My specialty is "no world wars" and one thing people frequently claim is that without the world wars, America would be isolationist and not rise to great power status. I think this is incorrect. Before 1914, the US had the world's largest economy and had carved out a large empire in the Pacific and South America. Under the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the US was a very prominent diplomatic arbiter, negotiating among other things, the peace treaty that ended the war between Russia and Japan. Americans thought themselves to be the shining light of freedom and modernity over the autocracies of Europe. The isolationism of the 1920s and 30s was in fact a backlash to Wilsonian Internationalism. The US was an ascendent world power before 1914 and likely would've achieved superpower status without any world wars.