How can America become a pacifistic nation that hates war?

An idea I have, is that Roosevelt becomes President in 1913 and is able to persuade the Congress into entering the Great war in 1914, using his charisma and popularity. This being the Great war, people come to regret this course of action, for even if the war ends in 1917, the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American lives are lost. TR, being TR, refuses to pull out despite protests. Even after his favorite son dies, he still continues the war, even though it's affects were nothing positive for Americans to gain, a thought that runs through the minds of the soldiers and their families. FDR, also dies as he joins the war, due to butterflies of not working for the President Wilson, who discouraged him from joining ,while TR did. Once, the war is over, regardless of the events in Europe, soldiers return home with horror stories of the war, told through their mouths and bodies. Losing two relatives, or even more through butterflies along with seeing the films of the war, cause TR to lose faith in everything he believed in, as he leaves the Presidency in disgrace, for dragging the US into a horrifying war that could have easily been avoided. TR himself may become a pacifist ,who calls for isolationism. What follows is a movement that calls for isolationism and pacifism. That's my lazy made idea, at least. I am running out of time, as I am going to enjoy my last day before school, so you guys do your thing.
 
The problem is why does Teddy want to join the war? What does he intend to stop, or intend to gain?

Until lots of US citizens start dying in submarine attacks, the US really has no causus belli. I don't think TR could swing a declaration before mid 1915 at the absolute earliest and summer 1916 realistically

Heck a more belligerent Teddy might make war less likely rather than more, as he would be more for preparedness, and a stronger US military in 1914 that starts seriously building up in 1915 (rather than a half hearted one in 1916 OTL), might be enough to convince Germany to back off its sub attacks
 
Pre 1900.. Have the civil war drag on a few more years, have a euro power or two get involved against the north. More dead bodies.. More detest of war, longer time to reintegrate and rebuild, have it scar the American psych.

Post 1900, someone will have to bring the war to us, to mainland United States in some serious fashion, loosing lots of lives and I mean like half Soviet level would do the trick. It could be ww 1 or 2

The thing is that America is isolated, 1812 was the last time we fought a foreign power on our soil, besides a few attacks. Minus alutians where the Japanese managed to take 2 huts and a herd of seals.

Even Vietnam didn't turn us isolationist.
 

missouribob

Banned
A civil war ala The Falcon Cannot Hear or nuclear war ala The Cuban Missile War would set up the necessary conditions I think. Post a war where America has to undergo reconstruction nationwide and not just regionally like the first Civil War might in power that time lines peace/isolationist movements. An easier way to reach this would probably be to butterfly WW1 altogether though and play the possibilities from there.
 
Pre 1900.. Have the civil war drag on a few more years, have a euro power or two get involved against the north. More dead bodies.. More detest of war, longer time to reintegrate and rebuild, have it scar the American psych.

Post 1900, someone will have to bring the war to us, to mainland United States in some serious fashion, loosing lots of lives and I mean like half Soviet level would do the trick. It could be ww 1 or 2

The thing is that America is isolated, 1812 was the last time we fought a foreign power on our soil, besides a few attacks. Minus alutians where the Japanese managed to take 2 huts and a herd of seals.

Even Vietnam didn't turn us isolationist.
You can't really have the Civil War stretch out much longer than OTL without the South winning, and that is more likely to lead to a heavily militarized USA and CSA. A Euro power intervening is more likely to make the US less isolationist and pacifist rather than more, there is now someone to blame for this

Ditto a foreign power invading in 20th century, obvious enemy, make sure that doesn't happen again, someone else to blame. Russia didn't go isolationist after WWII, quite the opposite, policy is to prevent that from happening again

What the US needs is for it to happen is for no one to be able to be blamed but themselves, no scapegoats. The US needs to start a war, and lose disastrously, 1945 Germany or Japan disastrously, or it needs to take millions upon millions of dead in a pointless foreign war it could have easily avoided, for no real gain or appearance of victory, or anything to make the sacrifice seem worthy
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
For much of our history, we were kind of like that. Our army was normally smaller than Belgium's and was spread out hopelessly in a way that ensured that it could never go into real battle without massive militia or volunteer support.

