Hamas’ horrific attack in Israel on October 7 was quickly labeled “Israel’s 9/11” — it was a surprise strike that destroyed a large number of innocent people and traumatized a nation. Yet the parallels do not end there. They are not difficult to see. Let us consider them, while keeping in mind that in the same way one recognizes terrorism as reprehensible, one should, through careful study of history and current geopolitics, recognize where terrorism comes from and how to prevent it from occurring in the future. As Sarah Schulman writes in New York Magazine, “Explanations are not excuses” — to understand why the Hamas assault occurred is not to say it was right. To understand the world as it actually is, such as how harmful state policies can inspire terrorism, is not to condone terrorism; it is simply to oppose both. “But the problem with understanding how we got to where we are,” Schulman notes, “is that we could then be implicated.” She writes:

My parents raised me with the idea that Jews were people who sided with the oppressed and worked their way into helping professions. They could not adjust the worldview born of this experience to a new reality: that in Israel, we Jews had acquired state power and built a highly funded militarized society, and were now subordinating others. No one wants to think about themselves that way… Humans want to be innocent. Better than innocent is the innocent victim. The innocent victim is eligible for compassion and does not have to carry the burden of self-criticism.

The situation is too well-documented to be controversial. For a long time, Israel has seized Palestinian land, blockaded the rest, and subjugated Palestinians in Israel itself. The United Nations (including its Human Rights Commission), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other bodies have condemned Israeli policies as illegal and crimes against humanity. Palestinians and Israelis alike oppose Israel’s occupation, military violence, and apartheid system. I wrote of all this at length in Is Standing with Israel Standing with a Violent Oppressor? Predictably, oppression breeds extremism and terror. Hamas declared its attack a response to “the crimes of the occupation.” There were both long-term and short-term causes linked to the sorry conditions of the Palestinian people.

But in much news and commentary, no actual explanation is given for Hamas terror. There is no serious look at the realities of Israeli-Palestinian relations, no history or context. Israel is the good guy, its enemies seek its eradication, The End. “They hate Jews and want to destroy Israel” is an empty statement, explaining nothing, but is quite popular. True, those are real sentiments, especially among Islamic extremists (other Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians, Druze, atheists, and so on, want to peacefully coexist with Israelis through a unified one-state solution or even a two-state solution), but they’re missing the major why. All of this is virtually indistinguishable from the American experience of 9/11. The noble United States was divorced from the terrible thing that happened to it. There were no causal ties between our activities and the 3,000 people massacred, save perhaps one: Al Qaeda, vaguely, hated our freedom! Americans had little interest in root causes, in pondering Al Qaeda’s rage over bloody U.S. military interventions and wars in Muslim lands in the 1980s and ’90s, America’s devastating sanctions against Iraq and its support of Israel against the Palestinians, our close relationship with Saudi Arabia and our military bases near Islam’s holy cities, and so on. Extremism comes from somewhere — somewhere concrete like the bodies of Muslim children, not somewhere vague like the First Amendment of a nation 7,000 miles away. This is not to say that all the religious extremists and fundamentalists among the Palestinians would tolerate a Jewish state with friendly policies and equal rights for all, nor a secular one-state solution that’s likewise for everyone regardless of faith or race (we should all favor the latter). For some it’s a Muslim nation for a Muslim holy land or nothing, similar to Zionist Jewish thought. But by addressing the grievances and needs of the Palestinian people, you can reduce radicalization and violence, ensure there are fewer extremists and plots against innocents. To prevent terrorism, you have to change policy.

But that is unthinkable. It would suggest you’ve done something wrong, and it would curb your own dominance and self-interest. Lessening American military power in the Middle East was unacceptable, and Israel probably won’t be giving back Palestinian land, withdrawing its military and citizens from the settlements in the West Bank. It won’t end its decades-long blockade and stranglehold of Gaza, which has caused a massive humanitarian crisis. And Palestinians in Israel will not enjoy equal rights and real protection from discrimination any time soon. Instead, the policies that caused Hamas’ terrible attack will be supercharged. This is the second way Israel’s experience of 2023 is like America’s of 2001. Not only are root causes ignored to maintain your patriotic, pure-as-snow self-image and your national power, but the response to the violence doubles down on the policies that caused it in the first place. The United States launched a War on Terror — more military intervention in the Middle East. Predictably, our invasions and bombings spawned many new terror groups, increased recruitment to established ones like Al Qaeda, spread cells to new countries, and led to far more plots and acts of violence (see A History of Violence: How the War on Terror Breeds More Terror). Israel is now laying waste to Gaza and, as it has in the past, cut off water, electricity, food, medicine, and so on from the region. The suffering of ordinary people is greater than ever before. This will of course encourage radicalization against Israel and breed more terror attacks. Even if Hamas is destroyed, which is unlikely, another group will take its place. The problem will not be solved through war, it will be magnified, worsened. That endless cycle of violence and revenge.

