Isolationism as the United States’ Grand Strategy: From the Founding Fathers to Donald Trump

Abstract

The article explores the characteristic features and controversies of the grand strategy of the 45th president of the United States in the context of the evolution of the US isolationism as one of the main historical strands in the US foreign policy thought. In order to provide a more nuanced approach than the classical isolationism-internationalism dichotomy the author turns to the four schools theory of American historian W. R. Mead. Within the theory framework, the two isolationist schools, i. e., Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism, are studied in detail. As a special methodology, the author applies neoclassical realism, which allows to determine the impact of domestic factors on the controversial nature of Trumps’ grand strategy. Isolationist ideas are studied on the example of the interwar period when the public debate about the course of the US foreign policy reached its peak. The next section analyzes D. Trump’s grand strategy using the theory of W. R. Mead and neoclassical realism methodology. Despite the fact that Trump’s ideology combined Jeffersonian and Jacksonian components, in practice the 45th President gravitated more towards Jacksonian hawks than to the minimalist realism of the Jeffersonian school. The differences from the Jeffersonian school were especially evident in the spheres of defense and security policy. Finally, the resistance of the foreign policy apparatus, opposition of the Congress and the subjective inconsistency of Trump explain the failures in the implementation of Trump’s grand strategy. The author draws the conclusion about the coexistence of the two parallel grand strategies during Trump’s presidency: isolationism and interventionism.