I’m also curious as to your response to wheelhouse’s question…

Although I generally agree with you and disagree with rationalist ethical programmes like those of Kant or Mill, for example, I am unsure how to make the distinction you have made.

By engaging in diplomacy as a way of managing bilateral commercial/political relationships, rather than as a pro-forma discussion en route to bombing the hell out of whoever our rulers decide we should be threatening/bombing/invading this week.

Our economic and cultural clout gives us an endless amount of work to be done on the diplomatic front quite separate from any military matters.

The U.S. was involved in crafting a great many of the early international conventions in the pre-WWI era. President Cleveland was a great champion of arbitration as a means to settle international disputes, and in the wake of his blustering about Venezuela we had a commission help to resolve the outstanding border dispute between Britain and Venezuela. Of course, President Roosevelt acted as an intermediary to settle the Russo-Japanese War. We made many commercial treaties and treaties delineating our boundaries with Canada, as well as resolving outstanding issues with the British in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Those are some that spring to mind right away, but I’m sure that we could find more very easily. Neutrality as I am using it here means that we have no alliances, particularly military alliances, and that we do not belong to a bloc of powers. Temporary alliances are, of course, possible and may be desirable in certain circumstances, but non-alignment would be the general rule.

You do realize how hard you have to work to distinguish your position from “isolationism” though, right?

Not saying you weren’t successful, just sayin’…

PS How can one engage in diplomacy while being a neutral power? Do you have an example of that?

Offhand, aside from retaliating for 9/11 and other terrorist strikes on American bases/ships/embassies, I can’t think of a time in the last 100 years when I would have done so, unless we assume that Japan would have attacked the U.S. regardless of anything leading up to the attack. Obviously, in the event of an attack, I would have deployed the military overseas. Then, assuming that we would have had forces in Korea as we did have, and that we were attacked as we were, I would have deployed forces in that case as well. It’s a strange idea, I know, using the military for the purposes of national defense rather than roving do-goodery, but it seems to make sense.

Not wanting to deploy the military to other parts of the world is not “isolationist.” It’s called maintaining neutrality. One can engage in commerce and diplomacy while being a neutral power. In the event that our interests were threatened or attacked, I can imagine deploying forces overseas, much as Jefferson did in the Tripolitanian war. It is actually possible to defend national interests overseas without abandoning a general stance of non-intervention and neutrality. The idea that refusing to meddle in the affairs of Burma or any other such place somehow means that you will never deploy the military overseas under any circumstances is bizarre, and that strikes me as evidence that interventionism has badly confused how people think about the military and the reason it exists.

If so, when?

If not, aren’t you every bit as “isolationist” as the “pro-war” types are “pro-war”?