What you would need is no WW1 and no WW2. Those wars brought us out of isolation and showed us that isolation was kind of unrealistic. If you avoid the world wars, you meet this criteria.
 
well the bigger problem is that the longer there is no war, the more it is romanticized. People have short memories and what might seem traumatic becomes a foot note after another event.

I remember In school how pearl was remembered every December 7th, before that it was the main or the Alamo, that's been over shadowed by 9/11. After 20-30 years it's basically something in a history book.

Have the horrors of ww1 or 2 be rampantly displayed after the war, have a lot more American boys die, or die in bungled campaigns.

Hell is throwing darts at a wall blindfolded since Korea, Vietnam, a war built on lies in Iraq haven't turned the American populace isolationist.

Dismantle the military industrial complex.

America was moderately isolationist after ww 1, make the war more costly, Spanish flu worse, have the Zimmerman telegram be a British, allied invention to trick us into fighting.
Learning we are dying for lies and our leadership went along with it would turn us rather against Europe.

I guess what I am saying by the time of the Spanish American war, it's too late, America is on an inevitable course to being a world power, and when your at the top of the heap, others want to bring you down a notch. Human nature 101.

So avoid the Spanish American war and age of imperialism that runs up to world war 1, also have us make less money or power off the war.

A garner presidency and a deeper Great Depression could also work, as that was the period that the us was the most isolationist.

or a Yellowstone explosion could work :)
 

Gaius Julius Magnus

Gone Fishin'
It only tends to be isolationist after an unpopular (WW1, Vietnam, Iraq) war and as long as the memory of the war remains in the public strongly. Even when the US was isolationist, that mainly meant avoiding conflict with Europe and was mostly content to intervene in Asia and Latin America.
 
An idea I have, is that Roosevelt becomes President in 1913 and is able to persuade the Congress into entering the Great war in 1914, using his charisma and popularity. This being the Great war, people come to regret this course of action, for even if the war ends in 1917, the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American lives are lost. . .
I think this is a good POD. Originally, the 'Great' war was the horror never to be repeated.

POD 2: The concept of "system accident" is more widely talked about. All these threats and counterthreats that led to this great catastrophe. Serbia maybe being too prickly, Austria-Hungary too insistent that things had to be done their way, the (?) Russian diplomat who keeled over dead of a heart attack.

"system accident" is also the concept of the perfect storm, that several different things go wrong at the same time. Think it could have been developed much earlier.

POD 3: The Great Influenza is talked about much more widely. Also called "Spanish Influenza," which is so unjust, that's just where there happened not to be wartime censorship. Of course, we shipped soldiers who were sick during the end months. We hadn't let measles stop troop transports, certainly not going to let something seemingly as minor as just the flu. When of course it was anything but.
The Great Influenza, John Barry, 2004. Not sure if that's just his phrase, but that really should be the phrase in widespread use.
 
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ben0628

Banned
1) A constitution that gives the president less executive power in regards to foreign policy.

2) Make Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina more powerful (won't make us isolationist but we would have a more regionally focused foreign policy instead of globally focused)

3) Have the US maintain a trade protectionalist policy (tariffs, no free trade, more US based industry, much less foreign imports).

4) Get rid of communism
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
The all volunteer force doesn't help with this, either. A highly specialized and professional military that has casualty figures that are mere fractions of a percent proportionally to those suffered in past conflicts doesn't tend to arouse popular isolationism.

A conscript army would be different. There is a strong underground pacifist movement in Russia right now mostly because of conscription and the meddling in Ukraine, despite Russia's population being unusually ultranationalistic. With a volunteer force, this is a different story.
 
