How did World War I differ from other wars that the US entered?

Question:

How did World War I differ from other wars that the US entered?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: WW I differed from the others in a lot of ways. It was the breakaway point in terms of battlefield technology. WW I was our first conflict where automatic weapons, aircraft, armor were widely used. Better communications. Vastly improved command and control at all levels of command.

Politically, WW I probably qualified as our first venture into a conflict where our own self-interests and justifications were ambiguous. Until a year or two before we entered the war, it wasn't even a certainty which side we'd favor.

But more than those, WW I differed from all previous wars of all nations in the sense it was the beginning of the single great war of the 20th Century. A war so pervasive, so constant that the residents of the planet became absorbed in a habit of paranoia, came to take mobilization and militarization for granted as the natural state.

That's probably what's most profoundly different about WW I. The legacy, the curse, of militarization and the habits of thought accompanying it.