"What makes these warnings odd is that in contemporary foreign policy discourse, isolationism—as the dictionary defines it—does not exist... The problem is that isolationism—as commonly understood—not only doesn't fit American foreign policy today, it doesn't even fit American foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s. … The only sense in which the United States in the interwar years truly remained apart from other nations lay in its refusal to make binding military commitments, either via the League of Nations or through alliances with particular nations. America wielded power economically, diplomatically, and even militarily, but it jealously guarded its sovereignty. That's why one influential history of the era dubs U.S. foreign policy between the wars "independent internationalism." … The popular "characterization of America as isolationist in the interwar period," argues Ohio State University's Bear Braumoeller in a useful review of the academic literature on the period, "is simply wrong."If calling America isolationist in the 1920s and 1930s is wrong, calling America isolationist today is absurd."