The
military history of the United States spans a
period of over two centuries. During the course of those years, the
United States evolved from an alliance of
thirteen British colonies without a
professional
military to the world's
sole remaining
superpower of the late
20th and early 21st centuries.
Overview
Until the
Constitutional
Convention, the military presence in what became known as the
United States was organized by each
U.S.
state as a voluntary or conscripted
militia. Since 1789, the
United States Constitution has
provided authority for the
Congress to levy taxes and to raise a
navy and national militia. Federal legislation eventually led to
the modern nationalized system of military in the country.
Historically, the amount of money the U.S. government spends on the
military has often been a politically contentious issue.
As of
2008, the U.S. military consists of an Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps under the command of
the United States Department of
Defense
. There also is the United States Coast Guard, which
is controlled by the Department of Homeland Security
.The
President of the United
States is the
commander in
chief of each branch of the armed forces. In addition, each
state has a
national
guard commanded by the state's
governor
and coordinated by the
National
Guard Bureau. The President of the United States has the
authority during national emergencies to assume control of
individual state National Guard units.
The last
invasion of American soil took place in The Battle of Attu
11 May 1943 – 30 May 1943 on Attu Island off of
Alaska as part of the Aleutian Islands Campaign during the Pacific
War of World War II. It was the only WWII (and most recent)
battle to be fought on American soil. This is not counting invasion
and occupation of non-continental U.S. territories including
Guam,
Wake Island, and
Philippines.
Timeline
Colonial wars (1620–1774)
The beginning of the United States military lies in civilian
frontiersmen, armed for hunting and basic survival in the
wilderness. These were organized into local militias for small
military operations, mostly against
Native American tribes
but also to resist possible raids by the small military forces of
neighboring European colonies. They relied on the support of the
British regular army and navy for any serious military
operation.
In the early years of the
British colonization of
North America, military action in the colonies that would
become United States were the result of conflicts with Native
Americans, such as in the
Pequot War of
1637,
King Philip's War in 1675,
the
Susquehannock War in 1675, and
the
Yamasee War in 1715. There also
occurred
slave uprisings such as the
Stono Rebellion in 1739.
Beginning
in 1689, the colonies also frequently became involved in a series of wars between Great
Britain
and France for control of North America, the most
important of which were Queen Anne's
War, in which the British annexed French Acadia, and the final French and Indian War
(1754–1763). This final war was to give thousands of
colonists, including
George
Washington, military experience which they put to use during
the
American Revolution.
War of Independence (1775–1783)
Ongoing
political tensions between
Great
Britain and thirteen
colonies became a crisis in 1774 when the British placed the
province of Massachusetts
under martial law. While shooting began
at Lexington and Concord
in 1775, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of
the newly created Continental Army,
which was augmented throughout the war by colonial militia. General Washington was not the
greatest battlefield tactician, but
his
overall strategy proved to be sound: keep the army intact, wear
down British resolve, and avoid decisive battles except to exploit
enemy mistakes.
The British, for their part, lacked both a unified command and a
clear strategy for winning. With the use of the
Royal Navy, the British were able to capture
coastal cities, but control of the countryside eluded them.
A British
invasion from Canada in 1777 ended
with the disastrous surrender of a British army at Saratoga
. With the addition in 1777 of
General von Steuben, of
Prussian origin, the training and discipline
of the Continental Army began to vastly improve. France and Spain
then entered the war against Great Britain.
A shift in
focus to the
southern American states resulted in a string of victories for
the British, but
guerrilla warfare
and the tenacity of General
Nathanael
Greene's army prevented the British from making strategic
headway. A French naval
victory
in the Chesapeake led to the surrender of a British army at
Yorktown in 1781, resulting in the
Treaty of Paris in 1783,
which recognized the independence of the United States.
Since many Americans of the revolutionary generation had strong
distrust of permanent (or “
standing”)
armies, the Continental Army was quickly disbanded after the
Revolution. General Washington, who throughout the war deferred to
elected officials, averted
a
potential crisis and resigned as commander-in-chief to Congress
after the war, establishing a tradition of civil control of the
U.S. military.
Early national period (1783–1815)
Following the
American
Revolution, the United States faced potential military conflict
on the high seas as well as on the western
frontier. The United States was a minor military
power during this time, having only a modest army and navy. A
traditional distrust of standing armies, combined with faith in the
abilities of local militia, precluded the development of
well-trained units and a professional
officer corps.
Jeffersonian leaders
preferred a small army and navy, fearing that a large military
establishment would involve the United States in excessive foreign
wars, and potentially allow a domestic tyrant to seize power.
In the
Treaty of Paris after the
Revolution, the British had ceded the lands between the Appalachian
Mountains
and the Mississippi
River to the United States, without consulting the Shawnee, Cherokee, Choctaw and other smaller tribes who lived
there. Because many of the tribes had fought as allies of
the British, the United States compelled tribal leaders to sign
away lands in postwar treaties, and began
dividing up these lands for settlement.
