Addicted to war: Since 1776, US has been at war 93% of the time - That's 222 out of 239 years!

WashingtonsBlog
Fri, 20 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC

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The U.S. has only been at peace for 21 years total since its birth

In 2011, Danios wrote:

Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America's wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

To put this in perspective:

* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.

* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered "war presidents."

* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.

* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

For a year-by-year timeline of America's major wars (1776-2011) go here.

In most of these wars, the U.S. was on the offense. Danios admits that some of the wars were defensive. However, Danios also leaves out covert CIA operations and other acts which could be considered war.

Let's update what's happened since 2011:

2012 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2013 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2014 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine
2015 - War on Terror in Somalia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine

So we can add 4 more years of war. That means that for 222 out of 239 years - or 93% of the time - America has been at war. (We can quibble with the exact numbers, but the high percentage of time that America has been at war is clear and unmistakable.)

Indeed, most of the military operations launched since World War II have been launched by the U.S. And American military spending dwarfs the rest of the world put together.

No wonder polls show that the world believes America is the number 1 threat to peace.

Comment: Rather staggering, don't you think? Also, for many of the war years, the US had multiple opponents. After all this war practice, we might rightly expect a simple bombing raid on ISIS to produce results. But, win or lose, the American Military Industrial Complex just keeps cranking out war profits in a permanently war-driven economy, for a permanently imperialistic and mechanically self-serving society.