The Road to World War II

          President Roosevelt's fervent desire for peace was hardly unusual.  World War I, after all, was meant to be a "war to end all wars" and, as Woodrow Wilson had said, a war "to make the world safe for democracy." After that war, U.S. diplomacy had been partly responsible for almost all nations agreeing to the Kellogg Briand Pact of 1928, in which they pledged not to use military force for aggressvie ends.  Through the 1920s , the League of Nations had met continuously in Geneva, Switzerland, to ensure that peace prevailed.  

          In 1933, however, few people believed that the fragile peace established to the Treaty of Versailles would hold up for long, In Asia, Japan was threatening China, while in Europe the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler came to power in Germay with promises of reasserting German nationalism and militarism.  In the U.S., worries about the depression overshadowed concerns about a second world war.  Even if war did not break out, most Americans were determined not to send troops abroad again.  

           As we know, however, a second world war did occur, and the U.S. played a major role in fighting it.  How and why U.S. foreign policy under Presidents changed from disengagement to neutrality and from neutrality to total involvement.