This
provoked a war in the Northwest Territory in which the U.S.
forces performed poorly; the Battle of the Wabash
in 1791 was the most severe defeat ever suffered by
the United States at the hands of American Indians.
President Washington dispatched a
newly trained army to the
region, which decisively defeated the Indian confederacy at the
Battle of Fallen Timbers in
1795.
When
revolutionary France
declared
war on Great
Britain in 1793, the United States sought to remain neutral,
but the
Jay Treaty, which was favorable
to Great Britain, angered the French government, which viewed it as
a violation of the 1778
Treaty
of Alliance. French privateers began to seize U.S. vessels,
which led to an undeclared "
Quasi-War"
between the two nations.
Fought at sea from 1798 to 1800, the United
States won a string of victories in the Caribbean
. George Washington was called out of
retirement to head a "provisional army" in case of invasion by
France, but President
John Adams managed
to negotiate a truce, in which France agreed to terminate the prior
alliance and cease its piracy.
In 1801,
the United States fought another undeclared war, this time with the
city-state of Tripoli
. When President
Thomas Jefferson discontinued the custom of
paying
tribute to the
Barbary States, the
First Barbary War followed. After the
U.S.S. Philadelphia was captured
in 1803, Lieutenant
Stephen Decatur
led a raid which successfully burned the captured ship, preventing
Tripoli from using or selling it. In 1805, after
William Eaton captured the city of
Derna, Tripoli agreed to a peace treaty. The
other Barbary states continued to raid U.S. shipping, until the
Second Barbary War in 1815 ended
the practice.
By far the largest military action in which the United States
engaged during this era was the
War of
1812. When the United Kingdom and France went to
war again in 1803 with renewed vigor, the
United States sought to remain neutral while pursuing overseas
trade. This proved difficult, and the United States finally
declared war on the United Kingdom in 1812, the first time the U.S.
had officially declared war. Not hopeful of defeating the
Royal Navy, the U.S. attacked the
British Empire by invading British Canada,
hoping to use captured territory as a bargaining chip. The invasion
of Canada was a debacle, though concurrent wars with Native
Americans on the western front (
Tecumseh's War and the
Creek War) were more successful. After defeating
Napoleon in 1814, the United
Kingdom was able to send troops from Europe to America, leading to
the
burning of Washington on
25 August 1814, although the
Chesapeake
Bay Campaign was thwarted at the
Battle of Baltimore.
A second British
offensive was defeated by Andrew
Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans
. By this time, diplomats in Europe had
worked out a
peace treaty, restoring
the
status quo ante
bellum.
Continental expansion (1816–1860)
With the independence of the United States established, military
efforts then focused on ensuring a dominant role on the continent,
an idea which became known as "
Manifest
Destiny."
The
Texas Revolution was a war
fought from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836 between Mexico and
the breakaway province of Texas.
In February 1836, Santa Anna led his army
into Texas and won victories at the Alamo
and Goliad
before being
defeated by Sam Houston at the Battle of
San Jacinto
on April 21. Santa Anna signed a treaty
recognizing Texas independence and its expanded boundaries after
the battle, but the government in Mexico City repudiated the treaty
and vowed to subdue Texas, a position that led to the
Mexican-American War with the United
States in 1846.
In 1857 U.S. troops were sent to the
Utah
Territory to reassert federal primacy in the region in what
became known as the
Utah War.
American Civil War (1861–1865)
Sectional
tensions had long existed between the states located north of the
Mason-Dixon
Line
and those south of it, primarily centered on the
"peculiar institution" of slavery and the
ability of states to overrule the decisions of the national
government. During the 1840s and 1850s, conflicts between
the two sides became progressively more violent. After the election
of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (who southerners thought would work to
end slavery) states in the South
seceded
from the United States, beginning with South Carolina in late 1860.
On April
12, 1861, forces of the South (known as the Confederate States of America
or simply the Confederacy) opened fire on Fort Sumter
, whose garrison was loyal to the forces of the
North (who represented the United States or simply the
Union).
The
American Civil
War caught both sides unprepared. Both the Union and
the Confederacy had to build their armies practically from scratch.
Both
sides sought a quick victory focused on the respective nearby
capitals of Washington,
D.C.
and Richmond, Virginia
, but neither side would surrender their national
identity cheaply. Even after the First Battle
of Bull Run
, many were slow to accept that war would last much
longer than a single campaign. However, it spilled across
the continent, and even to the high seas. Much of the vast
resources of America would be consumed before it would be
resolved.
