entangling alliances with none


A phrase President Thomas Jefferson used in his first inaugural address in 1801, calling for a cautious, isolationist foreign policy. (See isolationism.)

Notes for entangling alliances with none

George Washington had given similar isolationist advice four years earlier in his Farewell Address: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.