Finally, and briefly, a third way in which the current crisis echoes 9/11. “War Worsening Terrorism” of course refers to how bombings and invasions as a response to terrorism simply encourages more terrorism. But it also refers to the terror rained down upon the innocent people who had nothing to do with Hamas or Al Qaeda. War is State terrorism, expanding the violence to an unprecedented scale, of which extremist groups could only dream. 3,000 Americans died on 9/11, but our War on Terror killed about a million people. 1,400 Israelis died in Hamas’ attack; Israel has thus far killed 4,200 people in Gaza. Many more innocent Palestinians will perish before the end.

None of this sounds like justice or reason, but it certainly sounds familiar.

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The psychologist Steven Pinker, in Rationality, writes that “none of us, thinking alone, is rational enough to consistently come to sound conclusions: rationality emerges from a community of reasoners who spot each other’s fallacies.” This could be applied to governments contemplating war. Americans increasingly understand that the United States often engages in violence not for noble purposes like protecting innocents, democracy, and freedom, but rather to protect and grow its economic and global power. Other countries have similar histories. In sum this has cost scores of millions of lives. An important step to ending war (and indeed nations) is to lift its declaration and execution from the national to the international level. With war exclusively in the hands of the international community, the wrongful motives of individual States can be mitigated. It is a little-known fact that the U.S. has already agreed to this.

We can pause here for a few caveats. First, war must be the absolute last resort to any crisis, due to its horrific predictable and unpredictable consequences, its unavoidable traps. It often is not the last resort for individual governments — nor will it always be so for the international community, but the collective reasoning and clash of skepticism and enthusiasm from multiple parties may reduce the foolhardy rush to violence so common in human political history. Diplomacy and nonviolent punitive actions can be more fully explored. Second, this idea relates to both reactions to wars of aggression launched by single States and to observed atrocities within them. If one nation invades another, the decision to repulse the invader must be made by a vote of all the nations in the world, with all those in favor committing forces to an international army. Same for if genocide is proven, among other scenarios. Third, none of this prohibits the last legitimate instance of unilateral violence: national defense against an invading power.

The argument is that the era of the United States as the world’s policeman must end — the world can be the world’s policeman. This writer has long voiced opposition to war and to nations, advocating for a united, one-country Earth (and is in good company: as documented in Why America Needs Socialism, Gandhi, Einstein, Orwell, Dr. King, and many other giants of history supported this idea). Talk of just war and how nations must approach it should not be misconstrued as enthusiastic support for these things; rather, as stated, vesting the power to wage war solely in the international community is a move down the long road to global peace and unity (with one day an equilibrium perhaps being reached wherein no actor risks facing the wrath of the rest of the world). It is far preferable to a rogue superpower invading and bombing whoever it pleases.

The United Nations, of course, needs structural changes to make this possible. The small Security Council can authorize use of force, but its five permanent members (the U.S., the U.K., France, China, and Russia) have veto power, meaning a single country can forbid military action. The decision to use violence must pass to the General Assembly, where a majority vote can decide, similar to how resolutions are passed now. A united army already exists, with 70,000-100,000 UN troops currently serving, gathered from national forces all over the globe, commanded by generals from all over the globe. Like those of any individual country, such as the U.S., UN military ventures have seen defeats alongside great successes. UN forces must be strengthened as their role broadens. Finally, UN member countries must actually abide by the treaty they signed to no longer engage in “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (UN Charter Article 2). This was the entire point of founding the United Nations after World War II. The U.S. signs binding treaties (the U.S. Constitution, in Article 6, makes any treaty we sign with foreign powers the “supreme law of the land”), promising to forsake unilateral action (such as the UN Charter) or torture (such as the UN Convention Against Torture), then ignores them. That is why U.S. actions such as the invasion of Iraq, whether looked at from the viewpoint of U.S. or international law, are accurately labeled illegal. Under a new paradigm, the U.S. and all member States would have to accept that should the General Assembly vote against war, there will be no war — and accept consequences for illegal actions that undermine this vote.

