His view of the matter didn’t change when America declared war on Germany. Instead of forcing peace on the loser, Wilson wanted the United States to force peace on all of Europe. He wanted nothing less than to break the back of Europe’s empires—not just Germany but also Britain, France, and Russia. This is what he meant when he said, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” He might as well have said the world must be made unsafe for empires.
Interesting. What is often lost in WWI is that it was a pivotal turning point of history. We went from thousands of years of monarchy and empire for the most part, to a world of secular democracies, even if in name only for countries like the Soviet Union. With that came a new driver of nations - ideology, v. the old traditionalist model of aristocracy and succession, which opened the door for 'progressive' globalism, with the same ambition of global dominance, but using a new methods.