| History of U.S. expansion and influence |
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| Foreign policy |
| Military history |
| Timeline of military operations |
| List of bases |
| Manifest Destiny |
| Non-interventionism |
| Overseas interventions |
| Pax Americana |
| America's Backyard |
| Territorial acquisitions |
The United States has been involved in a number of overseas interventions throughout its history.
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The Barbary Wars of the 18th and early 19th centuries were the first wars waged by the United States outside it's boundaries after the War of Independence. Driected against the Barbary States of North Africa it was fought to end piracy against American flagged ships in the Mediterranean.[1]
The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American groups, primarily the American Colonization Society, but the country enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government.[2]
Matthew Perry negotiated a treaty opening Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.[3] The U.S. advanced the Open Door Policy that guaranteed equal economic access to China and support of Chinese territorial and administrative integrity.[4] The USA has also acquired small islands in the Pacific, mostly to be used as coaling stations.
The early decades of the 20th century saw a number of interventions in Latin America by the U.S. government often justified under the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.[5] President William Howard Taft viewed "Dollar Diplomacy" as a way for American corporations to benefit while assisting in the national security goal of preventing European powers from filling any possible financial or power vacuum.[6]
The U.S. intervened in Europe during World War I. The USA intervened in Europe and Japan during World War II as well as the territories occupied by the axis powers.
The US fought wars in Korea during the Korean War and in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
In 1968, some sources have alleged that the CIA backed the coup by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party,[15] although official CIA records do not indicate that it supported the coup.[16] David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, has disputed the notion that the CIA supported the 1968 coup, as has Middle East analyst James Phillips. According to a 2003 report by Common Dreams "many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s," although it is widely acknowledged that the CIA worked to destabilize the Qassem regime in the early part of the decade.[16] Robert Dreyfuss, in his book Devil's Game, maintains that the Johnson administration actually opposed the 1968 coup and used the Shah's Iran as a counterpoint to the Ba'athist regime it established. A 2006 study concluded that the CIA's alleged role in the coup "cannot be considered historical" in the absence of more compelling evidence.[17]
The United States in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état helped the Shah remove the democractically elected Mossadegh.[18]
The U.S. supported the UNITA movement in Angola,[19] and, in the 1990s, intervened in Somalia as part of UNOSOM I, a United Nations humanitarian relief operation.[20]
The USA invaded Panama in 1989 and removed Manuel Noriega from power.[21]
U.S. intervened in Kuwait in 1990/1991 to expel an invading Iraqi army Gulf War
In 1999, U.S. utilized an air power campaign to expedite an end to Kosovo War
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. has intervened in the 2001-present war in Afghanistan and in the Iraq War.
In 2011, the U.S. intervened, by providing air power, in the 2011 Libyan Civil War
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