Evaluate President Wilson’s diplomacy between 1914 and 1917. Had you

Evaluate President Wilson’s diplomacy between 1914 and 1917.

Had you been a presidential advisor at the time who wanted to protect American interests, but avoid taking the nation to war, what advice would you have given that might have changed the course of events?

ANSWER
Consider: impose a trade embargo on arms sales to all belligerents; withdraw guaranteed protection to American citizens who booked passage on belligerents’ ships, adopt a “cash and carry” policy (no loans, no endangerment of American ships) for the conduct of trade with the belligerents, hold both sides to terms of “strict accountability,” etc. (In the 1930s, Congress did enact just such “Neutrality Laws” to try to avoid involving the nation in another world war.)