Non-interventionism or non-intervention is commonly understood as “a foreign policy of political or military non-involvement in foreign relations or in other countries’ internal affairs”.[1][2] In the political science lexicon, there is also the term of “isolationism”, which is sometimes improperly used to replace the concept of “non-interventionism”.[3] “Isolationism” should be interpreted more broadly as “a foreign policy grand strategy of military and political non-interference in international affairs and in the internal affairs of sovereign states, associated with trade and economic protectionism and cultural and religious isolation, as well as with the inability to be in permanent military alliances, with the preservation, however, some opportunities to participate in temporary military alliances that meet the current interests of the state and in permanent international organizations of a non-military nature”.[4]
This is based on the grounds that a state should not interfere in the internal politics of another state as well as the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination. A similar phrase is "strategic independence".[5]