Essay On Woodrow Wilson's Approach To War

Woodrow Wilson’s approach was idealistic toward solving the conflicts of Europe once and for all with a just and lasting peace. He felt that if the US intervention in WWI could help determine the outcome of the war, that he would be able to broker a lasting peace, as H.G. Wells quoted in 1914, this would be “the war that will end war”. However, I would argue that it really was the ‘War to Start Wars”. President Woodrow Wilson’s unprecedented decision to join into a war in which no harm had been done to anyone in the United States was controversial. It was his decision to join the war in the name of spreading democracy and aiding allies, in my opinion this, led to the United States becoming the future, “world police,” by getting involved in
The division of Korea at the end of World War II and the subsequent Chinese-Russian led invasion of the South led America and the rest of the world to commit troops to defend South Korea. Our role of world police and advancing democracy led us to be the primary force behind the defense. Without the precedent established by Wilson, the American people might not have supported sending troops to Korea and potentially causing the “first domino” to fall.
The legacy of Wilsonian foreign policy also continues as one of Wilson’s intellectual heirs, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the main creator of Bush’s Iraq policy. Discussing Wilson’s legacy, Hoyng stated “And then he uttered a sentence that US presidents have used again and again to justify military intervention -- no one more clearly and with less credibility than George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq invasion. "The world must be made safe for democracy," Wilson said.” (Hoyng) This quote helps build on Hoyng’s argument that Wilson’s foreign policy decisions are still influential