Henry Cabot Lodge was a staunch supporter of US participation in World War 1. He believed it was necessary to militarily and economically punish Germany to ensure future stability of Europe. Lodge displayed his imperialist reservations when he opposed terms included in the Treaty of Versailles especially those with regard to League peacekeeping missions. He was not comfortable with the idea of international commitments that would infringe on American political freedoms. Cabot saw the League of Nations as a source of complexities that would interfere with the American imperialist agenda because some of the terms would not allow arbitrary interference of other nations’ affairs. He supported the expansion of U.S. sovereignty over the Philippines. Lodge as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Philippines had avoided investigating allegations of war crimes in the Philippine-American War in support of the expansion agenda. On international entanglement Cabot asserts,

The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her powerful good, and endanger her very existence.