At the end of World War I, one reason the U.S. was able to become a world power was because

Question

At the end of World War I, one reason the U.S. was able to become a world power was because



Answer 1

At the conclusion of the First World War, among the reasons the United States became a world power was the decline in power of the nations of Europe - both winners and losers in the war - due to the enormous cost in lives and treasure of fighting the war, not to mention the destruction caused by the war to many nations on continental Europe.

In particular, the two major Western European nations that won the war, Great Britain and France, had been forced to borrow vast sums from financial institutions in the United States in order to pay for the expense of conducting the war. The other major power that had fought alongside Britain and France, Russia, was in chaos, in the midst of a devastating civil war when the First World War ended. The losing nations, the Central Powers, were not much better off. Germany was in the throes of revolution, its people starving; the Austro-Hungarian Empire had collapsed and broken apart; the Ottoman Empire had been dismembered by the winning nations.

The only major nation that was not financially exhausted or physically devastated by the war was the United States, which had become the wealthiest nation on earth (admittedly, Imperial Japan was neither financially exhausted nor physically devastated by the war, but it wasn't nearly as wealthy as the U.S.) The United States had also demonstrated her military and naval potential during the short period in which she had fought in the war.

This is why, despite only participating some 21 months in a conflict that lasted 52 months, deploying fewer troops on the Western Front than either Great Britain or France, and suffering 116,000 killed compared to over 1,390,000 for France and over 800,000 for Great Britain, President Woodrow Wilson participated as an equal with the Prime Ministers of France (George Clemenceau), Great Britain (Lloyd George), and Italy (Vittorio Orlando).

Of course, the isolationist approach to foreign policy practiced by the Republican Presidents who followed Woodrow Wilson meant that the United States retreated from playing the role of a major power on the world stage in the 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless, the potential for raising and deploying military and naval forces displayed during World War I wasn't forgotten when the next World War broke out.

Answer 2

One important reason is that the Great Powers which existed at the beginning of World War I (Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain) were all severely weakened or no longer a factor in international relations by the war's end. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated and broken up by the Treaty of Versailles. Russia was consumed by its internal civil war after the Tsar's overthrow and rise of the Bolsheviks. Germany was defeated and its military power constrained by the Treaty of Versailles. France and Britain were both "victors" of the war, but each had suffered catastrophic human and financial losses. In short, Europe was exhausted by four years of total war, while the US (and Japan) were left unscathed and well-positioned to assume greater power.