Washington's Farewell Address was honored by all of his successors until Woodrow Wilson plunged us into WW I. That war is Exhibit A for nonintervention, since even Churchill felt that our entry into the war destroyed the chance for a peace agreement that would have prevented the rise of both Nazism and Communism.
Washington's views weren't unique, they were normative. As John Quincy Adams said, "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
"Washington's views weren't unique, they were normative. As John Quincy Adams said, "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
John Quincy Adams wrote voluminously on the dangers of Moslem aggression and played a major role in the formation of the US Navy as a necessary force to protect and defend Americans by taking the fight to the enemy in the Middle East. Believe it! Adams understood the nature of jihad and spelled out quite clearly the evil intent of the Moslems as a threat to freedom here in the US and everywhere in the world. Given that the first foreign military action the US engaged in was the Stephen Decatur expedition in the USS Constitution flotilla against the Tripolitan Pirates of the Barbary Coast, surprisingly, he knew a great deal about these matters.
Isolationism as it is understood today, that is, complete withdrawal from world affairs, was never advocated by any of the Founders. To assert that it was perpetuates a myth and distorts the historical truth.