List of the lengths of United States participation in wars

Lengths of U.S. combat forces' participation in wars

War in the context of this list broadly construed to be armed conflict between organized U.S. military forces and organized forces of (a) belligerent(s).

(Ongoing wars indicated in bold and with orange bars.) Sources are found in the main articles of each war, as well as the Associated Press.^[16]

Notes

• Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution gives the United States Congress the power to declare War. Historically wars have been either declared as "Formal" wars or authorized as "Authorized military engagements".^[17] In 1973 Congress further clarified their role in authorized armed conflict with the passing of the War Powers Resolution.^[18]
• The dates used by the Associated Press for official U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War are August 1964 (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) to January 1973 (the Paris Peace Accords), although U.S. military activities and intervention in Vietnam spanned from 1955 to 1975.^[19][20][21] While the first US Combat Troops arrived in South Vietnam in 1965, by the end of 1964 over 23,000 American military personal were already present.^[22]
• For the Philippine–American War, not included by the Associated Press in their tally above, official start and end dates used by some sources are June 2, 1899 – July 4, 1902, (three years and one month,) although resistance groups continued fighting until June 15, 1913.^{[23][24][25][26]}
• The start date used by the Associated Press for U.S. engagement in the Persian Gulf War is January 17, 1991 (the start of its extensive aerial bombing campaign under the offensive known as Operation Desert Storm.)^[27]
• U.S. President Barack Obama pledged in 2009 and 2010 that the U.S. war in Iraq would end by the end of 2011 when all remaining U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq. Then, in the Spring of 2011, Secretary of Defense Gates, went to Iraq, pleading with the government of Iraq, to let U.S. Forces remain past the 2011 deadline.^{[28][29][30][31][32][33]}
• The start date of March 24, 1999 is the date used by PBS Frontline as the beginning of the Kosovo air war. The ending date of June 20, 1999 is the date NATO's bombing campaign formally ended.^[15] Although the war itself ended in 1999, some US forces took part in peacekeeping and associated duties thereafter.^[34]

See also

• United States military deployments
• American foreign policy
• Department of Defense
• Declaration of war by the United States
• Military history of the United States
• Overseas interventions of the United States
• Relative costs of American wars
• United States Armed Forces
• United States casualties of war

References

Bibliography

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) (6 November 1998). "Name of Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial". DoD. 

Lawrence, A. T. (2009). Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-44517-2. 

External links

• Associated Press tally of lengths of U.S. participation in major wars