THBT UNITED STATES SHOULD BE ISOLATIONIST

MOTION #87: THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE ISOLATIONIST

Isolationism is a form of foreign policy in which a state seeks to avoid all international entanglements, including political alliances, commitments, organizations, and trade agreements. There are usually two parts to such a policy. First is non-interventionism, meaning the state will not involve itself in international military alliances and will not engage in conflict except to protect its own vital interests. Second is protectionism, wherein the state sets up legal barriers to trade and to cultural exchange. The United States held to a policy of isolationism for most of its history ending permanently only in the 20th century with the Second World War and subsequent Cold War. A number of American politicians, scholars, and a growing number of concerned citizens have begun to advocate a return to isolationism. They cite the risks and costs of American involvement on the world stage and decry its position as de facto world police, which they see as not only an expensive endeavor, but also dangerous to the security of the state. They also argue that the dangers of its trade deficit brought on by a lack of trade barriers create the risk of the United States becoming the economic thrall of its creditors. Opponents of such views point out that the decades since the United States has become the primary actor on the world stage have been marked by an unprecedented degree of stability and prosperity across the globe, and that its withdrawal from world affairs might create dangerous disorder. They also cite the fact that the American economy, dependent on free trade, would contract and its people's standard of living would diminish should it pursue a policy of isolationism. Debates on this issue revolve around the issues of whether the United States has a moral right to withdraw from the international system, whether such withdrawal would be overly harmful to world security and stability, and whether it would be inordinately harmful to the United States' own society.

Pros	Cons
Isolationism is the political philosophy on which the United States is founded and its pursuit is what made it great. The foreign policy of the United States was first conceived as being one of strict isolationism. Since the time of George Washington, who warned against the risks of entangling alliances with foreign powers, American foreign policy has been based squarely in the principles of non-interventionism. By pursuing this course the United States was able to avoid involvement in the ruinous wars of Europe that wracked that continent during the 18th and 19th centuries, sapping their strength and ultimately bringing about the downfalls of their far-flung empires. During those same years the United States was able to focus on its own growth, fighting only when its own vital interests were at stake, and pushed its borders from being just a small nation on the Eastern coast of the North American continent to the point whereby it was a continent-spanning giant1. It was only during World War One that the United States broke with its long tradition of non-entanglement with foreign powers, and its involvement in that conflict led it to be embroiled in the foreign intrigues and power games that made the 20th and early 21st centuries ones of almost constant American involvement in wars; wars that were always in far-flung locales in which the United States' vital interests did not truly lie. In order to escape the entanglements of the international system, the United States must seek to disengage itself and to pursue once again a policy of concern for its own interests without concern for the happenings of other states.	What made the United States great was not specifically its isolationist philosophy, but its awareness of which philosophy is best suited to its place in international society. As such, pursuing an isolationist policy now will not make the United States strong just because it did so in the past. The international landscape has fundamentally changed since the birth of the United States, and even since the end of the World Wars. The increased interconnectedness of people between nations through politics and markets is unprecedented in history and cannot simply be ignored. By turning its back on the international system the United States only hampers its own development and success.
Current popular sentiment in the United States supports a move toward greater isolationism. Popular opinion in the United States has been shifting more and more toward preference for non-interventionist and isolationist foreign policy. People in the United States are tired of the costs of foreign adventures, in both lives and wealth, and have been clamoring as of late for a return to a more traditional foreign policy. This is amply demonstrated in the rise of the Tea Party movement and its success in the 2010 congressional election. The Tea Party has been fighting for a less intrusive, smaller government, and demand that state spending be reined in and the massive deficit dealt with. There is no better way to accomplish this aim than reducing American involvement in foreign conflicts and in its large military presence around the world. By pursuing a policy of non-interventionism, the United States will be able to bring its finances back in order by not spending so heavily on defense, while also allowing domestic production to increase through protectionism of domestic business.	Current popular sentiment does not support isolationism. Average American citizens do not consider a total withdrawal from the international system a good idea. Even the most rabid supporters of the Tea Party movement do not support so drastic a move. The current political climate calls for rethinking how much the government should do for people and how much it should spend, not whether or not the United States should be involved in the international system.
The United States is currently suffering from the effects of imperial overstretch. The United States has at its disposal the most powerful military in history, and is comparatively more powerful than any single state has been in history. Yet its forces are stretched thin across the globe and embroiled in ongoing conflicts in several regions, particularly its seemingly endless wars in the Middle East. The cost of such military output and the number of soldiers stationed on over 800 military bases around the world is unsustainable. The United States must focus its defense policy on the protection of its own borders and its own people rather than getting involved with the problems of other states as it has done in recent years. Behaving as the world's police has served to provide many countries with the public good of international security, allowing them to scale back their own military spending and letting the United States pick up the slack. Yet its behavior has not earned it approbation, but rather the ire of many parts of the international community, as well as that of terrorist groups who see the United States as an imperialist oppressor. The growing economic cost of this international security provision, along with the domestic security threats created by it create the risk that the United States could collapse under the pressure, as so many powerful states have done in the past; just as Rome fell due to its stretching its resources too thin, so too might the United States. By pursuing a policy of isolationism, the United States can spend less while providing superior security for its own citizens. Its technological and military superiority will not be affected by such a move, but will rather simply be more efficiently utilized. With a military dedicated to the protection of the United States and its narrow national interests, it can project power around the world without the huge costs of the current system.	The United States is not suffering from imperial overstretch. If the costs of certain kinds of military activity are costly, it can always alter them. In fact, as time has progressed, its military has become more focused on drones and other less expensive tools of warfare. Withdrawing from the international system entirely will not save the United States from collapse, but will only destabilize the world order and cause it more danger.
