I’ve had several requests to repost this, which I originally put on my website on December 24, 2004.
Since there is a general blanket amnesia often affecting Americans about their own history, I thought it was time for a list of all the times the United States has used its military in other countries.
The following abbreviated list includes only the use of force abroad and not domestic use of the military against American citizens. Many smaller “police actions” involving U.S. troops abroad are not included.
The list does not include coups and clandestine actions against foreign governments. The list does not include some support actions, such as U.S. operations in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador in the “War on Drugs” or the current “advisor” status of troops in the Phillipines or Mali, etc. I have included only actions within the last 100 years:
The target of the U.S. military’s actions is in parentheses:
1901-1913 – Philippines (Moro rebellion)
1903-1903 – Honduras (rebellion)
1903-1904 – Dominican Republic (rebellion)
1906-1909 – Cuba (rebellion)
1907-1911 – Honduras (Bonilla)
1911-1912 – China (rebellions)
1912-1925 – Nicaragua (leftists)
1913-1919 – Mexico (various rebellions, Villa)
1914-1924 – Dominican Republic (various factions)
1915-1934 – Haiti (Sam, etc)
1917-1918 – WW1 – Europe (Triple Alliance)
1917-1922 – Cuba (rebellions)
1918-1920 – Panama (strikes, election protests, etc)
1918-1922 – Russia/Soviet Union (civil war)
1919-1919 – Honduras (rebellion)
1920-1920 – Guatemala (Unionists)
1922-1922 – Turkey (Nationalists)
1924-1925 – Honduras (rebellions)
1925-1925 – Panama (general strike)
1926-1933 – Nicaragua (Sandino, others)
1931-1932 – El Salvador (Marti)
1933-1933 – Cuba (rebellion)
1935-1935 – Philippines (Sakdal Uprising)
1941-1945 – WW2 – Europe/Africa/Asia (Axis powers)
1945-1949 – China (Maoism)
1950-1951 – United States (Puerto Rican independence)
1950-1953 – Korea (DPRK)
1956-1975 – Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (communists)
1957-1959 – Lebanon (leftists)
1957-1958 – Jordan (leftists/anti-monarchists)
1959-1960 – Haiti (anti-Duvalier rebels)
1964-1964 – Panama (Canal activists)
1965-1966 – Dominican Republic (Bosch supporters)
1970-1972 – Trinidad (rebellions)
1972-1973 – Nicaragua (Sandinistas)
1973-1973 – United States (Lakotas at Wounded Knee)
1982-1984 – Lebanon (leftist & Muslim)
1983-1984 – Grenada (communists)
1986-1990 – Bolivia (peasants)
1989-1989 – St. Croix (black rebellion)
1989-1989 – Panama (Noriega)
1991-2003 – Iraq/Kuwait (Iraqi military)
1993-1993 – Somalia (Aidid)
1993-1993 – Bosnia (Serb military)
1994-1994 – Haiti (civil war)
1999-2004 – Yugoslavia (Serbia)
2001-2001 – Macedonia (Albanian rebels)
2001-2005 – Afghanistan (Taliban)
2003-2005 – Iraq (Saddam Hussein, insurgents)
2004-2004 – Haiti (various factions)
Yes, I’ve included the action at Wounded Knee because it was against units of a sovereign nation… feel free to disagree with this choice.
Pax
if you have compiled a comparable list for Russia/Soviet Union or any other ‘imperial’ nations?
A comparison would be nice to see.
But this is a great resource. If I had a dKosopedia here, I’d put it in there.
Front & Center…Right where it belongs. I love that Soj is here..Makes me soooo Happy.
The Soviet Union was imperialistic by proxy more than it was through use of force… assuming you don’t count Russian troops in the CIS (George, Lithuania, etc.) there were pretty few instances of Soviet troops using force outside the Eastern Bloc…
The (Castro) Cuban military has been involved some non-domestic use of force, especially in Angola.
Other Communist countries like Laos, Vietnam and China have had remarkably few instances of foreign use of force.
To truly compare to the American list, you’d have to look at countries like G. Britain, France and to a lesser but important extent, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands.
The difference between American use of force abroad and Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and Holland is that only Cuba and the Phillipines were American colonies in the old sense of the word. You might could throw in Puerto Rico as well if you want to be particular…
GB and the other European powers mostly used force abroad in their colonies, current or former (World War 2 being a major exception).
What’s always shocking to me is just how little these wars and interventions are taught to the average American… most people reading this website probably remember ones like Lebanon or Panama from news reports, but who was taught this in their school?
And really, how many people today know American troops fought in Russia?
Pax
of course, there is Afghanistan.
Thanks for you analysis Soj. It’s most welcome.