The American Civil War is sometimes called the "first modern war"
due to the use of mass
conscription,
military
railroads,
trench warfare,
submarines,
ironclads,
aerial
reconnaissance,
modern
cartridge firearms,
rifles, and [[Gatling
gun|machine gun]]s. It introduced the modern world to the horrors
of
total war.
Post-Civil War era (1865–1917)
The scope of the Civil War was as great as many of those in Europe,
and the United States began to see itself as potential player on
the world stage. With the country now stretching to the Pacific,
eyes turned to overseas. The motivation behind the
Spanish-American War,
Philippine-American War, and U.S.
involvement in the
Boxer Rebellion
are debated among historians.
Indian Wars (1865–1870)
After the Civil War,
Manifest
Destiny expansion began in earnest. The
Transcontinental Railroad
and other trade routes linking California with the eastern states
disrupted traditional Native America interactions.
Many Native American
tribes of the Great
Plains
and Southwest resisted this encroachment.
Generals from the Civil War such as
William Tecumseh Sherman and
Philip Sheridan were assigned to
conquer any Indians who offered military resistance to the
expansion of the United States.
Spanish-American War (1898)
The
Spanish-American War took place
in 1898, and resulted in the United States of America gaining
control over the former Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific, most notably Cuba
, Puerto Rico, Guam
and the
Philippines
.
Philippine-American War (1899-1913)
U.S. soldiers of the First Nebraska volunteers, company B, near
Manila, 1899
The
Philippine-American War was
between the armed forces of the United States and the Philippines from 1899 through 1913.
This conflict is also known as the "Philippine Insurrection." This
name was historically the most commonly used in the U.S., but
Filipinos and an increasing number of American historians refer to
these hostilities as the "Philippine-American War," and, in 1999,
the U.S.
Library of Congress
reclassified its references to use this
term.
Banana Wars (1898-1935)
The Banana Wars is a term used to describe US intervention in Latin
America from the end of the
Spanish
American War in 1898 until 1935.
These wars include
involvement in Cuba, Mexico,
Panama
with the
Panama Canal
Zone
, Haiti
(1915-1935),
Dominican
Republic
(1916-1924) and Nicaragua
(1912-1925) & (1926 - 1933).
Most
notable of these conflicts was when U.S. forces occupied the Mexican city
of Veracruz
for over six months in 1914, in response to the
April 9, 1914 "Tampico Affair," which
involved the brief arrest of U.S. sailors by soldiers of the regime
of Mexican President Victoriano
Huerta. The incident came in the midst of poor
diplomatic relations with the United States, related to the ongoing
Mexican Revolution.
In response to the Tampico Affair, U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson ordered the Navy to occupy
Veracruz. Huerta was overthrown and a regime more favorable to the
U.S. was installed. The incident, however, worsened U.S.-Mexican
relations for many years.
The Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion was an uprising against
Western commercial, religious, and political
influence in China during the final years of the 19th century. The
U.S. contributed Army and Marine units, the
China Relief Expedition, to an
international joint force called the
Eight-Nation Alliance, which captured
Peking and forced a Chinese capitulation. By
August 1900, over 230 foreigners, thousands of Chinese
Christians and unknown numbers of rebels, their
sympathizers and other Chinese had been killed in the revolt and
its suppression.
World War I (1917–1918)
The United States originally wished to remain neutral when World
War I broke out in August 1914. However, it insisted on its right
as a neutral party to immunity from German submarine attack. The
ships carried food and raw materials to Britain. In 1917 the
Germans
resumed submarine
attacks, knowing that it would lead to American entry. However
the U.S. had deliberately kept its army small and mobilization took
a year. Meanwhile the U.S. sent more supplies and money to Britain
and France, and started the first peacetime draft. Economic
mobilization was much slower than expected, so the decision was
made to send divisions to Europe without their equipment, relying
instead on British and French supplies. The first shots fired by
the United States in World War I between the United States and
Germany occurred in
Puerto Rico's San
Juan Bay and not in Europe. On April 6, 1917, the day that the
United States declared war on Germany, Lt.
Teofilo Marxuach, of the "Porto Rico Regiment", was the officer of the
day at El Morro
Castle
(then called Fort Brooke). The
Odenwald, built in 1903 (not to be confused with the
German World War II war ship which carried the same name), was an
armed German supply ship which tried to force its way out of the
bay and deliver supplies to the German
submarines waiting in the Atlantic Ocean. Lt.
Marxuach gave the order to open fire on the ship from the walls of
the fort. The
Odenwald was forced to return and its
supplies were confiscated. In 1917 ex-President
Theodore Roosevelt was authorized by
Congress to raise 4 Divisions of Volunteers to fight in
France-
Roosevelt's
World War I volunteers; however
Woodrow Wilson refused this offer. By summer
1918, a million American soldiers, or "
doughboys" as they were often called, of the
American Expeditionary
Force were in Europe under the command of
John J. Pershing, with 25,000 more arriving every
week.
