Stephanie Power covers a period from 1915 to 2001 with the increasing capacity of U.S. response to genocide. While in 1915, nothing could be done about the Turkish genocide in Armenia, the U.S. role increased constantly to the ones played at the end of the 20th century in Yugoslavia and with the role in Saddam's Iraq. Perhaps such examples can help develop preemptive action towards genocide that can be acted upon in the future.
4. Between 1939 and 1941, Germany had started the war in Europe with its attack on Poland, on September 1, 1939, preceded by a series of aggressive actions such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. With Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany, armed conflict proceeded in Europe with the rapid German victories over Poland, Norway and Denmark, Benelux and France. In 1940, the battle for Britain began, with the British and German air forces disputing air supremacy. In 1941, the British had managed to resist German attacks and, in June 1941, the attack on the Soviet Union began, with the launch of operation Barbarossa.
On the other hand, in the Far East, Japan had turned into a militarist state and had created a puppet state in China called Manchuko. Their war with China raged on and the Japanese expansionist power was already beginning to alarm the U.S. leadership.
Looking at this brief description of issues that might have led the U.S. To enter the war, one can emphasize on the spread of totalitarian governance and, further more, of aggression acts throughout Europe and the Far East. The presence of Nazi Germany in Europe and the acts it embarked upon could only force the United States out of its isolation. On the other hand, the submarine war that had begun in the Atlantic was also affecting American economy. The danger that American could use its traditional commercial partners in Europe and that it would need to deal with Nazi Germany ensured that winning the war in Europe became a national priority (historians have estimated that if the same attention was awarded...
With that moment, Japan declared war on the U.S., as well as Germany, which meant that the U.S. could now openly join its European partners in declaring war on Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.
5. Obviously, the main foreign policy event in Wilson's presidency terms was related to the American participation in World War I and the subsequent foreign policy issues that followed, including the Versailles Treaty.
While being able to keep the U.S. out of the European war from 1914 to 1917 and basing his reelection in 1916 mostly on the idea that he was the president who could keep the U.S. away from armed conflicts, Wilson declared the American entry in WWI in 1917. The main cause for this was deemed to be the unrestricted submarine warfare that the Germans had been using in the Atlantic and that included attacks on U.S. passengers ships, as the Lusitania. His declaration of war stipulated not only his commitment to defeating Germany, but also the desire to create a stable environment, a "war to end all wars" as he put it.
The Treaty of Versailles saw the creation of the League of Nations as the organization that would attempt to guarantee world peace. Wilson, however, could not convince the U.S. Senate to join the League of Nation, mainly because the Senate saw this as a limitation of U.S. right to declare war on other countries. Lack of support and U.S. non-adherence to the organization are possibly some of the low points of Wilson's foreign policy.
On the other hand, Wilson was also active in his attempts to establish solid democracies in Latin America and towards stabilizing these countries. U.S. interventions in Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti or Panama marked the period of WWI as well.
Cushing, Lincoln. 1997. 1898-1998 Centennial of the Spanish - American War. On the Internet at http://www.zpub.com/cpp/saw.html.Last retrieved on August 16, 2007