As with a one-nation world, there will be much screaming about this now, but in the future, whether in a hundred years or 1,000, it could easily be taken for granted. The nationalist American mindset says, “If we see evil in the world we’re going in! We won’t get anyone’s permission. We won’t sacrifice our sovereignty or decision-making. America, fuck yeah!” Cooler heads may one day recognize that their own nation can commit evils, from unjust wars to crimes against humanity, making a community of reasoners an important check and balance. If violence is truly right and justified, most of the world will recognize that. New voices may also question why one country should carry (in patriotic theory at least) the brunt of the cost in blood and treasure to make the world safe for democracy and freedom, as is occasionally the case with U.S. military action. Why not have the world collectively bear that burden, if the world is to benefit?

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You’ve done it. You have bombed, invaded, and occupied an oppressive State into a constitutional democracy, human rights and all. Now there is only one thing left to do: attempt to leave — and hope you are not snared in the nation-building trap.

Biden suffered much criticism over the chaotic events in Afghanistan in August 2021, such as the masses of fleeing Afghans crowding the airport in Kabul and clinging to U.S. military planes, the American citizens left behind, and more, all as the country fell to the Taliban. Yet Biden was in a dilemma, in the 16th century sense of the term: a choice between two terrible options. That’s the nation-building trap: if your nation-building project collapses after or as you leave, do you go back in and fight a bloody war a second time, or do you remain at home? You can 1) spend more blood, treasure, and years reestablishing the democracy and making sure the first war was not in vain, but risk being in the exact same situation down the road when you again attempt to leave. Or 2) refuse to sacrifice any more lives (including those of civilians) or resources, refrain from further war, and watch oppression return on the ruins of your project. This is a horrific choice to make, and no matter what you would choose there should be at least some sympathy for those who might choose the other.

Such a potentiality should make us question war and nation-building, a point to which we will return. But here it is important to recognize that the August chaos was inherent in the nation-building trap. Biden had that dilemma to face, and his decision came with unavoidable tangential consequences. For example, the choice, as the Taliban advanced across Afghanistan, could be reframed as 1) send troops back in, go back to war, and prevent a huge crowd at the airport and a frantic evacuation, or 2) remain committed to withdraw, end the war, but accept that there would be chaos as civilians tried to get out of the country. Again, dismal options.

This may seem too binary, but the timeline of events appears to support it. With a withdraw deadline of August 31, the Taliban offensive began in early May. By early July, the U.S. had left its last military base, marking the withdraw as “effectively finished” (this is a detail often forgotten). Military forces only remained in places like the U.S. embassy in Kabul. In other words, from early May to early July, the Taliban made serious advances against the Afghan army, but the rapid fall of the nation occurred after the U.S. and NATO withdraw — with some Afghan soldiers fighting valiantly, others giving up without a shot. There are countless analyses regarding why the much larger, U.S.-trained and -armed force collapsed so quickly. U.S. military commanders point to our errors like: “U.S. military officials trained Afghan forces to be too dependent on advanced technology; they did not appreciate the extent of corruption among local leaders; and they didn’t anticipate how badly the Afghan government would be demoralized by the U.S. withdrawal.” In any event, one can look at either May-June (when U.S. forces were departing and Taliban forces were advancing) or July-August (when U.S. forces were gone and the Taliban swallowed the nation in days) as the key decision-making moment(s). Biden had to decide whether to reverse the withdraw, send troops back in to help the Afghan forces retake lost districts (and thus avoid the chaos of a rush to the airport and U.S. citizens left behind), or hold firm to the decision to end the war (and accept the inevitability of turmoil). Many will argue he should have chosen option one, and that’s an understandable position. Even if you had to fight for another 20 years, and all the death and maiming that comes with it, and face the same potential scenario when you try to withdraw in 2041, some would support it. But for those who desired an end to war, it makes little sense to criticize Biden for the airport nightmare, or the Taliban takeover or American citizens being left behind (more on that below). “I supported withdraw but not the way it was done” is almost incomprehensible. In the context of that moment, all those things were interconnected. In summer 2021, only extending and broadening the war could have prevented those events. It’s the nation-building trap — it threatens to keep you at war forever.