The
failure of Germany's spring offensive meant they had exhausted
their manpower reserves and were unable to launch attacks or even
defend their lines, meanwhile the German home front revolted and a
new German
government
signed a
conditional surrender, the Armistice,
ending the war on November 11, 1918.
Russian Revolution
The
so-called Polar Bear
Expedition was the involvement of U.S. troops, during the tail
end of World War I and the Russian Revolution, in fighting
the Bolsheviks in Arkhangelsk
, Russia in 1918 and 1919.
Neutrality Acts
After the costly US involvement in World War I,
isolationism grew in the U.S. Congress refused
membership in the
League of
Nations, and in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and
Asia, the gradually more restrictive
Neutrality Acts were passed, which were
intended to prevent the U.S. from supporting either side in a war.
The size of the U.S. military declined greatly, with the loss of
many senior officers. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to support Britain,
however, and in 1940 passed the
Lend-Lease Act, which permitted an expansion of
the "cash and carry" arms trade to develop with the United Kingdom,
which controlled the Atlantic sea lanes.
World War II (1939–1945)
During the
interwar period the
United States again reduced its military, but mobilized to its
largest levels in history during
World War
II. The
global conflict started on
1 September 1939 and
raged until
2 September 1945, involving most of the peoples of the world. It
was the most extensive and costly war in history as well as the
history of the United States (excepting personnel).
US
involvement in World War II was initially limited to providing
war material and financial support to the
United
Kingdom
, the Soviet
Union
, and Republic of China
. The US entered officially on 8 December 1941 following the
Japanese
attack
on Pearl
Harbor
, Hawaii the previous day. This attack was
followed by attacks on US, Dutch and British possessions across the
Pacific. On 11 December, the remaining
Axis
powers, Germany and Italy, declared war on the US, drawing the
US firmly into the war and removing all doubts about the global
nature of the conflict.
The loss
of 8 battleships and 2000 sailors and airmen at Pearl Harbor forced
the US to rely on its remaining aircraft carriers, which won a major
victory over Japan at Midway
just 6 months into the war, and its growing
submarine fleet. The Navy and
Marine Corps followed this up with an
island
hopping campaign across the central and South Pacific in
1943-45, reaching the outskirts of Japan in the
Battle of Okinawa.
During 1942 and 1943,
the US deployed millions of men and thousands of planes and tanks
to the UK, beginning with the strategic bombing of Nazi Germany and occupied Europe and leading up
to the Allied invasions of occupied North Africa
in November, 1942, Sicily and Italy in 1943, France in 1944, and the invasion of Germany in 1945,
parallel with the Soviet invasion from the east. That led to
the
surrender of Nazi Germany
in May 1945.
In the Pacific, the US experienced much
success in naval campaigns during 1944, but bloody battles at
Iwo
Jima
and Okinawa in
1945 led the US to look for a way to end the war with minimal loss
of lives. The U.S. used
atomic bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki to shock the Japanese leadership, which
(combined with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria) quickly caused the
surrender of
Japan.
Despite the crippling effects of the
Great Depression, the United States was
able to mobilize quickly, eventually becoming the dominant military
power in most theaters of the war (excepting only eastern Europe
and mainland China), and the industrial might of the US economy is
widely cited as a major factor in the
Allies' eventual victory in the war.
Early in
the war, the US military was perceived by some observers to be too
"green" and untested to be of much use other than cannon fodder
against experienced German and Japanese troops (especially as their
first major action against German forces resulted in the
humiliating defeat at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass
), but the US eventually acquitted itself well and
established a modern military tradition. Strategic and
tactical lessons learned by the US, such as the importance of
air superiority and the dominance of
the
aircraft carrier in naval
actions, continue to guide US military doctrine more than 60 years
later.
World War II holds a special place in the American psyche as the
country's greatest triumph, and the soldiers of World War II are
frequently referred to as "the greatest generation" for their
sacrifices in the name of liberty. Over 16 million served (about
13% of the population), and over 400,000 were killed during the
war; only the
American Civil War
saw more Americans killed (although the majority of soldier deaths
that were directly caused by the war were the result of disease).
The US entered the war, like many other nations, as a country
struggling with economic and social problems and unsure of its
identity.
It emerged as one of the two undisputed
superpowers along with the Soviet Union, and unlike the Soviet Union, the US homeland was
virtually untouched by the ravages of war. The importance of
US military and political power in world affairs since 1945 cannot
be overstated; the outcome of the war and the fortunes of the
victors have shaped world events to this day.
During and following World War II, the United States and United
Kingdom developed an increasingly strong defense and intelligence
relationship. Manifestations of this include extensive basing of US
forces in the UK, shared intelligence, shared military technology
(e.g. nuclear technology), shared procurement (mainly British
purchases of American weapon systems, but increasingly the opposite
in recent years).
