US Military Involvement in Conflict

Where have the United States fought and when?

The United States has been involved in 100 direct conflicts since it was first recognized as a nation in 1776, soon after the colonies shirked British rule. Of those, 42 of those conflicts were against Native Americans, some of them lasting several decades, such as the Apache Wars, which spanned 1851-1900 in the Southwestern United States.

Indians & Rebellions

The US was also at the forefront of several other conflicts.  Of the 58 remaining conflicts that weren't fought against Indians in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Century, four of them were uprisings, such as Shay's Rebellion in 1786, which resulted in anti-tax protestors being suppressed by the army (but also led to the ratification of the Constitution the following year) and the Whiskey Rebellion in 1791, again against tax protestors, which led to the army defeating armed resistance and asserting control over frontier people in Western Pennsylvania. There was also a slave uprising in present-day Louisiana in 1811, backed by Haiti, which was defeated by the US; the last rebellion the US fought was in 1859 when abolitionists seized a government armory in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  Their leader, John Brown, was arrested by US Marines after they defeated the uprising.  Brown was executed for acts against the government soon after.

Problems with future allies

The US also fought several conflicts against Great Britain after the Revolutionary War, most notably the War of 1812 from 1812-15, during which British soldiers burned down the White House and forced the evacuation of President James Madison and his wife. The British were defeated in New Orleans by then General Andrew Jackson, who repelled a larger force of British soldiers with a combined force of US Army and US Marine troops, which led to the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1815.

But the US fought the British in the Northwest Indian War from 1785-93, a continuation of the Revolutionary War during which the British allied with the Western Confederacy against the United States, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians over territory disputes in the Northwest Territory.

Despite being allied with France, the US fought against them in the Quasi War in 1798 because French privateers were attacking American shipping in the Atlantic Ocean.  Privateers at the time were state-backed pirates who attacked shipping and stole their goods (or the ship too) in exchange for money from their sponsoring government.  The war ended after the United States and France reached an agreement to stop privateer attacks.

Pirates?

The United States fought pirates in the First and Second Barbary Wars (1801-05 and 1815 respectively) in present-day Algeria and Libya, because Barbary Coast pirates were attacking American shipping. The US also sent ships to the Aegean Sea in 1825 to fight Greek pirates, which led to the liberation of a Greek-held British warship, the HMS Comet.  Due to the US role in saving the British sailors, the British government sent a letter of thanks to the US, and the two nations became friendly from that day forward.

Today, the US is heavily involved in counter-piracy operations, most notably in the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa.  A high profile mission from those operations was the rescue of the MV Maersk Alabama crew by US Navy SEALs in 2009 after Somali pirates hijacked the vessel. Since then, there have been many more rescues by the US and their allies.

All in the interest of learning

During the 1800s, much of the world was still closed off to the West. The United States sent ships to several areas as part of expeditions so they could establish trade, alliances, or colonial rule over them.  Sometimes, these expeditions led to armed conflict with local tribes or military forces.  The First and Second Sumatran Expeditions (1832 and 1838 respectively), the First and Second Fiji Expeditions (1855 and 1859 respectively), the Formosa Expedition (1867), and the US Expedition to Korea (1871) were all instances of such conflict.  While small scale in nature, the Korean Expedition led to the awarding of 15 Medals of Honor for personnel involved.

Neighborly issues

The US has fought two conflicts alongside Mexico and three against them. The US and Mexico shared the fight against the Comanche Indians between 1820-75 during the long-running Texas-Indian Wars, and Victorio's War from 1879-81, against the brutal Apache.

The US first fought against Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, which led to the acquisition of the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Texas after an armed conflict against Mexico. The US and Confederates also fought against Mexico together during the American Civil War in the First and Second Cortina Wars of 1859-61. Most recently, the US fought against criminal elements of Mexico during the Border Wars of 1910-19, during which Pancho Villa and his gang of bandits terrorized American transportation and hassled the US Army.

Foreign intervention

The United States has taken smaller roles as an ally in several wars. During the Second Opium War of 1856-59, the US and France aided Great Britain in ceding Kowloon to the UK from the Qing Dynasty. The US was also involved in taking control of the Shimonseki Straits in Japan from the Choshu regime in 1863-64 alongside French, British and Dutch troops because the Choshu refused shipping access to the strait. The US was also responsible for helping restore order to Peking, China in 1900 after the Boxer Rebellion, during which a US Marine, Dan Daly, was awarded the Medal of Honor for singlehandedly killing over a hundred Boxers as they attacked the US Embassy. That action involved troops from Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary and France, in what is considered one of the first multinational peacekeeping operations.

The US also participated in the Banana Wars of 1912-33, during which the US helped Cuba repulse Cuban blacks during the Negro Rebellion of 1912 and the Sugar Intervention in 1916, and Nicaragua against the Sandanista rebels over the next two decades. The US also occupied Haiti during 1915-34 as part of the Banana Wars, helping that regime fight rebels as well.

