Insularity and Isolationism

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Principle 16:

Insularity and Isolationism

Insularity is a detached, insulated, self-focused, narrow-minded state of mind associated with people living on an island. The island is their world and their only consideration. Insularity is a form of isolationism. Isolationism is withdrawal from the remainder of the globe; the other nations of the world are recognized, but a choice is made to remain withdrawn and detached from interaction with those nations. Insularity goes one step further than isloationism; the other nations of the world are no longer recognized. Insularity fails to give the remainder of the globe consideration or thought; the remainder of the globe does not even exist.

Americans exhibit, from time to time, both isolationist and insular attitudes. For the first century and a-half, or three-quarters of the time the U.S. has existed as an independent nation, America acknowledges the Great Powers of Europe, but refuses to enter alliances with them; the U.S. maintains a position of isolation. From time to time, the United States goes about its own business, forgetting the remainder of the world exists. This insularity is especially the case with Third World economic and social development needs. America proceeds with its own economic and social development giving scant acknowledgment to the needs of the poor, the starving, the socially oppressed, the abused, the exploited, and the neglected peoples of the Third World. Only the intrusion of a great media event, such as mass famine in Ethiopia, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, female circumcision in the Middle East and Africa, or bride burning in India, shakes Americans to the realization that the United States is only a small part of the world. In the case of economic and social development, at least a portion of American foreign policy is shaped by American insularity; it is that portion of American foreign policy that is best called "neglect."

Political scientists believe they have evidence of an American foreign policy cycle that prominently features periods of isolation and insularity.

"Several writers have advanced the views that United States foreign policy tends to swing like a pendulum (an image used by both President Nixon and Senator Fulbright) from extremes of over involvement to under involvement. Stanley Hoffman, for example, discerned 'the two tempi of America's foreign relations,' alternating 'from phases of withdrawal (or when complete withdrawal is impossible, priority to domestic concerns) to phases of dynamic, almost messianic romping on the world stage.' Hans Morgenthau saw United States policy moving 'back and forth between the extremes of an indiscriminate isolationism and an equally indiscriminate internationalism or globalism.'

Getting more specific, historian Dexter Perkins divided American foreign relations into cycles of 'relatively pacific feeling,' followed by 'rising bellicosity and war,' followed by 'postwar nationalism,' and then back to 'relatively pacific feeling.' Getting even more specific, a behaviorally inclined political scientist, Frank L. Klingberg, using such indicators as naval expenditures, annexations, armed expeditions, diplomatic pressures, and attention paid to foreign matters in presidential speeches and party platforms, discovered alternating phases of 'introversion' (averaging twenty-one years) and 'extroversion' (averaging twenty-seven years). Klingbery added: 'If America's fourth phase of extroversion (which began around 1940) should last as long as the previous extrovert phases, it would not end until well into the 1960s.'

Other writers have found a roughly generational interval of about twenty-five years between upsurges of world violence.... Denton and Phillips suggest what we might term a 'forgetting' theory to explain the twenty-five year cycles of violence; That generation, and particularly its decision makers, that experienced an intensive war tends to remember its horrors and avoid similar conflicts. The following generation of decision makers may forget the horrors and remember the heroism; this generation is more likely to engage in violence. This explanation ... is flatly at odds with our Pearl Harbor generation... virtually all of whom experienced World War II firsthand, displayed little reluctance to apply force overseas. This generation was of course repelled by the violence of World War II but used it to explain why aggression must be 'nipped in the bud' to prevent another large conflagration...

(D)uring one epoch American foreign-policy thinkers may largely ignore threats and in another epoch they may take threats very seriously.... (T)he Cuban uprising of the 1870s elicited relatively little response from the United States compared to our response in the Cuban uprising of the 1890s. America paid little attention to East Europe in the 1930s and a great deal of attention in the 1940s and 1950s...." (Roskin, in Ikenberry, 556-558)

The shift from active foreign relations to relative isolation and insularity appears to be well documented. When the "spirit of the age ("the Zeitgeist") calls for isolationism, American foreign policy makers are difficult to awaken.

There are also additional practical reasons for American isolationation and insularity. First, Americans lack the language training and language skills to communicate freely around the globe. Europeans often speak and read two, three, or more languages. Many Third World residents speak and write in a native language and a "colonial language." Americans tend to speak and write in only one language-- English. Second, Americans lack an understanding of foreign culture-- literature, philosophy, religion, political thought, everyday folkways, largely because Americans lack the language skills to communicate with those cultures. Third, when Americans seek information about foreign lands, that information is often relayed through sources expert in the language and culture, sources outside the U.S. The information these sources provide is filtered through their own national interests and through the context of their own culture and nationality. All to often, Americans learn about affairs in the Third World through European journalists and scholars, who often put a decided European slant to that information, or through propagandists who can easily fool Americans because Americans lack the skills to confirm the information. This combined ignorance of language and culture isolates Americans from the rest of the world, even in times when America chooses not to be isolated.

The terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 may have marked the beginning of the end of American isolation and insularity. America finally realizes that isolation is no longer a practical possibility. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and friendly neighbors to the north and south no longer provide a protective barrier against the outside world. If America can no longer remain isolated, it can no longer take an insular view of the world. The issues and interests of all the peoples of the world must now be taken into consideration in developing American foreign policy. If America does not pay attention to the world, the world can easily come to America and make her pay attention.

Principle 16:

Insularity and Isolationism

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