In major operations outside the locality involved, the militia was not employed as a fighting force. Instead the colony asked for (and paid) volunteers, many of whom were also militia members.

In the early years of the British colonization of North America, military action in the thirteen colonies that would become United States were the result of conflicts with Native Americans, such as in the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip's War in 1675, and the Yamasee War in 1715.

Beginning in 1689, the colonies became involved in a series of wars between Great Britain and France for control of North America, the most important of which were Queen Anne's War, in which the British annexed French Acadia, and the final French and Indian War (1754–1763). This final war was to give thousands of colonists, including Virginia colonel George Washington, military experience which they put to use during the American Revolution

The British, for their part, lacked both a unified command and a clear strategy for winning. With the use of the Royal Navy, the British were able to capture coastal cities, but control of the countryside eluded them. A British invasion from Canada in 1777 ended with the disastrous surrender of a British army at Saratoga. With the coming in 1777 of General von Steuben, the training and discipline along Prussian lines began, and the Continental Army became a modern force. France and Spain then entered the war against Great Britain, ending its naval advantage and creating a world war.

A shift in focus to the southern American states resulted in a string of victories for the British, but guerrilla warfare and the tenacity of General Nathanael Greene's army prevented the British from making strategic headway. The main British army was surrounded by Washington's American and French forces at Yorktown in 1781, as the French fleet blocked a rescue by the Royal Navy. The American victory forced the British to sue for peace.

Since many Americans of the revolutionary generation had strong distrust of permanent (or “standing”) armies, the Continental Army was quickly disbanded after the Revolution. General Washington, who throughout the war deferred to elected officials, averted a potential crisis and resigned as commander-in-chief to Congress after the war, establishing a tradition of civil control of the U.S. military. BACK TO THE TOP

With the defeat of Napoleon, the British launched several invasions into the United States. British forces were occupying parts of the American south-west in modern day Louisiana when news of the Treaty of Ghent, which had been under talks for months, arrived, facilitating the end of the war. The end of the war led to a renewed sense of nationalism in the United States and Canada, who had both repulsed invasions of their adversaries. Britain, which had regarded the war as a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars raging in Europe, welcomed an era of peaceful relations and trade with the U.S.

In the Treaty of Paris after the Revolution, the British had ceded the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States, without consulting the Shawnee, Cherokee, Choctaw[7] and other smaller tribes who lived there. Because many of the tribes had fought as allies of the British, the United States compelled tribal leaders to sign away lands in postwar treaties, and began dividing up these lands for settlement. This provoked a war in the Northwest Territory in which the U.S. forces performed poorly; the Battle of the Wabash in 1791 was the most severe defeat ever suffered by the United States at the hands of American Indians. President Washington dispatched a newly trained army to the region, which decisively defeated the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795.

When revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain in 1793, the United States sought to remain neutral, but the Jay Treaty, which was favorable to Great Britain, angered the French government, which viewed it as a violation of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance. French privateers began to seize U.S. vessels, which led to an undeclared "Quasi-War" between the two nations. Fought at sea from 1798 to 1800, the United States won a string of victories in the Caribbean. George Washington was called out of retirement to head a "provisional army" in case of invasion by France, but President John Adams managed to negotiate a truce, in which France agreed to terminate the prior alliance and cease its piracy.

In 1801, the United States fought another undeclared war, this time with the city-state of Tripoli. When President Thomas Jefferson discontinued the custom of paying tribute to the Barbary States, the First Barbary War followed. After the U.S.S. Philadelphia was captured in 1803, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a raid which successfully burned the captured ship, preventing Tripoli from using or selling it. In 1805, after William Eaton captured the city of Derna, Tripoli agreed to a peace treaty. The other Barbary states continued to raid U.S. shipping, until the Second Barbary War in 1815 ended the practice.

By far the largest military action in which the United States engaged during this era was the War of 1812. When the United Kingdom and France went to war again in 1803 with renewed vigor, the United States sought to remain neutral while pursuing overseas trade. This proved difficult, and the United States finally declared war on the United Kingdom in 1812, the first time the U.S. had officially declared war. Not hopeful of defeating the Royal Navy, the U.S. attacked the British Empire by invading British Canada, hoping to use captured territory as a bargaining chip. The invasion of Canada was a debacle, though concurrent wars with Native Americans on the western front (Tecumseh's War and the Creek War) were more successful. After defeating Napoleon in 1814, the United Kingdom was able to send troops from Europe to America, leading to the burning of Washington on 25 August 1814, although the Chesapeake Bay Campaign was thwarted at the Battle of Baltimore. A second British offensive was defeated by Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. By this time, diplomats in Europe had worked out a peace treaty, restoring the status quo ante bellum.

