George Washington's farewell address (1796) - on Europe:
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
To say the same thing as everyone else, but in a different way: let's say Washington turned out to be some form of benevolent vampire, and was able to live through all of America's lifetime from 1776 to today; do you think he would be commenting on his social media platform of choice quoting his younger self, or do you think his position on this matter would have changed?
Washington's opinion might well have changed and, as noted in other comments, an armada of nuclear ICBMs does negate the distance that he referenced.
Regardless of the hypothetical, isn't it clear that Trump IS meddling and not following Washington's injunction? (Also applies to Israel/Gaza.)
In family and community (and internet) dynamics, meddling in other people's quarrels often leads to blowback. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of making this comment on HN.) Is it really any different on the global stage?
My genuine question: What are the best criteria for deciding when getting involved is better than remaining on the sidelines? Do those criteria apply at both hyper-local and global scales, or this there a phase transition in applicability?
I wouldn't really view "avoiding foreign entanglements" as meaning "let's insult our guest unless they slobber at my feet like a groveling and servile mendicant."
That said, I think Washington's advice should be considered as defined by a pre-globalization economy, and travel times substantially greater by orders of magnitude when compared to ICBMs. Imperfect analogy, but in some ways Europe was further away from the US then than the Moon is today.
Keeping Russia in check through a European alliance, and China in check through the Japanese alliance, is central to protecting US economic interests.
This is choosing to be involved, for your own best interest, exactly as Washington described.
Also, in 1796, the USA was distant to Russia and China.
This is no longer the case; all possess through the nuclear weapon the power to strike upon each other devastating blows.
Given the existence of nuclear weapons, the goal is now is to avoid major war completely, between any nuclear power.
A major nuclear exchange will lead to devastating environmental consequences, no matter whom is involved.
Finally when Washington wrote that, no one imagined the possibility of any one power conquering the whole of Europe, or of China rising to great power. The USA cannot withstand Russia, Europe, and China, combined.
It's preposterous to frame the whole thing about being isolationism or not. As if it's just a matter of "walking away" from Ukraine and letting them sort it out.
In fact the US under Trump doesn't intend on doing that. It's not content to let Ukraine fight it out with Europes support. It's actively trying to force Ukraine down a path of American & Russian choosing, and trying to take Ukraine's resources in the process.
Trump is trying to carve up Ukraine along with Russia. That's not isolationism.
This is not isolationism and walking away from Europe to leave it to its own devices, even if that's how some on the American right are trying to receive it. It's actually imperialism. And imperialism in coordination with another imperialist power.
In any case, it's not possible to post-facto have some sort of isolation here. Any withdrawal of American power is just its replacement by some other. Which America in turn will be enraged by, and the next round of the cycle will be explicit imposition of American power in some fashion by military means.
Because that's the only thing that will keep $$ flowing.
Why do right wing American isolationists somehow imagine they're running some sort of charity for the world that somehow Europe and others are "ungrateful" for? American military intervention exists for nakedly avaricious reasons. It is for maintaining the supremacy of American capitalism, and enriching American businessmen and to some degree some of the American people.
> Why do right wing American isolationists somehow imagine they're running some sort of charity for the world that somehow Europe and others are "ungrateful" for?
They imagine this because American interventionists routinely tell them that this is so, and American interventionists say this because it's the only politically viable justification. If you convinced everyone who believes in the fundamental goodness of US military intervention that it's really about Lockheed's profit margins, isolationism would have a bipartisan supermajority.
I would argue that it was much bigger at that time. How many days of sailing would it take to cross the ocean? How undeveloped was the entirety of what we now have as the US?
Edit: I'm a fool and read the parent completely incorrectly. Ignore this comment.
Did you post it because you agree with it or just for fun? It's a 250 year old statement in a world that didn't look anything like ours does today. In 1796 the United States was not a global power with nuclear weapons whose entire strength is derived from the global order of trade that we imposed after World War 2.
All of this realignment away from our allies is actually throwing away our greatest strength. I understand why people voted for Trump or a figure like him on the domestic front - people want to bring back manufacturing and lower-middle class jobs? Great, let's work with our allies to do it. To throw away the world order that we won instead of iterating on it is a travesty and a fucking joke.
Basic principles that change with the time aren't basic principles at all. Is the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech irrelevant now because we aren't communicating via handwritten letters and bulletin boards anymore?
to disregard the context in which the founding fathers' ideologies developed is to ignore the utter hypocrisy of their views.
these were wealthy men who owned other human beings for personal economic benefit.
whatever high-seeming notions may have underpinned their political project, their goal was to build a new nation in which they could continue to accumulate dynastic wealth free from monarchial control, at the cost of the very freedoms they claimed to stand for.
Would you also disregard ancient philosophy, or religion? Modern psychology seems to rigorously prove out profound ideas the ancients had about the human mind, yet these ideas were written down thousands of years ago. Why would it be that people from hundreds of years ago would be so divorced from our reality?
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?