The United States should accept that international relations in amoral, and that its focus should be on protecting its own interests, not on moralizing and protecting the rest of the world. The United States has spent the last several decades trying to promote its ideals around the world by, among other things, offering support to fledgling democracies and democratic movements, staging humanitarian interventions to end tyranny and oppression, and offering extensive foreign aid packages to weaker economies struggling to develop. All of these activities have put the United States into a state of almost constant conflict. Its interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others have proven costly in both blood and treasure. For all its efforts, the United States has gained little in terms of material benefits for its own people. Yet the first duty of a state is to its own people. By adopting a position of isolationism, the United States can place its focus on protecting its own people. Instead of getting caught up in entangling alliances that lead to unnecessary foreign wars, the United States can follow a path of peace and self-sufficiency that will allow its people to be free of the costs and horrors of war and international intrigue. On the level of principle, it is the duty of the United States government to be isolationist, because only in that way can it fulfill its true duty which is to maintaining the safety of its people.	The United States sole duty is not just to its own people. Rather, it has a duty as a member of the international community to contribute to the stability of global security and commerce. No country can truly isolate itself from the rest of the world, especially in the light of the inexorable movement of markets toward globalization. The United States has a role, as does every state in the international structure, which it must not abrogate.
Pursuing an isolationist foreign policy will increase the United States' economic security. The United States has become economically dependent upon the productive capacities of other states, leaving it vulnerable to their influence and machinations. Its reliance upon China to produce much of its consumer goods and upon the Middle East for oil, have resulted in a major trade imbalance that is only growing. The trade deficit was $50.2billion in May 2011 with China alone making up $25 billion of this. Eventually China, and, other net exporters to the United States will be able to pull its economic strings, and thus dominate it politically. For the United States to retain its political and economic autonomy, it must rein in its overactive spending as well as its borrowing from abroad. The only way to accomplish this is through a policy promoting domestic self-sufficiency by means of raising trade barriers with states and firms abroad. Through a regime of protective tariffs and forced trade balancing, the United States can expand domestic industries and rebuild those that have atrophied due to foreign competition. It is through such policies that it can restore itself to the position of a net exporter and escape the economic invasion of foreign powers. The result of an isolationist policy for the economy will be a more self-sufficient nation with domestic industries capable of providing for the needs of its citizens, and one not dependent on any other state for vital commodities. The United States is particularly well suited to such an enterprise due to its immense size and wealth in resources and human capital. There is no need for such damaging economic relations as it has pursued, as allowing itself to be tied into the international economic system only exposes it to the machinations of unfriendly foreign powers and also makes it susceptible to contagion effects of economic crises in international markets. Clearly, the wise path is for America to protect its own economic interests through protectionism and isolationism.	The United States has not been made vulnerable by its deep involvement in the international economic system. Rather, it has only been strengthened by the ability to enjoy the fruits of the comparative advantages that other states have in the production of certain goods and services. As the United States becomes more dependent on other countries, so too do they become more dependent on it.
The United States has no duty to the international order on either the instrumental or moral level, nor does any state. The duty of every state is to its citizens, not to any artificially constructed international institutions with pretensions to authority. If the interests of the United States are served by a withdrawal from the international system, then it has the right to do so irrespective of what other states or the "international community" thinks.	All states have a responsibility to participate in the international system. The modern international system is based on deep engagement between all states on the world stage, both in terms of diplomatic ties and economic interactions. All states are interconnected by these diplomatic and economic strands and one state attempting to extricate itself from the system is not only difficult, but also very damaging to the whole system. This is particularly true in the case of large, powerful economies that have ties to almost every other state through trade and financial markets, such as the United States, which remains the world's single largest economy. Were the United States to leave the system in order to pursue isolationist self-sufficiency the whole system might falter. Thus on the instrumental level it is the duty of a state such as the United States to maintain its position in the system to ensure that it survives. On the moral level too states have a duty to participate in the international order. Through diplomatic entities such as the United Nations countries can work out their differences without recourse to violence, and can also coordinate efforts to aid less well-off states when they fall on hard times. The legitimacy of such institutions are diminished, and thus their power to serve in action-coordination and mediation, the more states refuse to acknowledge them or participate in them. In the case of the United States, as the world's largest economy and military power, its withdrawal from such organizations could compromise their very existence. Without these institutions many countries would suffer from want of aid and from the scourge of conflict. Clearly, all states, the United States included, have a duty to uphold the international order through participation.