The idea that Biden deserves a pass on the American citizens unable to be evacuated in time may draw special ire. Yes, one may think, maybe ending the war in summer 2021 brought an inevitable Taliban takeover (one can’t force the Afghan army to fight, and maybe we shouldn’t fight a war “Afghan forces are not willing to fight themselves,” as Biden put it) and a rush to flee the nation, but surely the U.S. could have done more to get U.S. citizens (and military allies such as translators) out of Afghanistan long before the withdraw began. This deserves some questioning as well — and as painful as it is to admit, the situation involved risky personal decisions, gambles that did not pay off. Truly, it was no secret that U.S. forces would be leaving Afghanistan in summer 2021. This was announced in late February 2020, when Trump signed a deal with the Taliban that would end hostilities and mark a withdraw date. U.S. citizens (most dual citizens) and allies had over a year to leave Afghanistan, and the State Department contacted U.S. citizens 19 times to alert them of the potential risks and offer to get them out, according to the president and the secretary of state. Thousands who chose to stay changed their minds as the Taliban advance continued. One needn’t be an absolutist here. It is possible some Americans fell through the cracks, or that military allies were given short shrift. And certainly, countless Afghan citizens had not the means or finances to leave the nation. Not everyone who wished to emigrate over that year could do so. Yet given that the withdraw date was known and U.S. citizens were given the opportunity to get out, some blame must necessarily be placed on those who wanted to stay despite the potential for danger — until, that is, the potential became actual.

Biden deserves harsh criticism, instead, for making stupid promises, for instance that there would be no chaotic withdraw. The world is too unpredictable for that. Further, for a drone strike that blew up children before the last plane departed. And for apparently lying about his generals’ push to keep 2,500 troops in the country.

That is a good segue for a few final thoughts. The first revolves around the question: “Regardless of the ethics of launching a nation-building war, is keeping 2,500 troops in the country, hypothetically forever, the moral thing to do to prevent a collapse into authoritarianism or theocracy?” Even if one opposed and condemned the invasion as immoral, once that bell has been rung it cannot be undone, and we’re thus forced to consider the ethics of how to act in a new, ugly situation. Isn’t 2,500 troops a “small price to pay” to preserve a nascent democracy and ensure a bloody war was not for nothing? That is a tempting position, and again one can have sympathy for it even if disagreeing, favoring full retreat. The counterargument is that choosing to leave a small force may preserve the nation-building project but it also incites terrorism against the U.S. We know that 9/11 was seen by Al-Qaeda as revenge for U.S. wars and military presences in Muslim lands, and the War on Terror has only caused more religious radicalization and deadly terrorist revenge, in an endless cycle of violence that should be obvious to anyone over age three. So here we see another dilemma: leave, risk a Taliban takeover, but (begin to) extricate yourself from the cycle of violence…or stay, protect the democracy, but invite more violence against Americans. This of course strays dangerously close to asking who is more valuable, human beings in Country X or Country Y, that old, disgusting patriotism or nationalism. But this writer detests war and nation-building and imperialism and the casualties at our own hands (our War on Terror is directly responsible for the deaths of nearly 1 million people), and supports breaking the cycle immediately. That entails total withdraw and living with the risk of the nation-building endeavor falling apart.

None of this is to say that nation-building cannot be successful in theory or always fails in practice. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, which like that of Afghanistan I condemn bitterly, ended a dictatorship; eighteen years later a democracy nearly broken by corruption, security problems, and the lack of enforcement of personal rights stands in its place, a flawed but modest step in the right direction. However, we cannot deny that attempting to invade and occupy a nation into a democracy carries a high risk of failure. For all the blood spilled — ours and our victims’ — the effort can easily end in disaster. (Beyond a flawed democracy and massive Iraqi civilian body count, our invasion plunged the nation into civil war and birthed ISIS.) War and new institutions and laws hardly address root causes of national problems that can tear a new country apart, such as religious extremism, longstanding ethnic conflict, and so on. It may in fact make such things worse. This fact should make us question the wisdom of nation-building. As discussed, you can “stay until the nation is ready,” which may mean generations. Then when you leave, the new nation may still collapse, as with Afghanistan, not being as ready as you thought. Thus a senseless waste of lives and treasure. Further, why do we never take things to their logical conclusion? Why tackle one or two brutal regimes and not all the others? If we honestly wanted to use war to try to bring liberty and democracy to others, the U.S. would have to bomb and occupy nearly half the world. Actually “spreading freedom around the globe” and “staying till the job’s done” means wars of decades or centuries, occupations of almost entire continents, countless millions dead. Why do ordinary Americans support a small-scale project, but are horrified at the thought of a large-scale one? That is a little hint that what you are doing needs to be rethought.

