Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves to artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. —George Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States, September 26, 1796 Let us say to the democracies: “We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting…