tax cuts
• Military spending draws top talents away from the civilian economy, thereby hurting its competitiveness.
• Defense costs add to the tax bills of the US corporations, which gets tacked onto the cost of their products, which place them at a disadvantage with companies from countries who spend little on defense because they are already protected by US military might.
• Pursuit of influence leads the US to give others trade concessions that also place Us businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
• Exacerbation of social tensions
• Because the costs and benefits of international involvement are shared unevenly across social classes, they fray social fabric at home.
• Diversion of resources from social needs
• The president and key legislators invest their time, energy, and political capital on foreign involvement and domestic policy will be put on automatic pilot.
• Easing constitutional order
• Madison: a universal truth is that loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad
• Conscription into military service erodes individual liberty
• Sanction is an infringement of private firms
• When the state prohibits travel to enemy countries, it abrogate their liberty
• Freedom of press is restricted when state secrets must be preserved.
• It shifts power from the legislative to the executive branc because:
• executive branch is able to act with sufficient dispatch, coherent, and secretly.
• Executive agreements will be struck when treaties would be politically difficult.
• covert operations will be carried out
• Undeclared war will be proliferate as the “Commander in Chief” clause trumps the provision that Congress shall declare war.
• Loss of national sovereignty
• Patrick Buchanan: the US, by losing self-sufficiency as a result of free trade, will become “a colony of the world”
• Multilateralism endangers national independence.
• Treaties and membership in international organizations that supersede laws passed by Congress.

10. Restrictions on the use of force
• Domestic resistance
• Military establishment opposes involvement other than quick and decisive ones
• Public disinclination = Vietnam Syndrome
• Filipino insurgency (1899-1902) - Delaying US entry into the World wars - War in Korea
(1950-1953) – Lebanon (1982-1984) – Somalia (1992-1994)
• Successful military use did not end this Syndrome
• Granada 1983 – Panama 1989 – the Persian Gulf (1991) – Bosnia Herzegovina (1995) – Kosovo
(1999) – Afghanistan (2001)
• Deterred military action
• Genocide in Rwanda and East Timor
• Foreign resistance
• Adverse public reaction
• Publics of friendly nations feed domestic opposition
• Armed resistance

11. Morality
• The US has only one compelling moral obligation: tp preserve the
experiment in “government of the people, by the people, and for
the people.”
• Had the US not entered WW1, there would have been no WW2.
• Nor were all the fruits of WW2 sweet:
• Victory came too late to save 80% of Hitler’s intended victims.
• Stalin dominated a large chunk of the world.
• The war left the US a large military, made the country confidant that led to
tragedies of Korea and Vietnam.
• It eroded the prohibition on directly attacking civilians.

12. Isolationism in History
• During 19th century, the distribution of power in the world led the logic of Realism and
isolationism to identical strategies.
• Between 1890-1920, the US saw a sharp departure from isolationism.
• In 1917, 6 senators and 50 congress people were against the war. Wilson refused to have the
US labeled as an ally.
• Between 1933-1945, neutrality act limited the efforts of Roosevelt to help Britain.
• Pearl Harbor gravely weakened isolationism for the next 20 years.
• The last 1960s saw the apparent resuscitation of isolationism:
• Withdrawal from commitments in Indochina
• Withdrawal of forces from Europe
• Ending conscription
• Limit the presidents authority to commit forces, to undertake covert operations, and to make foreign policy
commitments.
• The end of the Cold War raised fear of a surge in isolationism. Clinton was a reason for that.

13. Isolationism in History

14. Isolationism in History

15. Follow me on twitter @issa_adeli