Biden — surprisingly, admirably steadfast in his decision despite potential personal political consequences — uttered shocking words to the United States populace: “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” Let’s hope that is true.

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When pondering which of our wars literally protected the liberties of U.S. citizens, it is important to first note that war tends to eradicate freedoms. Throughout U.S. history, war often meant curtailment of privacy rights (mass surveillance), speech rights (imprisonment for dissent), and even the freedom to choose your own fate (the draft).

It also should be stated upfront that this article is only meant to address the trope that “freedom isn’t free” — that military action overseas protects the rights and liberties we enjoy here at home (even if virulent bigotry meant different people had very different rights throughout our history and into our present). It will not focus on the freedoms of citizens in other nations that the U.S. may have helped establish or sustain through war, nor non-American lives saved in other countries. However, it will address legitimate threats to American lives (such a right to life is not de jure, but expected).

As a final caveat, I do not in any way advocate for war. That has been made exceptionally clear elsewhere. While violence may at times be ethically justified, in the vast majority of cases it is not, for a broad array of reasons. So nothing herein should be misconstrued as support for imperialism or violence; rather, I merely take a popular claim and determine, as objectively as possible, if it has any merit. To a large degree I play devil’s advocate. To say a war protected liberties back home is not to justify or support that war, nor violence in general, because there are many other causes and effects to consider which will go unaddressed.

In “A History of Violence: Facing U.S. Wars of Aggression,” I outlined hundreds of American bombings and invasions around the globe, from the conquest and slaughter of Native Americans to the drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere today. It would do readers well to read that piece first to take in the scope of American war. We remember the American Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and the War on Terror. But do we recall our bloody wars in Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, and the Philippines? Since its founding in 1776, 241 years ago, the United States has been at war for a combined 220 years, as chronicled by the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 91% of our existence has been marked by violence.

How many of those conflicts protected the liberties of U.S. citizens? How many years did the military literally defend our freedoms?

Well, what precisely is it that poses a threat to our freedoms? We can likely all agree that what qualify as freedoms are 1) rights to actions and words that can be expressed without any retribution, guaranteed by law, and 2) the total avoidance of miseries like enslavement, imprisonment, or death. Thus, a real threat to freedom would require either A) an occupation or overthrow of our government, resulting in changes to or violations of established constitutional liberties, or B) invasions, bombings, kidnappings, and other forms of attacks. If you read the article mentioned above, it goes without saying the U.S. has much experience in assaults on the freedoms of foreign peoples. Much of our violence was the violence of empire, with the expressed and sole purpose of seizing natural resources and strengthening national power.

So what we really need to ask is how close has the U.S. come to being occupied or U.S. citizens attacked? How many times have either of these things occurred? We must answer these questions honestly. Should it be said fighting Native American or Mexican armies protected freedom? No, the only reason our nation exists is because Europeans invaded their lands. We will include no war of conquest, from our fight with Spain over Florida to our invasion of Hawaii. We killed millions of innocent people in Vietnam. Were they going to attack America or Americans? No, we didn’t want the Vietnamese to (democratically) choose a Communist government. Now, you can believe that justifies violence if you wish. But the Vietnam War had nothing to do with defending our freedoms or lives. Neither did our invasion of Cuba in 1898. Nor our occupation of the Dominican Republic starting in 1916. Nor our wars with Saddam’s hopelessly weak Iraq. Nor many others.

Using this criteria, my estimate to the titular question is that only four wars, representing 19 years, could reasonably meet Qualification 1 (some also meet the second qualification). These conflicts protected or expanded our liberties by law:

The American Revolution (1775-1783): While the Revolution was partly motivated by Britain’s moves to abolish slavery in its colonies, it did expand self-governance and lawful rights for white male property-holders.

The War of 1812 (1812-1815): While U.S. involvement in the War of 1812 had imperialist motives (expansion into Indian and Canadian territories) and economic motives (preserving trade with Europe), Britain was kidnapping American sailors and forcing them to serve on their ships (“impressment”). This war might have simply been included below, in Qualification 2, except for the fact that Britain captured Washington, D.C., and burned down the Capitol and the White House — the closest the U.S. has ever come to foreign rule.

