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Originally Posted by Dan D
So, you could say at least that when WW1 broke out, it was the Europeans who were sticking flowers to their guns and had naïve and romantic misconceptions of war while Americans probably knew better what this war would ”feel“ like because of the experiences they had made in the Civil war and therefore they were not so eager to join in the fight.
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I think it is exactly as you say. At that time many people were still alive who had witnessed the horrors firsthand or through their parents. Not so in europe. Germany for instance had fought a cheap war in 1871 and people thought it would be the same in 1914. Of course we also had a radically different education at that time.
However we have other examples for post WWII, the USSR and Germany both had extreme losses in WWII and still took opposite directions in that respect, so exlaining all with psychology is not so simple.
Some excellent posts from all participants. I cannot contribute much on that level, though I have studied the subject a bit. So I'd better read and leave this to the US guys.
But it's obvious that a different outcome would have destabilized the situation in North America, lead to more wars and have repercussions for a still likely WW 1+2.