A growing chorus of establishment pundits and policymakers have taken to branding anyone who calls for prioritizing diplomacy over force in U.S. foreign policy as “isolationist.”

In official Washington, labeling an analyst, advocate, or organization isolationist is essentially an effort to convince the public at large that they are naive, and therefore not to be taken seriously. But recent history suggests that the “military first” (and second and third) approach favored by the Washington establishment is in fact the stance that is the most naive.

The direct U.S. wars of this century, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, have done more harm than good, consuming vast quantities of blood and treasure in the process— $8 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention millions of displaced people, all according to estimates by Brown University’s Costs of War project. America’s slightly less direct wars – those we fund or supply with bombers and bombs – in Yemen, Gaza, and Ukraine are devastating and costly financially, environmentally, and in humanitarian impact.

Interventionists – and their cheerleaders in the media and think tanks – are........

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