The Civil War (1861-1865): Southern states, in their declarations of independence, explicitly cited preserving slavery as their motive. Four years later, slavery was abolished by law. Full citizenship, equal protection under the law, and voting rights for all men were promised, if not given.

World War II (1941-1945): The Second World War could also have simply been placed in Qualification 2 below. Beyond freeing Southeast Asia and Europe from the Axis, we would say the U.S. was protecting its civilians from another Pearl Harbor or from more German submarine attacks on trade and passenger ships in the Atlantic. Yet it is reasonable to suppose the Axis also posed a real threat to American independence, the only real threat since the War of 1812.

Had Germany defeated the Soviet Union and Britain (as it might have without U.S. intervention), establishing Nazi supremacy over Europe, it is likely its attention would have turned increasingly to the United States. Between the threat of invasion from east (Germany) and west (Japan), history could have gone quite differently.

German plans to bomb New York were concocted before the war; Hitler’s favorite architect described him as eager to one day see New York in flames. Before he came to power, Hitler saw the U.S. as a new German Empire’s most serious threat after the Soviet Union (Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars). Some Japanese commanders wanted to occupy Hawaii after their attack, to threaten the U.S. mainland (Caravaggio, “‘Winning’ the Pacific War”). After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. did not declare war on Germany; it was the reverse. Japan occupied a few Alaskan islands, shelled the Oregon and California coasts, dropped fire balloons on the mainland, and planned to bomb San Diego with chemical weapons. Germany snuck terrorists into New York and Florida. The Nazis designed their A-9 and A-10 rockets to reach the U.S., under the “Amerika Bomber” initiative. Also designed were new long-range bombers, including one, the Silbervogel, that could strike the U.S. from space. Hitler once said, “I shall no longer be there to see it, but I rejoice on behalf of the German people at the idea that one day we will see England and Germany marching together against America.” While an Axis invasion of the United States is really only speculation, it has some merit considering their modus operandi, plus an actual chance at success, unlike other claims.

19 years out of 220 is just 8.6% (we’ll use war-time years rather than total years, erring on the side of freedom).

Qualification 2 is harder to quantify. U.S. civilians in danger from foreign forces is a far more common event than the U.S. Constitution or government actually being in danger from foreign forces. We want to include dangers to American civilians both at home and overseas, and include not just prolonged campaigns but individual incidents like rescue missions. This will greatly expand the documented time the military spends “protecting freedom,” but such time is difficult to add up. Many military rescue operations last mere weeks, days, or hours. The Centre for Research on Globalization’s list focuses on major conflicts. We’ll need one that goes into detail on small-scale, isolated conflicts. We’ll want to look not just at the metric of time, but also the total number of incidents.

But first, we will use the CRG list and its year-based metric to consider Qualification 2. The following wars were meant, in some sense, to protect the lives of U.S. citizens at home and abroad. They do not meet the first qualification. Conflicts listed in Qualification 1 will not be repeated here. Five wars, representing 36 years, meet Qualification 2:

The Quasi-War (1798-1800): When the United States refused to pay its debts to France after the French Revolution, France attacked American merchant ships in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

The Barbary Wars (1801-1805, 1815): The United States battled the Barbary States of Tripoli and Algiers after pirates sponsored by these nations began attacking American merchant ships.

The Anti-Piracy Wars (1814-1825): The U.S. fought pirates in the West Indies, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico.

World War I (1917-1918): The Great War nearly found itself in Qualification 1. After all, Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II made serious plans, in the 1890s, to invade the United States so it could colonize other parts of Central and South America. During World War I, Germany asked Mexico to be its ally against the U.S., promising to help it regain territory the U.S. stole 70 years earlier. However, invasion plans evaporated just a few years after 1900, and Mexico declined the offer. The Great War appears here for the American merchant and passenger ships sunk on their way to Europe by German submarines (not just the Lusitania).

The War on Terror (1998, 2001-2017): It is very difficult to include the War on Terror here because, as everyone from Osama bin Laden to U.S. intelligence attests, it’s U.S. violence in the Middle East and Africa that breeds anti-American terror attacks in the first place. Our invasions and bombings are not making us safer, but rather less safe by widening radicalism and hatred. However, though this predictably endless war is counterproductive to protecting American lives, it can be reasonably argued that that is one of its purposes (exploitation of natural resources aside) and that killing some terrorists can disrupt or stop attacks (even if this does more harm than good overall), so it must be included.

