mpulse to "go it alone" -- to prefer unilateral action, even if this means losing out on the support of allies -- is therefore a strong one. However, the classical Chinese military strategist Sun Tsu understood this point, and rated disrupting an enemy's alliances as superior to any form of direct military action (Thomas, p. 599).
The impulse toward unilateralism is perhaps particularly strong in the United States, due to its large size and globally insular position on a continent shared only with two much smaller powers. Isolationism is deeply rooted in American political habits (Murray and Spinoza, 2004, pp. 97-98). It has a quasi-pacifist form that seeks to avoid overseas involvements at all, but also a militant form that embraces unilateral action abroad, but resists the constraints of allian
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