The Americans thus took their first steps into the global spotlight, the world’s largest economy commencing its transformation into the world’s dominant power. This transformation would require another few decades and a second world war to complete. The twentieth century, however, would belong to the United States. Some European leaders sensed something of what was to come, and saw the Great War as standing on an American pivot. No matter the ocean in between, the outcome of the war could as readily be decided in Washington as on the various European fronts. Others, blinded by nationalism and arrogance, refused to see what was happening before their eyes.