Cold War (1945–1991)
Following
the Second World War, the United States emerged as a global
superpower vis-a-vis the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
In this
period of some forty years, the United States provided foreign
military aid and direct involvement in proxy
wars against the Soviet
Union. It was the principal foreign actor in the
Korean War and
Vietnam War during this era. Nuclear weapons
were held in ready by the United States under a concept of
mutually assured destruction
with the Soviet Union.
Postwar Military Reorganization (1947)
The
National Security Act
of 1947, meeting the need for a military reorganization to
complement the U.S. superpower role, combined and replaced the
former Department of the Navy and War Department with a single
cabinet-level Department of
Defense.
The act also created the National Security Council
, the Central Intelligence
Agency, and the Air
Force.
Korean War
The
Korean War was a conflict between the United States and its
United Nations allies and the
communist powers of the Soviet Union (also a UN member nation) and the People's Republic
of China (which later also gained UN membership). The
principal combatants were North and South Korea. Principal allies
of South Korea included the United States, Canada, Australia, the
United Kingdom, although many other nations sent troops under the
aegis of the
United Nations. Allies
of North Korea included the People's Republic of China, which
supplied military forces, and the Soviet Union, which supplied
combat advisors and aircraft pilots,
as well as arms, for the Chinese and North Korean troops. In the
United States, the conflict was termed a
police action under the aegis of the United
Nations rather than a war, largely to remove the necessity of a
Congressional
declaration of
war.
The war started badly for the US and UN. North Korean forces struck
massively in the summer of 1950 and nearly drove the outnumbered US
and ROK defenders into the sea. However the United Nations
intervened, naming
Douglas
MacArthur commander of its forces, and US-ROK forces acting
under the UN auspices held a perimeter around
Pusan, gaining time for
reinforcement.
MacArthur, in a bold but risky move, ordered
an amphibious invasion well behind the front lines at Inchon
, cutting off and routing the North Koreans and
quickly crossing the 38th Parallel into North Korea. As UN
forces continued to advance toward the
Yalu
River on the border with Communist China, MacArthur and
U.S. President Harry
Truman came into serious disagreement about military objectives
and resolution of the conflict. In November, 1950, after Truman
refused to bomb bridges on the Yalu River, the Chinese Army poured
across the border and sent UN forces reeling back across the 38th
Parallel. MacArthur was later relieved of his command by Truman for
insubordination, and while some feared the conflict might spark
another world war, negotiations beginning shortly after MacArthur's
dismissal eventually resulted in a stalemate and armistice in 1953,
with the two Koreas remaining divided at the
38th parallel. North and South Korea are
still today in a state of war, having never signed a peace treaty,
and US forces remain stationed in South Korea as part of US foreign
policy.
Lebanon crisis of 1958
The
Lebanon crisis of 1958
was a political and religious conflict between the pro-Western
government of President
Camille
Chamoun and Sunni Muslims who supported joining the
United Arab Republic. A Muslim
rebellion and the toppling of a pro-Western government in Iraq
caused President Chamoun to call for U.S. assistance. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by deploying Marines to bolster
the pro-Western Lebanese government of President Camille Chamoun
against internal opposition and threats from the United Arab
Republic. Marines stayed from July 15 to October 25 of that
year.
Dominican Intervention
On April 28, 1965, 400 Marines were landed in Santo Domingo to
evacuate the American Embassy and foreign nationals after dissident
Dominican armed forces attempted to overthrow the ruling civilian
junta. By mid-May, peak strength of 23,850 U.S. soldiers, Marines,
and Airmen were in the Dominican Republic and some 38 naval ships
were positioned offshore. They evacuated nearly 6,500 men, women,
and children of 46 nations, and distributed more than 8 million
tons of food.
Vietnam War
The
Vietnam War, also known as the Second
Indochina War, was a war fought between 1957 and
1975 on the ground in South
Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia
and Laos
(see Secret War) and in the
strategic bombing (see
Operation Rolling Thunder)
of North
Vietnam. In Vietnam
, the conflict is known as the "American
War." Although a small US presence had existed in Vietnam
since the late 1950s, major US involvement is generally considered
to have begun in 1964, after the
Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
Fighting
on one side was a coalition of forces
including the Republic of
Vietnam (South Vietnam or the
"RVN"), the United States, South Korea, Thailand
, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Participation by the South Korean military
was financed by the United States, but Australia and New Zealand
fully funded their own involvement. Other countries normally allied
with the United States in the
Cold War,
including the United Kingdom and Canada, refused to participate in
the
coalition, although a few of their
citizens volunteered to join the U.S.
forces. The U.S. and its allies fought against the
North Vietnamese Army (NVA) as well as
the
National Liberation
Front (NLF, also known as Viet communists
Viet Cong), or "VC", a guerrilla force within
South Vietnam.