Honestly, just avoiding WWII (or at least US involvement therein) would more or less do it. The US was content to limit itself to using its economic might to protect its interests up until WWII and then the Cold War led the US to become invested in a major standing army. Without WWII (pick your favorite POD for that), the US remains a rich nation with a tiny army, meant for little more than the occasional intervention in Latin America (and even that was becoming less frequent under the Good Neighbor Policy). The Navy remains a major powerhouse, but is used solely for defense.

Especially if Europe undergoes at least one nasty conflict for the US to look at and shake its head from the sidelines (e.g. the Allies defeat Germany in 1940, but with at least some urban fighting to give lots of pictures of ruins for the media) helps keep the US isolationist and generally opposed to war.
 

missouribob

Banned
Honestly, just avoiding WWII (or at least US involvement therein) would more or less do it. The US was content to limit itself to using its economic might to protect its interests up until WWII and then the Cold War led the US to become invested in a major standing army. Without WWII (pick your favorite POD for that), the US remains a rich nation with a tiny army, meant for little more than the occasional intervention in Latin America (and even that was becoming less frequent under the Good Neighbor Policy). The Navy remains a major powerhouse, but is used solely for defense.

Especially if Europe undergoes at least one nasty conflict for the US to look at and shake its head from the sidelines (e.g. the Allies defeat Germany in 1940, but with at least some urban fighting to give lots of pictures of ruins for the media) helps keep the US isolationist and generally opposed to war.
Maybe and I've suggested the same with WW1 but it is hard to say what kind of butterfly's are produced from something like no America in WW2 or just no WW2. You might still end up with a Cold War or a war larger than WW2 but it's just not called that.
 
regarding the communists . . .

The Bolsheviks bailed. In 1917. They made their own peace with Germany.

And that was felt as deeply personal by the West.
 
The problem is why does Teddy want to join the war? What does he intend to stop, or intend to gain?

Until lots of US citizens start dying in submarine attacks, the US really has no causus belli. I don't think TR could swing a declaration before mid 1915 at the absolute earliest and summer 1916 realistically

Heck a more belligerent Teddy might make war less likely rather than more, as he would be more for preparedness, and a stronger US military in 1914 that starts seriously building up in 1915 (rather than a half hearted one in 1916 OTL), might be enough to convince Germany to back off its sub attacks
Teddy was famous for loving war, during OTL world war 1, Teddy kept pressuring for Wilson to involve the US, and Teddy really loved battle just look at the battle of San Juan hill in Cuba. With all of this and more, I find it hard to believe that a third term Teddy wouldn't declare war. It was just the kind of person he was he even encouraged his own sons and cousin(FDR) to go to war.
 
If the Nazi house of cards were to tumble in 1936 due to French intervention after they remilitarised the Rhineland or if the Communists had been defeated in the Russian Civil War (and hence Nazis probably never arisen at all) the US would probably have followed a pattern along that suggested by Just a Rube. However there would have been significant butterflies -no G.I. Bill, no Rosie the Riveter (so social changes around position of women retarded?), impact on Civil Rights campaign (a lot of black veterans who felt they had more respect in Britain and Europe than back home). And, while we might not love the military industrial complex, location of military bases and defence manufacturing plants has had a significant impact on politics and voting patterns post WW2.
 
Teddy was famous for loving war, during OTL world war 1, Teddy kept pressuring for Wilson to involve the US, and Teddy really loved battle just look at the battle of San Juan hill in Cuba. With all of this and more, I find it hard to believe that a third term Teddy wouldn't declare war. It was just the kind of person he was he even encouraged his own sons and cousin(FDR) to go to war.
The issue is the President doesn't have the power to declare war, Congress has that power, and they were fairly isolationist. Both the Democrats, and the left wing of the Republicans and Progressives were anti war, without a good reason they won't go to war

He also needs a reason for wanting to go to war. OTL that was the Lusitania and Submarine warfare, before that he doesn't have a reason. He was pro allies, but wasn't actually asking for war until then AFAIK
 
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