I was wondering this while reading various threads on the situation in Russia and its periphery. The USA today is obviously viewed as something of a military juggernaut, and justifiably so considering the military budget, presence of nuclear weapons, and a seemingly infinite number of foreign military bases (as well as their position in NATO). Some tankies and less extreme folks seem to see the "West" as growing meeker and more appeasing in the face of Russia's foreign aggression, and this view spurred this question:
If the US had stayed out of WWI, whether because they didn't have a good enough reason to join or because the war ended before they were given one, would they remain isolationist, or is it a historical inevitability that America meddles in foreign affairs? By foreign affairs, I mean outside the western hemisphere, since even during its isolationist period it still had a few incursions into Latin America to influence the nations there.
What I'm aiming for is a USA that, today, is correctly viewed as a meek, non-involved power, or the latter alone at the very least.