The American Civil War caught both sides unprepared. Both the Union and the Confederacy had to build their armies practically from scratch. Both sides sought a quick victory focused on the respective nearby capitals of Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia, but neither side would surrender their national identity cheaply. Even after the First Battle of Bull Run, many were slow to accept that war would last much longer than a single campaign. However, it spilled across the continent, and even to the high seas. Much of the vast resources of America would be consumed before it would be resolved.

The American Civil War is sometimes called the "first modern war" due to the use of mass conscription, military railroads, trench warfare, submarines, ironclads, aerial reconnaissance, modern cartridge firearms, rifles, and machine guns. It introduced the modern world to the horrors of total war. BACK TO THE TOP

The conflict began officially on June 2, 1899, when the Philippines declared war against the United States and it officially ended on July 4, 1902, after President Emilio Aguinaldo's surrender.[10][15] However, members of the Katipunan society continued to battle the American forces. Among them was General Macario Sacay, a veteran Katipunan member who assumed the presidency of the proclaimed Tagalog Republic, formed on 1902 after the capture of President Aguinaldo. Other groups, including the Moro people and Pulahanes, continued hostilities until their defeat at the Battle of Bud Bagsak on June 15, 1913

Most notable of these conflicts was when U.S. forces occupied the Mexican city of Veracruz for over six months in 1914, in response to the April 9, 1914 "Tampico Affair", which involved the brief arrest of U.S. sailors by soldiers of the regime of Mexican President Victoriano Huerta. The incident came in the midst of poor diplomatic relations with the United States, related to the ongoing Mexican Revolution

In June 1900 Boxer fighters, lightly armed or unarmed, gathered in Beijing to besiege the foreign embassies. On 21 June the conservative faction of the Imperial Court induced the Empress Dowager Cixi, who ruled in the emperor’s name, to declare war on the foreign powers that had diplomatic representation in Beijing. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers and some Chinese Christians retreated to the Legation Quarter where they stayed for 55 days until the Eight-Nation Alliance brought 20,000 armed troops, to defeat the Boxers.

The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 ended the uprising and provided for severe punishments, including an indemnity of 67-million pounds[2] (450 million taels of silver, to be paid as indemnity over a course of 39 years) to the eight nations involved.

The Qing Dynasty was greatly weakened, and was eventually overthrown, by the 1911 revolution which led to the establishment of the Chinese Republic.

By summer 1918, a million American soldiers, or "doughboys" as they were often called, of the American Expeditionary Force were in Europe under the command of John J. Pershing, with 25,000 more arriving every week. The failure of Germany's spring offensive meant they had exhausted their manpower reserves and were unable to launch attacks or even defend their lines. Meanwhile, the German home front revolted and a new German government signed a conditional surrender, the Armistice, ending the war on November 11, 1918. BACK TO THE TOP

US involvement in World War II was initially limited to providing war material and financial support to the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and Republic of China. The US entered officially on 8 December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii the previous day. This attack was followed by attacks on US, Dutch and British possessions across the Pacific. On 11 December, the remaining Axis powers, Germany and Italy, declared war on the US, drawing the US firmly into the war and removing all doubts about the global nature of the conflict.

The loss of 8 battleships and 2000 sailors and airmen at Pearl Harbor forced the US to rely on its remaining aircraft carriers, which won a major victory over Japan at Midway just 6 months into the war, and its growing submarine fleet. The Navy and Marine Corps followed this up with an island hopping campaign across the central and South Pacific in 1943-45, reaching the outskirts of Japan in the Battle of Okinawa. During 1942 and 1943, the US deployed millions of men and thousands of planes and tanks to the UK, beginning with the strategic bombing of Nazi Germany and occupied Europe and leading up to the Allied invasions of occupied North Africa in November, 1942, Sicily and Italy in 1943, France in 1944, and the invasion of Germany in 1945, parallel with the Soviet invasion from the east. That led to the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945. In the Pacific, the US experienced much success in naval campaigns during 1944, but bloody battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945 led the US to look for a way to end the war with minimal loss of lives. The U.S. used atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to shock the Japanese leadership, which (combined with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria) quickly caused the surrender of Japan.

