non-interventionism
Nonintervention or Non-interventionism is a foreign policy which holds that political rulers should avoid alliances with other nations and avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense. A similar phrase is "strategic independence".[1]
Isolationism is nonintervention combined with economic nationalism (protectionism). Most non-interventionists are not isolationists. Most, like Thomas Jefferson and Ron Paul in the United States, favor nonintervention combined with free trade and free cultural exchange.
Nonintervention by country
China
See China.
Japan
See Japan.
New Zealand
In recent years
Sweden
Main article: Swedish neutrality
Switzerland
Switzerland has long been known for its policy of defensively armed neutrality.
United States
Main article: United States non-interventionism
In the United States, this foreign policy has been advocated at various times in the country's history, notably during the first century of US history. George Washington, the first US President, advised the country to avoid "foreign entanglements". Thomas Jefferson favored "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." John Quincy Adams wrote that the US "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."
The policy of non-intervention has been a serious issue for every major US war. During World War I, During the inter-war years, World War II, and the Korean War, the main proponents of non-interventionism were the Old Right. During the Viet Nam War, the New Left became the chief proponents of non-interventionism. Today in the US, members of both the "left" and "right" favor military interventionism; though those on the left prefer multi-lateral interventionism (through the UN, NATO and other collective security organizations), while those on the right prefer unilateral interventionism. Paleoconservatives, libertarians, and progressives are some of the remaining political groups who would hold the US to non-interventionism in principle. The split has become a primary issue in the 2008 election, with some prominent Democrats denouncing the unpopular interventionist War in Iraq while many Republicans defend it, though the division is not strictly along party lines.
References
- ^ Carpenter,
Ted Galen. The Libertarian Reader, 336-344. ISBN 0-684-83200-3.
Nonintervention is usually defined as either the determination by a nation to refrain from interfering in the affairs of other
nations or those of its own political subdivisions; or as the refusal or failure to intervene in same.
Noninterventionism is not to be confused with isolationism, a political policy which sometimes carries with it laws that mandate a breaking of ties between the inhabitants of one political subidivision and another.
Further Reading
- America's Tradition Of Non-Interventionism, Chris Leithner
- Non-Interventionism, OnPower.org
- Congressman Ron Paul on Noninterventionist policy: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst121806.htm
- "A Noninterventionist Revival", by Michael R. Allen, Editor, Spin Magazine December 24, 1998: http://www.antiwar.com/nonint.html
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