It might be less than the United States, however, there have been a few Russia/USSR military interventions during the last century:
1905 Japan
1914 WWI
1939 Baltic states
1939 Finland
1939 Poland
1944-45 Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Austria
1944-45 China, Korea, Japan
1979 Afghanistan
Some of them had lasting consequences…
Lasting consequences indeed…
Just for completeness’ sakes, let me add that the Soviet Union took the land known as “Bessarabia” during World War 2. A fraction of it was given to Ukraine but the rest became the Soviet Republic of Moldova. Previously this land had belonged to Romania and the majority of the people to this day are ethnic Romanians.
After the end of the SU in 1991, there was a civil war in Moldova between the ethnic Romanians (Moldovans) against the mostly ethnic Russian factions in Transdniester, leading to the Russian Army coming in to back up the Tiraspol faction.
Today the Tiraspol regime (Transdniestr or Transnistria , it has many spellings) is almost an entirely independent state from Moldova although it is not officially recognized as such.
Now aside from the fact that people who live there care deeply about these issues, why would anyone else care?
Well, the Tiraspol regime is one of the world’s blackest of “black markets”, completely unregulated and unmonitored, running everything from drugs to sex slaves to counterfeit medicine but most ominously, weapons as well. Tiraspol is not just a way to sell illegal (made without a license) small arms (made locally) such as AK-47’s and RPG’s but also to sell old Soviet inventory from other countries, such as Ukraine.
AK-47’s and RPG’s are the lifeblood of insurgencies and rebellions, from Iraq to Sierra Leone to Colombia. And some of that old Soviet inventory includes cruise missiles (recently in the news because 12 were sold by Ukraine to Iran) up to and including reports of nuclear warheads…
So yes… there are consequences we’re feeling even today.
Pax
No wonder it is all catching up with us. This list should be in every class room in every school in the United States. Thanks Soj for your kindness, wisdom, and knowledge.
…but then technically wouldn’t you also have to include some other use of military force against the Indian nations, like the forced relocation of Native Americans during the trail of tears?
…didn’t catch the 100 year thing. But I think it would be great to expand this timeline to show US military involvement since our inception.
I’m afraid that would be a very long list indeed…
I kept it at roughly the 100 year list because the world had a different mindset in those days… the American President would pray to the Lord before sending in the troops so that he would do the right thing to help our “little brown brothers”…
Wait a minute, maybe it hasn’t changed so much 🙁
Before 1900 though, colonies and subjugation of foreign nations/peoples was not considered shameful or wrong.
And a great deal of American use of force in the past was either to expand the boundaries and territories of the United States (v. Spain, v. Mexico, v. Cherokee Nation, v. Apache Nation etc.) or else defensive (v. Britain 1812).
that they saw the expansion of territories in the US as self-defense. But good point – it would be a very long list indeed.
In addition to stationing a garrison in Germany, we also had a few supplemental deployments to Berlin; The Berlin Airlift being the most well known incident.
The good guys often wear black hats-way to often unfortunately.
I was especially happy to see Wounded Knee included here. Travesty doesn’t even begin to express what early americans and our government had done to Native Americans and continues to screw them over to this day. The history being taught in our schools is pretty much a fantasy of ‘how the west was won’ type deal contributing to our country’s downward spiral of ignorance and non-education.
I think the effect of this will be that americans will wake up one day to find ourselves no longer a world leader and they will wonder how and why-and no doubt be given more bullshit answers by our government.
I can’t really discuss the effects of this list Booman as I don’t know enough about how all these actions did effect those countries or how they felt about us for those actions. Although I’d venture to guess in many instances the reaction might not be positive.
I hope this list gives people a good deal of thought and knowing this we can make others more aware when getting into any discussions on american policy.
Oh Johnny I’m glad to see you here.. I recently had two American friends visit me here and in the depths of their suitcase was my first request… my old battered copy of IJ.
I didn’t include Liberia because it was mainly a “police action”, evacuating Americans and foreigners… there are many such instances in many, many countries including the DR Congo (Zaire) of all places.
Oddly, the majority of the Liberian people were begging for Americans to be amongst the peacekeepers, complete with promises to throw flowers etc. Would’ve made great PR for Bush as opposed to the Iraq “cakewalk” debacle which was going on.
Which reminds me, I should do a list of all American citizens or long-time American residents or American-trained people who later went on to become dictators or presidents of another country.
So… just for the record, that includes Hamid Karzai, who was an American citizen until he became the elected president of Afghanistan late last year. During all the time he was just the “interim” president, he remained a blue passport-carrying American citizen 🙂
Pax
And of course this list does not include “covert” operations to “effect regime change.”
here is just one relatively famous instance.
There is quite an extensive literature re this type of activity that reflect many more details and more situations / operations than reflected here.
As a tiny example, http://www.cna.org/documents/2790024600.pdf is a study that was done for the Navy back in the early 1990s that lists over 200 instances of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps responses to international incidents and crises from 1945 to January 1991.
Wondering how robust your work / listing is? Do you have it on the web anywhere?