The US ended up joining World War I late, in 1917, in response to German aggression that had begun to target US shipping to the UK, and also in World War II in 1941, after Japan attacked the US Navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  In both conflicts, despite heavy casualties, the US helped the Allied Powers overpower the enemy (Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Turks in WWI, and Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Italian Empire in WWII). Both wars introduced technology to the battlefield that led to the employment of chemical weapons, machine guns, airplanes, and later, at the end of WWII, nuclear weapons.

The Korean War was the first United Nations action, during which UN forces attempted to keep the Communist North, backed by the Soviet Union and China, from taking over the democratic South, backed by the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and over thirty other nations. That war, fought from 1950-53, was fought to a stalemate that led to the present border between North and South Korea at the 38th Parallel.  Despite an armistice signed in 1955, North Korea still remains in a state of war with the US and South Korea because a peace treaty was never signed.

The US also intervened peacefully in Lebanon in 1958 to keep rebel elements from taking over the sea and airports in Beirut; US forces eventually withdrew without engaging in combat.

The US, alongside Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea and South Vietnam fought in the Vietnam War from 1965 until 1973. This conflict led to the strategic defeat of the US, even though the United States military overwhelmingly won battles in the war. Public resentment of the war led to a withdrawal of combat forces in 1973 and a complete evacuation in 1975, which was followed by the takeover of South Vietnam by the North.

The US also aided in uprisings in the Congo and the Dominican Republic (1964 and 1965 respectively) that led to victories and democratic elections.

The US helped South Korea repel several incursions over the DMZ by North Korea in 1966-69, and aided Thailand in fighting Communist rebels from 1965-83.

The US aided France, Belgium and Zaire (present-day Congo) in fighting rebels there in 1978.

The US and a Caribbean peace force primarily composed of troops and police from Barbados and Jamaica intervened in Grenada in 1983 after Cuban-backed Communist rebels overthrew the government there. The conflict ended when the Cubans and rebels were defeated by the US military and Grenada's governor reinstated.

The US and UK intervened together in the Iran-Iraq War during 1987-88 when both sides were sinking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; the US and UK targeted Iranian and Iraqi naval vessels and also conducted mine clearing operations to make international shipping routes safe. The intervention led to the end of the Iran-Iraq War.

The US invaded Panama in 1989 to depose Manuel Noriega, whom had previously been supported by the US in the 1970s. Noriega was wanted because the Panamanian military was harassing US citizens in Panama and also backed the drug trade. Noriega was captured by Navy SEALs at the Vatican embassy in Panama City after a week-long standoff, and tried in international court. A democratic government was brought to power in 1990 after the peaceful withdrawal of US forces.

An American-led international coalition entered the Middle East in 1990-91 to combat Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, which led to Operation Desert Storm.  After two months of conflict, Iraq was kicked out of Kuwait, a no fly zone was created over Iraq to keep their air force on the ground, and security was restored to the region.  The US and its allies would continue to intervene within Iraq from 1992 to 2003, when the US invaded the country. US forces withdrew in 2011 after quelling a massive insurgency there, but started intervening again in 2014 when a new organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) took over large swaths of Iraq and Syria. That intervention continues today with the deployment of US forces to aid the Iraqi military.

The US also intervened in Somalia from 1992-95. The incident is most well-known because two US Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu in 1993.  The story is dramatized in the book and film "Black Hawk Down."  The US withdrew after providing humanitarian aid to over 100,000 civilians, while the prominent warlord behind the Black Hawk Down incident, Mohammad Farah Aidid, continued in power until his death in a motorcade ambush in 1996. The Somali Civil War continues to this day.

The US intervened as part of a NATO mandate in the Balkans in 1995-96 and 1998-99, but failed to prevent genocide between Serbians, Croats and Bosnian Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities. There was victory though because of the Dayton Accords, which led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the beginnings of war crimes trials.

Most recently, the US has been involved in the War in Afghanistan since 2001, in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The War in Northwest Pakistan and the broader Global War on Terrorism stemmed from the War in Afghanistan, which primarily targets the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The US was also the leading force behind the Intervention in Libya in 2011 which led to the ousting of Moammar Gaddafi, the nation's longtime dictator.  The US and NATO launched air strikes against the Libyan military to help rebels on the ground.  The US has begun bombing Libya again in 2016 in response to ISIS spreading to Libya.

Military Defeats

 The US was also involved in an international coalition that entered Russia to help quell the Russian Civil War of 1920-23, between the Communist Reds and democratic Whites.  The conflict was also the first military defeat against the United States, because it forced the withdrawal of international forces before the Communists took over Russia.

President John F. Kennedy ordered the US, especially the CIA, to back Cuban rebels in an assassination attempt of Fidel Castro in 1961. The US military landed the rebels in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, but the rebels were killed or captured.