Abstract
"Until 1945, US foreign policy makers sought to fashion the United States, into a great power, as an equal to the major European nations? . From the Spanish war up to the beginning of World War II, the Americans have been trying to catch up with the traditional European powers. But a sense of moral superiority as well as some lack of international experience kept the United States from fully competing with the old powers. Woodrow Wilson's exceptionalism and the neutrality laws illustrate America's shy commitment to carry on a full foreign diplomacy which would compete with Europe's past hegemony. The American diplomacy stuck all that time to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 which had the US diplomacy essentially focused on the American continent .