The NVA received substantial military and
economic aid from the Soviet Union, turning Vietnam into a proxy
war.
The U.S. framed the war as part of its policy of
containment of
Communism in south Asia, but American forces were
frustrated by an inability to engage the enemy in decisive battles,
corruption and incompetence in the
Army of the
Republic of Vietnam, and ever increasing protests at home. The
Tet Offensive in 1968, although a
major military defeat for the NLF, marked the psychological turning
point in the war.
NLF forces appeared to be everywhere at
once, even overrunning the US embassy in Saigon
, supposedly
one of the most secure places in the country, and news anchor
Walter Cronkite, in a famous
broadcast from the battlefield, pronounced the war
"unwinnable." After more than 57,000 dead and many more
wounded, US forces withdrew in 1973 with no clear victory, and in
1975 South Vietnam was finally conquered by communist North Vietnam
and unified. The chaotic evacuation of the US embassy in April
1975, as NVA forces closed in on the city, made for enduring images
of desperate souls clinging to helicopter skids, trying to escape
Communist rule.
Even
today, "Vietnam" is a politically divisive subject in the
U.S. Some Americans view the Second Indochina War as a
noble, if flawed, cause which limited and delayed communist
expansion and conquest of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Others see
the conflict as a quagmire; a waste of American blood and treasure
in a conflict that did not concern US interests. Military service
during Vietnam is still an issue in U.S. presidential campaigns,
more than 30 years after US troops left the country, and fears of
another "quagmire" have been major factors in U.S. military
planning since 1975.
Tehran hostage rescue
Following
the Iranian revolution and the
resulting Iran hostage crisis,
President Carter in April 1980, gave
the order to launch Operation Eagle Claw
, which attempted to rescue the hostages using a
combination of special
forces
and helicopter evacuation. Operational
problems forced commanders to abort the mission, and 8 servicemen
were killed in a helicopter accident in the Iranian desert. The
failure was attributed to inappropriate equipment, incomplete and
unrealistic planning, and the lack of joint service training.
Despite its size, the mission had significant effects on US
military doctrine and training, and led directly to the creation of
SOCOM. The
hostages were eventually released after extensive diplomatic
negotiations on January 20, 1981, Carter's last day in office,
after 444 days of captivity.
Grenada
In
October, 1983, alarmed by a violent power struggle in Grenada
, the U.S. dispatched paratroopers, Marines,
Rangers, and special operations forces to the island in Operation Urgent Fury. Over a
thousand Americans were on the island. The invasion force quickly
moved to seize the entire island, eventually taking hundreds of
military and civilian prisoners from a variety of
East Bloc nations.
Beirut
In 1983
fighting between Palestinian refugees and
Lebanese
factions reignited that nation's long-running civil
war. A UN agreement brought an
international force of
peacekeepers to occupy Beirut and guarantee security. US
Marines landed in August 1982 along with Italian and French forces.
On
October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber driving a truck filled with 6
tons of TNT crashed through a fence and destroyed
the Marine barracks
, killing 241 Marines; seconds later, a second
bomber leveled a French barracks, killing 58. Subsequently
the US Navy engaged in bombing of militia positions inside Lebanon.
While US President
Ronald Reagan was
initially defiant, political pressure at home eventually forced the
withdrawal of the Marines in February 1984.
The attack on the US Marine barracks resulted in the single largest
loss of life for the
USMC since World War
II.
In
2003, a judge for the United
States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that
the Islamic
Republic of Iran
was responsible for the attack.
Panama
On
December 20, 1989 the United States invaded
Panama, mainly from U.S. bases within the then-Canal
Zone, to oust dictator and international drug trafficker Manuel Noriega. In 1977, both nations
had signed a treaty giving the Panama Canal
to Panama by 1999, but
the U.S. government did not wish to relinquish control of the
strategically vital area to Noriega, whose government had become a
narco-state. After Noriega
nullified an
election that had been won by
an opposition
party, a
U.S. Marine officer was murdered by
the Panamanian police and various U.S. military personnel were
assaulted by Panamanian forces, President
George H.W. Bush sent U.S troops in. The U.S. forces
quickly overwhelmed the Panamanian Defense Forces, and Noriega was
captured on January 3, 1990 after the
Vatican refused his asylum request. A new
government was installed and new elections were held. Control of
the Canal was returned to Panama as scheduled on December 31, 1999.
Noriega
was tried in Miami
and found
guilty and sentenced on September 16, 1992, to 40 years in prison
for drug and racketeering violations.
Post-Cold War era (1991–2001)
Gulf War
The
Persian Gulf War was a conflict between
Iraq
and a coalition force of 34 nations led by the
United States. The lead up to the war began with the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
in August
1990 which was met with immediate economic sanctions by the
United Nations against Iraq.
