Acting on its unprecedented economic position in the world after World War I, the United States expanded internationally in ways that ultimately altered its former commitment to some of its nineteenth-century diplomatic principles. For example, instead of supporting traditional neutrality (as it had at the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914), American leaders no longer defended the rights of neutral nations or honored their claims to freedom of the seas as their predecessors had before the nation became a major naval and economic power. In a word, the United States began to act as England had when it ruled the oceans and world finance. The Republicans in charge of the White House in the 1920s also began to modify the country's original concept of political isolationism.