36 years out of 220 is 16.4%. Together, it could be reasonably argued that 25% of U.S. “war years” were spent either protecting our constitutional rights from foreign dismemberment or protecting citizen lives, or some combination of both.

But we can also look at the total number of conflicts this list presents: 106. Four wars out of 106 is 3.8%, another five is 4.7%. Let’s again err on the side of freedom and split the Barbary and Terror wars into their two phases, making seven wars for 6.6%. Adding 3.8% and 6.6% gives us 10.4% of conflicts protecting freedom.

Any such list is going to have problems. What does it include? What does it leave out? Does it describe the motivation or justification for violence? Does it do so accurately? Should recurring wars count as one or many? Does the list properly categorize events? This list labels U.S. forces violating Mexican territory to battle Native Americans and bandits as repeated “invasions of Mexico.” If Mexican forces did the same to the U.S., some of us would call it an invasion, others might rephrase. And couldn’t these incursions into a single nation be lumped together into a single conflict? Oppositely, the list lumps scores of U.S. invasions and occupations of most all Central and South American nations into a single conflict, the Banana Wars — something I take huge issue with. The solution to issues like these is to either create a superior list from scratch or bring other lists into the analysis.

Let’s look at “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad,” a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It is a bit different. First, it includes not just major conflicts but small, brief incidents as well, and it’s smarter about lumping conflicts together (no Banana Wars, no Anti-Piracy Wars, but the U.S. incursions into Mexico to fight Native Americans and bandits are listed as one conflict). Thus, 411 events are documented. Second, even this is too few, as the list begins at 1798 rather than 1776. Third, it does not include wars with Native Americans like the first list. This list is highly helpful because the CRS is an agency of the Library of Congress, conducting research and policy analysis for the House and Senate, and thus its justifications for military action closely reflect official government opinion.

We will apply the same standards to this list as to the last. We’ll include the nine conflicts we studied above if the timeframe allows, as well as any events that have to do with civilians, piracy, and counter-terrorism. We will thus modify 411 events in this way:

– 38 incidents/wars that involved “U.S. citizens,” “U.S. civilians,” “U.S. nationals,” “American nationals,” “American citizens,” etc.

– 9 incidents/wars related to “pirates” and “piracy” (does not include the rescue of U.S. citizen Jessica Buchanan, already counted above, nor Commodore Porter’s vicious 1824 revenge attack on the civilians of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, who were accused of harboring pirates)

– 6 official conflicts: the Quasi-War (“Undeclared Naval War with France”), two Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, and two World Wars (the Revolution does not appear on this list due to its timeframe; the Anti-Piracy Wars are included above, the War on Terror below)

+ 1 Civil War (it must be added, as it is not included on this list because it did not involve a foreign enemy)

– 27 incidents/wars related to combating “terrorism” or “terrorists”

That gives us 81 events that match Qualifications 1 and 2. 81 out of 412 is 19.7% — thus about one-fifth of military action since 1798 in some way relates to protecting Constitutional freedoms here at home or the right to life and safety for U.S. civilians around the globe. Of course, were we to only look at Qualification 1, we would have but three events — the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War II — that preserved or expanded lawful rights, or 0.7% of our wars since 1798.

The CRS list does not break down some incidents into times shorter than years, and documenting those that are by days, weeks, or months is an enormous chore for a later day. Thus the estimation for time spent defending freedom will have to come from the CRG list: 25% of the time the military is active it is involved in at least one conflict that is protecting freedom. Also, just for some added information, there are 20 years on the CRS list where there is not a new or ongoing incident. That’s since 1798. This is almost identical to the 21 years of peace since 1776 in the CRG analysis. So of the 219 years since then, we’ve spent 91% of our time at war, the same as the CRG list since 1776 (or trimmed to 1798).

(A list created by a professor at Evergreen State College goes from 1890-2017 and has five years of peace. We’ve been at war 96% of the time since 1890. It lists 150 conflicts, with only 3 having to do with rescues or evacuations of Americans [2%], 11 having to do with the War on Terror in Arabia and Africa in 1998 and after 9/11 [7.3%], plus World War I [0.6%]. That’s 9.9% for Qualification 2. Throw in another 0.6% for World War II, and thus Qualification 1, and we have 10.5% of conflicts since 1890 protecting freedom. Because this list begins so late, however, we will not use it in our averaging. Doing so would require us to trim the other lists to 1890, cutting out the piracy era, the Revolution, the Civil War, etc.)

