Findings: US Engaged in 26-Year War!

[color=gold]Ratio of US Years at War to Years of Peace (relatively), 1776 to Present (2008)



• Note: Time spans are approximate and rounded for ease in calculations. Also, not listed are minor wars, interventions, prolonged periods of warfare (the Cold War) and skirmishes such as: Indian wars, Whiskey Rebellion, Hot Water War, Bleeding Kansas, Browns Raid, Boxer rebellion, Moro Wars, Banana WArs, Cold War, Lebanese War, Libya conflict, Panama Invasion, Invasion of Grenada, Somalia intervention, Occupation of Haiti, Kosovo War.

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[color=gold]American Revolutionary War
English Colonists vs. Great Britain
1776 to 1783
~7 years

[color=gold]Franco-American Naval War
United States vs. France
1798-1800
~2 yearss

[color=gold]Barbary Wars
United States vs. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli
1801-1805; 1815
~4 years

[color=gold]1812 War
United States vs. Great Britain
1812-1815
~3 yearss

[color=gold]Creek War
United States vs. Creek Indians
1813-1814
~1 years

[color=gold]Mexican-American War
United States vs. Mexico
1846-1848
~2 yearss

[color=gold]Civil War (nothing civil about it)
Union vs. Confederacy (US. vs. US.)
1861-1865
~4 score

[color=gold]Spanish-American War
United States vs. Spain
1898
~1 years

[color=gold]WWI
Triple Alliance: Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary vs. Triple Entente: Britain, France, and Russia. The United States joined on the side of the Triple Entente in 1917.
1914-1918
~4 yearss

[color=gold]WWII
Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan vs. Major Allied Powers: United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia
1941-1945 (1939-1945)
~4 yearss

[color=gold]Korean War
United States (as part of the United Nations) and South Korea vs. North Korea and Communist China
1950-1953
~3 yearss

[color=gold]Vietnam War
United States and South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam
1964-1974 (we were involved before and after the dates listed)
~10 years

[color=gold]Cuba
United States vs. Cuba
1961
~1 year

[color=gold]Grenada
United States Intervention
1983
~1 years

[color=gold]Gulf War (Dessert Storm)
United States and Coalition Forces vs. Iraq
1990-1991
~1 year

[color=gold]Bosnia and Herzegovina
United States as part of NATO acted peacekeepers in former Yugoslavia
1995-1996
~1 years

[color=gold]Afghanistan War
2001-2003
~2 yearss

[color=gold]OIF 2003-2008
~5 years

[color=gold]OEF 2003-2008
~5 years (counted in OIF)

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USA from 1776-Present (2008) Total = 232 years

Warfare and Conflict Total = 61 years

Peace Total = 171 years

...and the ratios...

USA Years Engaged in Warfare Ratio = 61 yr ÷ 232 yr = 26%

Ratio of Warfare to Non-Warfare Years = 61 yr ÷ 171 yr = 36%

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So, what can we glean from these numbers? Well we could apply these ratios to the future, that is if we don't change our warfare policy and if the world does not change, we can expect to be engaged in warfare 26% of the time. So in other words, say for a 10 years time-frame, we can expect to be engaged in warfare for 2 years and 7 months of every 10 year timespan.

Extrapolated to a century, for a 100 year timespan, expect to be engaged in warfare for 26 years out of every 100 years!

Many things can be said of these numbers as well. For instance, with the curent war on terror and occupation of Iraq, since we've been there since 2003 (5 years), we can expect to be there for another 21 years (based on 26 yr conflict) or until the year 2029 (or until the oil dries up).

I haven't performed any numbers for the other countries, perhaps leave that up to others at ATS...Thanks for looking.

References:
Cassiopaea Wars
www.multied.com...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.govspot.com...


[edit on 10-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

Any thoughts?
I don't know what I'd use my other ratio for, the 36% one..hmm.

Nice.. just need to say one thing about expecting the WOT or Iraq War to last 26 years- your stats imply we are at war 26 years out of a hundred. That isn't consecutive. The median duration is only 3 years. So that tells you our current war is already above the median (and average). It does not tell us that we can expect it to last 21 more years. The stats actually tell us otherwise.

The only thing we can use to estimate the length of the current war are subjective aspects like: oil, funding, military personnel, politics and more, most of which are extremely hard to quantify.

Anyways, nice post and it really does say something about the "Land of the Free" -how we got that way and stay that way.