The coalition commenced hostilities in January 1991, resulting in a
decisive victory for the U.S. led coalition forces, which drove
Iraqi forces out of Kuwait with minimal coalition deaths. Despite
the low death toll, over 180,000 US veterans would later be
classified as "permanently disabled" according to the US Department
of Veterans Affairs (
National Gulf War Resource Center; see also
Gulf War Syndrome).
The main battles were
aerial and ground combat within Iraq, Kuwait and bordering areas of
Saudi
Arabia
. Land combat did not expand outside of the
immediate Iraq/Kuwait/Saudi border region, although the coalition
bombed cities and strategic targets across Iraq, and Iraq fired
missiles on Israeli
and Saudi cities.
Before the war, many observers believed the US and its allies could
win but might suffer substantial casualties (certainly more than
any conflict since Vietnam), and that the tank battles across the
harsh desert might rival those of North Africa during
World War II.
After nearly 50 years of proxy wars, and constant fears of another war in
Europe between NATO
and the
Warsaw Pact, some thought the Gulf War
might finally answer the question of which military philosophy
would have reigned supremacy. Iraqi forces were
battle-hardened after 8 years of war with Iran
, and they
were well-equipped with late model Soviet
tanks and
jet fighters, but the anti-aircraft weapons were crippled; in
comparison, the US had no large-scale combat experience since its
withdrawal from Vietnam nearly 20 years earlier, and major changes in US
doctrine, equipment and technology since then had never been tested
under fire.
However, the battle was one-sided almost from the beginning. The
reasons for this are the subject of continuing study by military
strategists and academics. There is general agreement that US
technological superiority was a crucial factor but the speed and
scale of the Iraqi collapse has also been attributed to poor
strategic and tactical leadership and low morale among Iraqi
troops, which resulted from a history of incompetent leadership.
After devastating initial strikes against Iraqi air defenses and
command and control facilities on 17 January 1991, coalition forces
achieved total air superiority almost immediately. The Iraqi air
force was destroyed within a few days, with some planes fleeing to
Iran where they were interned for the duration of the conflict. The
overwhelming technological advantages of the US, such as
stealth aircraft and
infrared sights, quickly turned the air war into a
"turkey shoot". The heat signature of any tank which started its
engine made an easy target. Air defense radars were quickly
destroyed by radar-seeking missiles fired from
wild weasel aircraft. Grainy video clips, shot
from the nose cameras of missiles as they zeroed in on impossibly
small targets, were a staple of US news coverage and revealed to
the world a new kind of war, compared by some to a video game. Over
6 weeks of relentless pounding by planes and helicopters, the Iraqi
army was almost completely beaten but did not retreat, under orders
from Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein,
and by the time the ground forces invaded on 24 February, many
Iraqi troops quickly surrendered to forces much smaller than their
own; in one instance, Iraqi forces attempted to surrender to a
television camera crew that was advancing with coalition
forces.
After just 100 hours of ground combat, and with all of Kuwait and
much of southern Iraq under coalition control, US President
George H. W. Bush
ordered a cease-fire and negotiations began resulting in an
agreement for cessation of hostilities. Some US politicians were
disappointed by this move, believing Bush should have pressed on to
Baghdad and removed Hussein from power; there is little doubt that
coalition forces could have accomplished this if they had desired.
Still, the political ramifications of removing Hussein would have
broadened the scope of the conflict greatly, and many coalition
nations refused to participate in such an action, believing it
would create a power vacuum and destabilize the region.
Following the Gulf War, to protect minority populations, the US,
Britain, and France declared and maintained
no-fly zones in northern and southern
Iraq, which the Iraqi military frequently tested. The no-fly zones
persisted until the 2003 invasion of Iraq, although France withdrew
from participation in patrolling the no-fly zones in 1996, citing a
lack of humanitarian purpose for the operation.
Additionally, following the discovery of an aborted assassination
plot aimed at former President George H.W. Bush, Navy ships bombed
Iraqi intelligence facilities with cruise missiles in June
1993.
Somalia
US troops
participated in a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia
beginning in 1992. By 1993 the US troops
were augmented with Rangers and special forces with the aim of
capturing warlord Mohamed Farrah
Aidid, whose forces had massacred peacekeepers from Pakistan
. During a raid in downtown Mogadishu, US
troops became trapped overnight by a general uprising in the
Battle of
Mogadishu
. 18 American soldiers were killed, and a US
television crew filmed graphic images of the body of one soldier
being dragged through the streets by an angry mob. Somali
guerrillas paid a staggering toll at an estimated 1,000-5,000 total
casualties during the conflict. Despite much public disapproval, US
forces were quickly withdrawn by President
Bill Clinton. The incident profoundly affected
US thinking about peacekeeping and intervention. The book
Black Hawk Down was
written about the battle, and was the basis for the later
movie of the same name.
