The term refers to, as you wrote, but I will paraphrase:
A person who believes that his/her country should not engage in certain types of overseas adventures... "
Ever since December 7, 1941 the term "isolationist" refers to people who foolishly, like proverbial ostriches, put their heads in the sand and ignore obvious threats to America's peace and prosperity.
The term "isolationism" goes back to the 1930s, then led by Republicans like Ohio Sen. Taft and North Dakota Senator Nye, among others.
Such people were successful in preventing Pres. Roosevelt from intervening directly in the Second World War until after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
After Pearl Harbor they all supported the US war efforts and later Taft himself supported NATO under Republican Pres. Eisenhower.
Ever since Pearl Harbor, the argument against Isolationism has been that we waited far too long and that, had we supported stronger responses to Axis powers invasions during the 1930s, it would have kept such wars relatively small.
The proof of arguments against Isolationism was Cold War I, now criticized as "endless wars", but in fact, the times since 1945 were relatively peaceful and certainly less costly in blood and treasure than a Third World War would have been.
We won Cold War I by "Peace Through Strength" and our willingness to oppose Russian and Chi-Com imperial aggressions.
Today we see Cold War II, a "War From Weakness", and our return to the Isolationist spirit which now encourages Russians, Chi-Coms and their Axis of Evil Dictator allies to test their old expansionists goals in Europe, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific regions.
linMcHlp: "IMHO, I believe:
- - we should have defended Kuwait vs. Iraq."
-
Why?
What does blatant aggression against a non-US ally have to do with us?
In 1990, April Glaspie at the US State Department politely told Saddam Hussein we didn't care what he did in Kuwait.
So, seriously, it was the Korean War all over again, started because evil dictators believed the USA would stand aside and do nothing. - "- we should NOT have further invaded Iraq in 2003"
Why not?
Sure, in hindsight anybody can criticize anything, but at the time we were told (and believed) that Saddam had serious Weapons of Mass Destruction, was sponsoring Islamic terrorists against the US, was a mass murderer of Iraqis and still a threat to his neighbors.
Later investigations showed that Saddam himself believed he had WMDs, that there were terrorists in Iraq and that Saddam did mass-murder his own people.So, whatever critique we make today, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
- "- we should NOT have been messing around in the Balkans during the Clinton Admin."
Again, why not?
The 1990s Yugoslav civil wars are estimated to have cost up to 500,000 lives with 4 million displaced from their homes, including 80% of Kosovans.
Yugoslavia's pre-war population had been circa 24 million, and NATO was the only power on earth which could prevent total genocide by some ethnic groups against others.
NATO's primary role was peacekeeping and as such suffered no serious casualties among the 50,000 maximum involved.
Among those peacekeepers were Russian troops. - "- we should support Australia, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan"
US allies and friends in green:
Sure, but the problem with your list is the same one as in 1950 when Pres. Truman's Secretary of State Acheson listed the countries the US will defend and left Korea off his list (also Taiwan).
It gave a Green Light to evil communist dictators to invade South Korea, which they promptly did, forcing Truman to revise his list, putting South Korea and Taiwan on it.In addition to your list, in the Indo-Pacific region, the US today has military bases in New Zealand, Singapore, Diego Garcia, the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas.
We also consider a long list of other countries our friends or allies, all of whom benefit from the deterrent value of "Pax Americana" military power. - "- we should NOT support NATO participation in wartime, east of Poland and east of Romania."
Again, why not?
"East of Poland" includes Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland, while "east of Romania" includes Bulgaria and Turkey, all of them NATO members.
Are you going to just hand these countries over to Vlad the Invader?And why, exactly, should NATO turn down membership with any western style democratic country which applies for it?
Why should NATO ever grant a non-NATO dictator authority over who does or does not become a NATO member?
How is it you don't grasp how utterly insane that idea is??
For starters: the vast majority of Ukrainians did not want to be part of NATO before Vlad the Invader's 2014 seizure of Crimea and occupation of the Donbas.
Yes, Ukrainians did want closer ties to the European Union, but Vlad couldn't tolerate that and used it as his pretext to seize Crimea.
Since then, Ukrainians are eager to join not just the EU, but also now NATO too -- and why shouldn't they?
By what authority can Vlad the Invader dictate who will or won't join which organizations?
linMcHlp: "GIVEN that Moscow’s complaint is for Russia to NOT be near NATO . . . then Moscow should NOT move toward NATO."
Do you not grasp that every word out of the mouth of a Russian official is a LIE?
They literally cannot tell the truth about anything because they are not allowed to, and the LIE here is that Russia is somehow afraid of NATO.
They were not afraid years ago when they wanted to join NATO, they are now not really afraid, and Russia would never be afraid of NATO except that NATO stands in the way of Vlad the Invader's reconquest of its Old Soviet and Tsarist Empires.
linMcHlp: ". . . either way, the left would have engaged in its monsterous subterfuge: its “progressive” grande invasion of the U.S.A. by literally millions of illegal aliens, some 300,000 plus flown into the U.S.A. by the Biden Admininistration as a blatant, clear, dangerous, hostile act of treason against the U.S.A."
This has nothing to do with Ukraine -- zero, zip, nada, zilch to do with Ukraine.
Our borders are open today because that's what Democrats want and they will remain open until Democrats are removed from power in Washington, DC, period.
There is no logical or political connection to Ukraine.
linMcHlp: "So, I am a freedom fighter, a conservative, a Republican, a soldier, sailor, and just an ordinary person who opens the doors for people, provides directions for lost visitors, cleans up the mess for people who look around for help, and gets between bad people and good people."
Obviously, freedom is far from your first concern, and sadly, as relates to questions of war and peace, you are the real warmonger, since war is the inevitable result of weakness, and you advocate for American weakness, retreat and isolationism in the world.
Nothing is more guaranteed to bring about World War Three than American weakness, retreat and isolationism.