Isolationism A history of America's efforts to shield itself from the world

Charles Kupchan

Book - 2020

"The United States is in the midst of a bruising debate about its role in the world. Not since the interwar era have Americans been so divided over the scope and nature of their engagement abroad. President Donald Trump's America First approach to foreign policy certainly amplified the controversy. His isolationist, unilateralist, protectionist, and anti-immigrant proclivities marked a sharp break with the brand of internationalism that the country had embraced since World War II. But Trump's election was a symptom as much as a cause of the nation's rethink of its approach to the world. Decades of war in the Middle East with little to show for it, rising inequality and the hollowing out of the nation's manufacturing... sector, political paralysis over how to fix a dysfunctional immigration policy--these and other trends have been causing Americans to ask legitimate questions about whether U.S. grand strategy has been working to their benefit. Adding to the urgent and passionate nature of this conversation is China's rise and the threat it poses to the liberal international order that took shape during the era of the West's material and ideological dominance. Isolationism speaks directly to this unfolding debate over the future of the nation's engagement with the world. It does so primarily by looking back, by probing America's isolationist past. Although most Americans know little about it, the United States in fact has an impressive isolationist pedigree. In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington set the young nation on a clear course: "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." The isolationist impulse embraced by Washington and the other Founders guided the nation for much of its history prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941"--

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Oxford University Press [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Charles Kupchan (author)
Item Description
"A Council on Foreign Relations Book."
Physical Description
xvii, 446 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-427) and index.
ISBN
9780199393022
  • Preface
  • Note on Quotations
  • 1. American Isolationism: Past as Prelude?
  • 2. An Anatomy of Isolationism
  • Part I. The Era of Isolationism, 1789-1898
  • 3. The Revolutionary Era: Contemplating Nonentanglement
  • 4. From the French Revolution to the War of 1812: Isolationism as Doctrine
  • 5. Westward Expansion and the Monroe Doctrine: The Limits of Hemispheric Ambition
  • 6. The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Rise of American Power: Restraint Amid Ascent
  • Part II. The Defeat of Realist and Idealist Internationalism, 1898-1941
  • 7. The Spanish-American War and the Onset of Imperial Ambition
  • 8. Republican Imperialism and the Isolationist Backlash
  • 9. Wilsonian Idealism and the Isolationist Backlash
  • 10. The 1920s: Influence without Responsibility
  • 11. From the Great Depression to Pearl Harbor: Delusions of Strategic Immunity
  • Part III. The Rise and Fall of Liberal Internationalism, 1941-2020
  • 12. World War II and the Cold War: The Era of Liberal Internationalism
  • 13. The End of the Cold War, Overreach, and the Isolationist Comeback
  • 14. Where Isolationism and Liberal Internationalism Meet: The Search for a Middle Ground
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

In this excellent account, Kupchan (Georgetown Univ.), a former policy maker, traces the history of American foreign policy from the French and Indian War to the Trump presidency, organizing his work around the nation's isolationist tradition. Defining isolationism as "a grand strategy aimed at disengagement with foreign powers and the avoidance of strategic commitments beyond the North American homeland" (p. 6), Kupchan believes that this stance served the US well until the 1930s, when neutrality legislation encouraged the rise of totalitarian powers. From 1941 to 1944, the US engaged in "liberal internationalism," but then the policy's bipartisan support began to unravel. In turn, the book also covers the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Manifest Destiny, the Spanish-American War and its resulting short-lived imperialism, Wilsonianism, and the Cold War. Kupchan criticizes costly involvement in Southeast Asia and the Middle East at the expense of needed commitments in Europe and East Asia. He ably employs both primary and secondary works, although closer editing could have caught minor factual errors (e.g., confusing Robert Kennedy with Joseph Kennedy). Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty. --Justus D. Doenecke, emeritus, New College of Florida

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Kupchan (The End of the American Era), a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, offers an erudite and evenhanded study of the isolationist impulse in American foreign policy. Beginning with President George Washington's 1796 farewell address advising the nation to steer clear of foreign entanglements, the idea of maintaining American independence served the country well during its economic ascent, according to Kupchan. He links "isolationist logic" to the notion of American exceptionalism and explains how the subjugation of Native Americans and the seizure of lands from Mexico in the 19th century was seen not as expansionism, but as the fulfillment of America's "messianic mission." Despite U.S. involvement in WWI, isolationism only fell out of favor after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Kupchan writes, and the U.S. has since overextended itself in foreign wars and alliances, sowing discord at home and abroad. Talk of "America First" has reemerged in the Trump era, but Kupchan disagrees with those who want to pull the U.S. out of "major strategic positions around the world," arguing instead for "selective engagement and judicious retrenchment." He marshals a wealth of evidence to support his arguments and ranges confidently across more than 200 years of American history. Policy makers and foreign affairs scholars will want to take note. (Oct.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Isolationism, long in the doghouse, gets a reprieve. Enshrined by George Washington's iconic farewell address, isolationism enjoyed a long and dignified history until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. For the remainder of the 20th century, "isolationist" became a synonym for "simpleton." Then, seemingly overnight, "America First," the rallying cry of a disgraced 1930s anti-war movement, became a campaign slogan and helped elect the current president. Kupchan, professor of international affairs at Georgetown, writes that isolationism dominated American foreign relations until 1898, when the country dipped a toe in internationalism. President William McKinley's realistic version in the Spanish-American War was too much about projecting power. Woodrow Wilson's idealistic internationalism was too much about spreading freedom. However, unlike the unhappy post-mortem after 1918, Americans emerged from World War II with a surge of national confidence in what seemed like an ideal combination of both realism and idealism. Galvanized by anti-communism, both political parties embraced what Kupchan calls liberal internationalism: projecting power throughout the world but aiming at preserving democratic ideals. He maintains that, despite glitches, America performed tolerably at leading the "free world" until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, after which the U.S. lost its sense of proportion. What Kupchan terms "overreach" led to "188 military interventions, a four-fold increase over the Cold War era" that included multitrillion dollar debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Barack Obama's 2008 election introduced "liberal internationalism lite," which encouraged American allies to share the burden, but this failed to obtain bipartisan support. The author concludes that isolationism was growing well before the 2016 election. America can never withdraw to the solitude it enjoyed during the 19th century, but there's no denying that the modern version is a movement whose time has come. Histories of ideas are often boring, but Kupchan writes well and only occasionally falls into the academic mode, mostly when he delivers an opinion and then follows it with a quote from another scholar who backs him up. Astute political history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.