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If geography shapes national destiny, the United States began with an advantage few nations in history have ever enjoyed. A wide ocean buffering it from Europe’s old rivalries, a political experiment unburdened by monarchies or inherited wars, and a sense of mission rooted more in ideas than in borders—this combination placed America in a unique position. It could have become a neutral power on a continental scale: a republic that influenced the world not through force, but through example.
That wasn’t the path it took. The United States chose expansion, intervention, and global entanglement. The choice wasn’t inevitable, but it became self-reinforcing. And while the late 1990s briefly gave the illusion that the American-led order had produced a stable and conflict-free world—the so-called “end of history”—that stability was built atop decades of interventions and unresolved tensions that would resurface soon after.
This essay explores the neutrality that could have been, the path that was chosen instead, and the consequences of that divergence.
I. Two Doors at the Beginning
In its early years, the United States stood before two plausible futures:
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Geographic insulation as a shield: A distant republic refusing foreign entanglements, maintaining a limited military, and becoming a steady, predictable mediator in global affairs.
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Geographic insulation as a springboard: A budding power expanding across the continent, projecting influence abroad, and eventually shaping world affairs through force, alliances, and economic reach.