I was thinking along these lines. Practically every nation in WWI entered the conflict because of some alliance with another nation, who had an alliance to another nation, and so on and so on.
The two exceptions to this were the US and Japan. Japan saw it as a means of appropriating the German-controlled area of Qingdao in China as part of its own expansionist plans; among other results, the Japanese got control of Tsing Tao beer, which switched to control under Asahi.
The US wanted to stay neutral because we didn't feel like losing our men the way everyone else was losing theirs, and also our industries were producing lots and lots of ordnance and such to both sides. It was only when it looked like Germany was going to promote Mexico's starting another war with us, along with the Lusitania and similar incidents, that we finally got mad enough to enter the war against the German alliance. What happened after that is where the picture changes...
At the war’s outbreak Teddy Roosevelt urged Woodrow Wilson to let him organize another RoughRiders battalion get America into the fight. Wilson wasn’t interested intended for America to stay neutral.
That remained US policy until the events you mention. IIRC Teddy’s young cousin Franklin was an Assistant Secreta
ry of the Navy under Wilson, which made him aware of the admirals he chose to run the Pacific War 25 years later.