List of the lengths of American 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).

	War	Dates	Duration	Duration (graphical representation)
1.	Vietnam War	1955/11– 1975/04[1][2]	19.4 years (19 years, 5 months)
2.	War in Afghanistan	2001/10 –2016/12[3]	15.1 years (15 years, 2 months)
3.	Moro Rebellion	1899 – 1913	14 years
4.	Northwest Indian War	1785 – 1795	10 years
5.	Iraq War	2003/03 – 2011/12[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]	8.8 years (8 years, 9 months)
6.	American Revolutionary War	1775/04 – 1783/09	8.4 years (8 years, 5 months)
7.	Second Seminole War	1835-12 – 1842/08	6.7 years (6 years, 7 months)
8.	American Civil War	1861/04 – 1865/04	4 years
9.	World War II	1941/12 – 1945/08	3.7 years (3 years, 8 months)
10.	Korean War	1950/06 – 1953/07	3.1 years (3 years, 1 month)
11.	War of 1812	1812/06 – 1814/12	2.5 years (2 years, 6 months)
12.	War on ISIL	2014/06 – present	2.5 years (2 years, 5 months)
13.	Mexican-American War	1846/05 – 1848/02	1.8 years (1 year, 10 months)
14.	World War I	1917/04 – 1918/11	1.6 years (1 year, 7 months)
15.	Great Sioux War of 1876	1876/02 – 1877/05	1.2 years (1 year, 3 months)
16.	Spanish–American War	1898/05 – 1898/12	0.6 years (8 months)
17.	Persian Gulf War	1990/08 – 1991/02[11][12]	0.5 years (7 months)
18.	Kosovo War	1999/03 – 1999/06	0.3 years (118 days)

(Ongoing wars indicated in bold and with orange bars.) Sources: Associated Press,^[13] PBS^[14]

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".^[15] In 1973 Congress further clarified their role in authorized armed conflict with the passing of the War Powers Resolution.^[16]
• 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.^[17][18][19]
• 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.^{[20][21][22][23]}
• 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.)^[24] 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.^[25]
• 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.^{[26][27][28][29][30][31]}
• 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.^[14] Although the war itself ended in 1999, some US forces took part in peacekeeping and associated duties thereafter.^[32]

See also

• 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

1. DoD 1998
2. Lawrence 2009, p. 20
3. Knefel, John (7 January 2015). "Drone Rules in Afghanistan Go Unchanged, And Other Reasons the War Isn't Really Over". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
   Sennott, Charles M. (5 May 2015). "The First Battle of the 21st Century". The Atlantic. Retrieved 15 May 2015. Even after 14 years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has not fully succeeded in restoring security to the country or defeating the Taliban. Now, at the request of the new Afghan government, the United States has delayed the completion of its troop withdrawal from the country until 2016 at the earliest.
4. US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,452 Wednesday, according to Associated Press count
5. US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,452
6. Dan Simpson Why can't we stop our wars?
7. Robert Gates' Pentagon Legacy: Unfinished Wars, Unfinished Budget Reform
8. Obama May Face Tough Decision as Iraqi Leader Signals U.S. Troops Could Stay
9. Pentagon rethinks Iraq pull-out plans
10. Iraq Withdrawal Date For U.S. Troops May Be Pushed Back Beyond 2011
11. http://www.swords-to-plowshares.org/2012/08/03/our-longest-u-s-war-medical-treatments-for-gulf-war-illness-remain-elusive/
12. (33)The term "Persian Gulf War" means the period beginning on August 2, 1990, and ending on the date thereafter prescribed by Presidential proclamation or by law. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/38/101
13. U.S. Participation in Major Wars
14. PBS Frontline, A Kosovo Chronology
15. Declaration of war by the United States
16. War Powers Resolution
17. Herring, George C.: America's Longest War, p. 18.
18. Zinn, A People's History of the United States, p. 471.
19. Kolko, Gabriel Anatomy of War, pages 457, 461 ff., ISBN 1-898876-67-3
20. Delmendo 2004, p. 47.
21. Constantino 1975
22. Agoncillo 1990, p. 247
23. Iraq war is ending, with last troops out in 2011: Obama
24. 1991: 'Mother of all Battles' begins
26. Obama: Iraq war to end in 2011
27. Obama tells veterans that end of Iraq war is about to begin
28. Obama: 'The war is ending,' fulfilling campaign pledge
29. Obama Declares an End to Combat Mission in Iraq
30. US in Final Phase of Iraq War
31. Obama envoy secretly offered troops in Iraq after 2011
32. Kosovo Campaign Medal

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