This chapter continues the discussion of influences begun in chapter 1, focusing on how they have produced competing orientations in American foreign policy. The conventional narrative that describes the United States as isolationist until World War II and multilateral for the postwar era is incomplete. U.S. foreign policy has always exhibited elements of competing currents: isolationism and internationalism, unilateralism and multilateralism, and interventionism and noninterventionism. Chapter 2 examines how these shifts are simultaneously the outcome of considerations of interests and values. Key terms include: engagement, grand strategy, internationalism, interventionism, isolationism, multilateralism, noninterventionism, unilateralism.