Warfare Paradox, Isolationism, And The Foundations Of The United States

For so long as America has existed as a country, there has been the ever-present idea of a warfare paradox when it comes to our involvement in conflicts. The clash between our ideals as a nation and what we do to further those ideals throughout the world will always be, to some extent, conflicting. Our Founding Fathers laid down the tenets of our land centuries ago, and through our course of trying to uphold those tenets, we have undoubtedly had complications I regards to conflicting ideals. The three mainstays of the warfare paradox, isolationism, interventionism, and protectionism, all have their roots in the foundations of the United States. This reality can be seen in some of the documents that decorate the annals of our collective history;
Soon after the Treaty of Paris was signed and America became a nation in its own right, it was deemed that using the natural barrier of the Atlantic Ocean as a buffer from the affairs of faraway Europe could prove beneficial. Europe was at that time engulfed in war due to the French Revolution and was soon to be entirely at odds with one another with the rise of Napoleonic France. America was still a fledging nation with a territorial, political, and economic worries abound, and what they did not need was to be entangled in conflicts that were not in their interests. So was the guiding policy for foreign affairs during the Washington Administration, and was continued thereafter; used a basis for this policy was President Washington’s Farewell Address, which was printed throughout the United States in the latter part of 1796. In the address, Washington offered many different pieces of commentary and advice for the still-infant nation, such as what he saw as fractionalization of the country due to political parties and economic policies the nation should continue with. What really made the speech enduring was Washington’s description of the dangers of overseas alliances and “permanent alliances,” which laid the groundwork for the future administrations’ attempts at
The same can be said for Washington’s words on avoidance of alliances that could have negative results for the United States. David and Jeanne Heidler in their book Washington’s Circle: The Creation of the President detail the creation of the Farewell Address as a collaborative effort between Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and others (CITE). Washington, just like members of his original Cabinet, knew that America’s enduring legacy would need to be nurtured by avoiding any sort of conflicts that had the potential of dismembering the union of states they had created. They saw that “there was a difference between principle and policy… The enduring principle should always be reflected on the ever-adjustable policy. The country’s own interests… should always guide the United States” (CITE). That is why Washington warned in his address that “Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation… 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” (CITE). This warning was not just by the whim