Averaging the percentages from the two lists relating to total conflicts gives us 2.3% for Qualification 1 and 15% for Qualification 2. 17.3% all together. Trimming the CRG list to begin at 1798 yields about the same result.

In sum, it could be reasonably asserted that the U.S. military protects our freedoms and lives in 17.3% of conflicts. (If we take out the War on Terror for its deadly counter-productivity, which I would prefer, that number drops to 10.8%, with 17% of war years spent defending American freedom.)

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On October 2, 2015, Russia began dropping bombs in Syria, which has been engulfed in civil war since an uprising against brutal Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. Over 210,000 have died, and millions of refugees are fleeing to Europe.

Russia claimed to be targeting the Islamic State (ISIS), the extremist group that’s taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq, but the U.S. quickly accused Russia of focusing more on anti-Assad forces (which the U.S. is supporting) than ISIS (which the U.S. is bombing). Russia supports Assad, in the same way the U.S. has spent a century aiding the most murderous dictators in the Middle East and around the globe.

In reality, ISIS is an anti-Assad force, just one the U.S. doesn’t fund and arm. ISIS policy is to overthrow Assad and take the rest of Syria. So the Obama administration is both supporting and bombing anti-Assad forces, insisting it supports only “moderate” rebels.

But a classified Pentagon report from August 2012, exposed this past May, revealed the U.S. supported AQI, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other extremist groups in their fight against Assad (this was later acknowledged by the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency). The report predicted these extremists would combine to form something like the Islamic State, helpful in “unifying the jihad” against Assad, but warning it could “create grave danger” to the region. The military decided to continue supporting the extremists despite this risk.

The U.S. instantly condemned Russia for getting involved, declaring the deaths of civilians under Russian bombs “will only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”

The Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, while insisting U.S. drones were far more accurate than Russia bombers and thus didn’t kill as many innocents, said, “We believe if you inadvertently kill innocent men, women and children, then there’s a backlash from that…. We might kill three and create 10 terrorists. It really goes back to the question of are we killing more than we’re making?”

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Russia was “pouring gasoline on the fire,” warning the bombings would “backfire.”

These were all said with straight faces. If only they were honest warnings against making the same mistakes as the U.S., rather than an unhealthy mix of hypocrisy, historical amnesia, and nationalist lust to control global events. Everything the officials said was true, they just don’t believe it applies to the U.S.

Yet without question violent U.S. foreign policy creates new terror groups. The bloody U.S. bombing and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, which killed over 1 million people, attracted terrorists from throughout the Arab world, some of whom formed Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which later formed ISIS.

After September 11, 2001, intelligence officials warned the Bush administration that violence would breed more enemies. According to foreign policy intellectual Noam Chomsky (Hopes and Prospects), a Pentagon advisory panel, referring to a quote from Bush, said, “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather they hate our policies.” A CIA official in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden called the U.S. “bin Laden’s only indispensable ally” because how our wars fueled extremism.

Abu Musab Al-Suri, an Al-Qaeda strategist, said “the war in Iraq almost single-handedly rescued the jihadi movement.” Acting CIA director Mike Morell said in last month that Al-Qaeda’s “great victory” was the spread of its ideology in the last 14 years.

Looking back even further, bin Laden, originally waging jihad against the Soviets occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, declared war on the U.S. after U.S. military interventions in the Middle East in the 1980s and 90s.

In his 1996 “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and his 2002 “Letter to America,” bin Laden gave his justifications for violence: U.S. military bases near Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support for Israel, the massive death toll of innocent Muslim civilians in Somalia, Lebanon, and especially Iraq during and after the 1991 Gulf War (over 500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 died as a result of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Iraqi army was driven from Kuwait; U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeline Albright infamously said, “We think the price is worth it”).

Bin Laden wrote in 2002, “Why are we fighting and opposing you? …Because you attacked us and continue to attack us…. [Y]our forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them.”

The rest of the story is easy enough for Americans to remember: Al-Qaeda bombing the World Trade Center, American embassies, and an American warship in the 1990s, and finally the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.

This backstory does not serve to justify the atrocities committed by Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the like. It illustrates the cause-and-effect relationship of foreign military intervention and terrorism, how violence creates more violence.

Bombing Middle East nations, supporting brutal dictators, and aiding certain factions in a civil war could very well lead to Russia’s own 9/11.

And as for the U.S.? The day after it condemned Russia’s attacks, the U.S. bombed a hospital in Afghanistan, killing 22 people, including three children.

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