America's Power in 20th Century

During the 20th century America has had its ups and downs in accordance to power, however in my judgement I feel the main influence on their power was their impact in the Second World War. In the run up to the Second World War America showed their power, in a fashion, by being an independent country. They refrained from being involved in the sales of arms to foreign bodies and they kept to the idea of being an isolationist country.
  After the First World War the American government voted that it was going to become an isolationist country, this meant they would keep out of any foreign affairs that would come up in the future. Even though the German forces were moving into the surrounding countries.
In March 1940 congress passed the lend-lease act which gave Roosevelt the power to intervene in foreign affairs if he felt that it was necessary. After Hitler took over most of Europe, Roosevelt decided to give aid to the French and British forces. He did this by providing them with weapons and ammunition. American navy warships were also providing British convoys with protection whilst they were travelling across the Atlantic Ocean, causing America to abolish their neutral position. Up until this point America had shown their power by keeping themselves out of the war, showing that they were not scared of Hitler. However by performing this lending act to the British forces Roosevelt shows that he fears for what might happen if America does not aid the allied forces. Roosevelt appeared to only be lending weapons to the allied forces and not the axis which would have shown to Hitler that he had implicated which side he was on.
  Most people say that the main reason for America joining WW2 was the Japanese bombing on Pearl Harbour. Pearl harbour took place on 7th December 1941, when Japanese suicide bombers rained havoc on American gun ships. The attack consisted of two aerial attack waves consisting of 353 aircraft which were situated on 6 Japanese aircraft...