This was basically the accepted perspective taken by the United States up until about the first world war when President Woodrow Wilson decided to plunge into the war effort. Then a peacekeeping association came about called the League of Nations, which Wilson helped propose, but the United States Senate gave it a firm "no". This kept the United States in its loner state once again. Some years later the United States entered a period of awakening concerning getting out and about in the world. We journeyed into a time of Internationalism after the second world war but it was many earlier events that led up to this, particularly our interaction with Latin America. Back when the United States was just breaking away from Britain and starting as a nation, President James Monroe came up with a declaration called the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823 he wrote this, telling European nations to keep their noses in their own hemisphere. What Monroe didn't know was that he was establishing a beginning to a leadership responsibility in not only the western hemisphere, but in the entire world. The United States began sticking up for nations such as Mexico and Puerto Rico, and soon got involved in various other Latin American countries. In fact, the United States got involved eight times from 1904 to 1934, then again in the affairs of Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and the destruction of the leftist government of Brazil after the second world war. It was during the beginning of World War II that the United States began to get more involved. At first the United States tried to keep to itself and stay out of the fighting. But when Germany, Japan, and Italy tried to expand by force into China, Ethiopia, Poland, Austria, and present day Czech Republic, Britain and France declared war on Hitler, and the United States did nothing. It wasn't until that fateful day of December 7 in 1941 when the United States had had enough.