[reg45]

The war was fought so that 50-80 years later there would be a economic and military power house to counter balance the Isms of Europe

You are operating on the erronious opinion that the defeat of the Central Powers in WWI was a good thing. If Wilson had kept his promise to keep America out of the war - and possibly engaged in "shuttle diplomacy" to end the war, the great "..isms" of Europe may never have taken hold. WWI was the most stupid war in history and the so called victory merely planted the seeds for WWII.

[mdmathis6]

Well, I don't know if it was erroneous or not, though I'll own up to my having an opinion on the subject. Alternate history speculation is useful some-times, much like fine sieve to help glean out pearls of wisdom from an other wise static dry view of settled history. History certainly has some strange turns in it that if we look at what MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED, we find our-selves mentally sweating and going..."PHEWWWW, I'm glad WAR X turned out the way it did", or "Too Bad the first Marathon runner made it, I hate the fact we now have it in the Olympics"...(just trying to be humorous here) or "Too bad Helen wasn't ugly and the first liberated dyke, I liked the Trojans...a noble race...they would have kept Rome from becoming little more than that small village on the Tiber....."