The United States does not suffer, in aggregate, from withdrawing from the international free market. Rather, what is lost due to the inability to trade to the same extent with producers such as China is gained through the increased security afforded by self-sufficiency and the number of new jobs created by the need to produce goods that were previously imported. It is a necessary trade-off, one that clearly falls more favorably on the side of isolation.	American society and its economy will suffer severely from its loss of free trade with the rest of the world. The American economy is based on free trade both of material goods and services, and of ideas and knowledge. Its economic strength and growth is based in its dynamic approach. In terms of goods and services, businesses invest in American companies, and American firms do likewise abroad. The international system of free trade allows capital and wealth to flow efficiently in a broad market, allowing for more goods and services to be produced in aggregate and for countries with particular comparative advantages to take full advantage of them which benefits everyone. Without free trade countries suffer. In the case of the United States, while it is large and has extensive amounts of manpower and resources available, it is a developed country, and thus is comparatively disadvantaged in the production of many consumer items, such as those produced by Chinese firms. Should the United States pursue a policy of strict protectionism, it would result necessarily in a reduction of the average standard of living of its citizens, since many goods would become more expensive due to their being produced in the United States rather than abroad. This decline in real wealth of the country will be marked on the macroeconomic level as a shrinking of the overall economy. The CATO institute argues that far from raising barriers the US should be reducing them. Global elimination of trade barriers could raise US income by $500 billion. Raising trade barriers thus only harms in terms of material wealth. In terms of ideas and knowledge, the free trade of information allows new productive methods to disseminate between nations rapidly, and allows individuals with specialized knowledge to work together and develop new products and technologies. Under an isolationist system, the United States would be hampered in its pursuit of new knowledge and technology since it would be cut off from the international marketplace to a large extent. The result would likely be the United States getting left behind technologically as the rest of the world share ideas and progress while the United States focuses only inward. Clearly, in terms of both material and intellectual benefit the United States suffers when isolated.
The unique power of the United States does not obligate it to participate in the international system. Its only obligation is to its own people. If it no longer serves the United States' own interests to provide the world with security then it does not have to. In fact, it might well be time for other countries to start picking up the slack and begin contributing troops to things like United Nations peacekeeping missions, instead of simply expecting the United States to do it for them. In terms of the economic system, world reserve currencies have changed many times, and in fact there is already discussion of the dollar being supplanted by the euro, yuan, or even a new international currency. Clearly the dollar is not as essential as proponents of an internationally active United States claim.	The United States, as the world's sole superpower, has the unique ability to provide leadership and stability to the international system. The United States occupies a unique position in the history of the world; it is a superpower with the ability to project military power to all corners of the globe and economic capacity dwarfing all other states. Never has a state been so dominant and without rivals for global preeminence. In terms of security, its great power gives the United States the ability to serve as an effective world police, allowing it to guarantee the security and stability of the international system, as well as its own citizens, which has resulted in an unprecedented era of peace reining in the world. Wars are intermittent and localized, and nothing akin to the vast conflicts of empire that marked the 18th and 19th centuries, or the cataclysmic world wars of the first half of the 20th century. This has largely been thanks to the United States' presence as a leader on the world stage. Were it to withdraw from its international activities, the security of the world would be in doubt. With no dominant power helping to maintain order, the whole system could break down, precipitating wars, as has occurred in previous centuries when the international landscape was marked by the power dynamics of multi-polarity. In terms of economics, the United States is deeply coupled into the system. The United States withdrawal would be disastrous not only in terms of upsetting the international financial system, but also in terms of its position as provider of the world' reserve currency. Without the dollar, the entire international financial system would be in jeopardy, and could even collapse. Without the United States actively involved on the international stage the world will become a more dangerous and economically volatile place.
Countries do not need the United States to lead them. States have a right to govern themselves however they want, and should they wish to emulate the United States or China, that is their prerogative as self-determining entities. Simply because the United States has offered other countries leadership does not mean it owes them it in perpetuity. The United States chose in the past to serve as a leader on the world stage, but if it decides its time for doing so has past, then that is its right. It owes no other state anything.	The United States is a necessary role model to developing democracies around the world, and its participation on the international system is vital as a source of moral leadership. Much of the world looks to the United States for leadership. Its moniker "leader of the free world" is not merely grandstanding on America's part, but actually how many nations view it. When the Berlin Wall fell it was to the United States that the budding democratic movements looked for inspiration1. Its upholding of values such as freedom of expression and religion, as well as its adherence to democratic values and free markets have served to shape the fabric of the international order. Since the United States became a major leader in the world, after World War II, it has helped to make the soil of the international landscape become more receptive to the growth of democracy, not only as a major form of government, but as the predominant one. Should the United States abandon its place of leadership in international relations, three possible results arise. First, countries could see view the United States' policy as one to be emulated, leading to more countries withdrawing from the international system and undermining further the power of international institutions. Second, countries could, feeling leaderless, fall back on previous examples and methods of government, such as the former Soviet states perhaps reverting to more authoritarian styles of governance. Third, states might look for new international leaders, such as China, India, or Russia. In all likelihood a mixture of these results would occur should the United States withdraw within itself. The United States owes a duty to these states not to leave them bereft of leadership, especially since it has taken up that mantle of its own accord.