Yugoslavia
During
the war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the US operated in
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
as part of the NATO-led multinational
implementation force (IFOR) in Operation Joint Endeavour
. The USA was one of the NATO member countries who bombed
Yugoslavia between March 24 and June 9, 1999 during the
Kosovo War and later contributed to the
multinational force
KFOR.
War on Terrorism (2001–present)
The
War on Terrorism is a global
effort by the governments of several countries (primarily the
United States and its principal allies) to neutralize international
terrorist groups (primarily
radical Islamist terrorist groups,
including
al-Qaeda) and ensure that
rogue nations no longer support
terrorist activities. It has been adopted as a response to the
September 11, 2001
attacks on the United States.
Afghanistan
The
invasion
of Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan) to
depose that country's
Taliban government and
destroy training camps associated with al-Qaida is understood to
have been the opening, and in many ways defining, campaign of the
broader War on Terrorism. The emphasis on Special Operations Forces
(SOF), political negotiation with autonomous military units, and
the use of proxy militaries marked a significant change from prior
U.S. military approaches.
Philippines
In January 2002, the U.S. sent more than 1,200 troops (later raised
to 2,000) to assist the
Armed Forces of the
Philippines in combating terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida,
such as
Abu Sayyaf, under
Operation Enduring
Freedom - Philippines.
Operations are taking place mostly in the
Sulu
Archipelago
, where terrorists and other groups are
active. The majority of troops provide
logistics; however, a sizable portion are Special
Forces troops that are training and assisting in combat operations
against the terrorist groups.
Liberia
In June
2003, a United Nations justice
tribunal issued a warrant for the arrest of the Liberian
president, Charles
Taylor, charging him with war
crimes. The pressure on Taylor increased further as
President George W. Bush
stated that Taylor "must leave Liberia" twice in July 2003.
Taylor insisted that he would resign only if American
peacekeeping troops were deployed to Liberia.
President Bush publicly called upon Charles Taylor to resign and
leave the country if any American involvement was to be
considered.
Meanwhile, the African states, in particular
the Economic Community of West African
States
(ECOWAS), under the leadership of Nigeria, sent
troops to Liberia with the assistance of $10 million from the
US[24685]. On August 6, a 32 member U.S. military
assessment team were deployed as a liaison with the ECOWAS
troops
[24686].
On August 11, Taylor resigned, leaving
Moses
Blah as his successor until a transitional government was
established on October 14. The U.S. brought three warships with
2,300 Marines into view of the coast. The subsequent
transformations of government and elections were peaceful.
Iraq
After the
lengthy Iraq disarmament
crisis culminated with an American demand that Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein leave Iraq, which was
refused, a coalition led by
the United States and the United Kingdom fought the Iraqi army in
the 2003 invasion of
Iraq. Approximately 250,000 United States troops,
with support from 45,000 British, 2,000 Australian and 200 Polish
combat forces, entered Iraq primarily
through their staging area in Kuwait.
(Turkey
had
refused to permit its territory to be used for an invasion from the
north.) Coalition forces also supported Iraqi Kurdish militia, estimated to number upwards of
50,000. After approximately three weeks of fighting, Hussein
and the
Ba'ath Party were forcibly
removed, followed by an extended period of military
occupation.
Future
The Army's chief modernization plan was the
FCS program. Many systems were
canceled and the remaining were swept into the
BCT modernization program.
See also
Related lists
Sources
References
- The earliest recorded date of American Indians becoming U.S.
citizens was in 1831 when the Mississippi Choctaw, after the
ratification of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit
Creek, were the first non-European ethnic group to become
so.
- CALLS ODENWALD AFFAIR AN ATTACK, The New York
Times, April 7, 1915
- http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing
- Atlas of American Military History, Stuart Murray
(2005) ISBN 0-8160-5578-5
- American Military History: 1775-1902, Ed. Maurice
Matloff (1996) ISBN 0-938289-70-5
- American Military History and the Evolution of Western
Warfare, Robert Doughty (1996) ISBN 0-669-41683-5
- The American Way of War: A History of United States
Military Strategy and Policy, Russell Frank Weigley (1977)
ISBN 0-253-28029-X
- A Handbook of American Military History: From the
Revolutionary War to the Present, Ed. Jerry K. Sweeney and
Kevin B. Byrne (1997) ISBN 0-8133-2871-3
- The Oxford Companion to American Military History, Ed.
John Whiteclay II Chambers, Fred Anderson, Lynn Eden, Joseph T.
Glatthaar, Ronald H. Spector, and G. Kurt Piehler (2000) ISBN
0-19-507198-0
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