Quote Originally Posted by udsuna
It worked really well for every other nation in history that has done it. At least, until they broke it. Russia was doing great until one of the Tzars decided to emulate the west. The orient was similarly advantaged. The few great nations that were in Africa fell when they started interaction with Europe. Even Mexico was doing great until it invited the US citizens to help populate Texas.

Isolationism may not breed trust, but it rarely breeds distrust. In most cases, everyone adopts an "eh, oh well" mentality and goes on existing merily along as they always did.
The only truely isolationist nation in the modern world now is none other than North Korea. The most mistrusted nation on earth.

I agree there may have been a time when it was a viable option, but since WWI, it failed. It's near impossible to uphold and the reasons those countries you listed broke it was because it was becoming a strain on their economy. FDR was a born isolationist, even he couldn't stand the tide of change. Lend-lease was crippling him more than actually going to war.