There've been parts of US history that didn't involve the Cold War, strangely enough. We were engaged colonial warfare continually through all of them, it's the primary reason the USSR got the worldwide support it did. I know there's this idea that's been fixed in the American consciousness that prior to WWI we were isolationists who only forayed abroad when we really had to, but really, that's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations) silly (http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html).