Despite the crippling effects of the Great Depression, the United States was able to mobilize quickly, eventually becoming the dominant military power in most theaters of the war (excepting only eastern Europe and mainland China), and the industrial might of the US economy is widely cited as a major factor in the Allies' eventual victory in the war. Early in the war, the US military was perceived by some observers to be too "green" and untested to be of much use other than cannon fodder against experienced German and Japanese troops (especially as their first major action against German forces resulted in the humiliating defeat at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass), but the US eventually acquitted itself well and established a modern military tradition. Strategic and tactical lessons learned by the US, such as the importance of air superiority and the dominance of the aircraft carrier in naval actions, continue to guide US military doctrine more than 60 years later.

World War II holds a special place in the American psyche as the country's greatest triumph, and the soldiers of World War II are frequently referred to as "the greatest generation" for their sacrifices in the name of liberty. Over 16 million served (about 13% of the population), and over 400,000 were killed during the war; only the American Civil War saw more Americans killed (although the majority of soldier deaths that were directly caused by the war were the result of disease). The US entered the war, like many other nations, as a country struggling with economic and social problems and unsure of its identity. It emerged as one of the two undisputed superpowers along with the Soviet Union, and unlike the Soviet Union, the US homeland was virtually untouched by the ravages of war. The importance of US military and political power in world affairs since 1945 cannot be overstated; the outcome of the war and the fortunes of the victors have shaped world events to this day.

During and following World War II, the United States and United Kingdom developed an increasingly strong defense and intelligence relationship. Manifestations of this include extensive basing of US forces in the UK, shared intelligence, shared military technology (e.g. nuclear technology) and shared procurement. BACK TO THE TOP

The war started badly for the US and UN. North Korean forces struck massively in the summer of 1950 and nearly drove the outnumbered US and ROK defenders into the sea. However the United Nations intervened, naming Douglas MacArthur commander of its forces, and US-ROK forces acting under the UN auspices held a perimeter around Pusan, gaining time for reinforcement. MacArthur, in a bold but risky move, ordered an amphibious invasion well behind the front lines at Inchon, cutting off and routing the North Koreans and quickly crossing the 38th Parallel into North Korea. As UN forces continued to advance toward the Yalu River on the border with Communist China, the Chinese crossed the the Yalu River in October and launched a series of surprise attacks that sent the UN forces reeling back across the 38th Parallel.[12] The UN leaders feared that the conflict would escalate into another world war, while MacArthur and U.S. President Harry Truman came into serious disagreement about military objectives and resolution of the conflict. MacArthur was later relieved of his command by Truman for insubordination, and negotiations beginning shortly after MacArthur's dismissal eventually resulted in a stalemate and armistice in 1953, with the two Koreas remaining divided at the 38th parallel. North and South Korea are still today in a state of war, having never signed a peace treaty, and US forces remain stationed in South Korea as part of US foreign policy.

Fighting on one side was a coalition of forces including the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam or the "RVN"), the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Participation by the South Korean military was financed by the United States, but Australia and New Zealand fully funded their own involvement. Other countries normally allied with the United States in the Cold War, including the United Kingdom and Canada, refused to participate in the coalition, although a few of their citizens volunteered to join the U.S. forces. The U.S. and its allies fought against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) as well as the National Liberation Front (NLF, also known as Viet communists Viet Cong), or "VC", a guerrilla force within South Vietnam. The NVA received substantial military and economic aid from the Soviet Union, turning Vietnam into a proxy war.

The U.S. framed the war as part of its policy of containment of Communism in south Asia, but American forces were frustrated by an inability to engage the enemy in decisive battles, corruption and incompetence in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and ever increasing protests at home. The Tet Offensive in 1968, although a major military defeat for the NLF with half their forces eliminated, marked the psychological turning point in the war. NLF forces appeared to be everywhere at once, even penetrating the US Embassy, Saigon, supposedly one of the most secure places in the country, and news anchor Walter Cronkite, in a famous broadcast from the battlefield, pronounced the war "unwinnable." After more than 57,000 dead and many more wounded, US forces withdrew in 1973 with no clear victory, and in 1975 South Vietnam was finally conquered by communist North Vietnam and unified. The chaotic evacuation of the US embassy in April 1975, as NVA forces closed in on the city, made for enduring images of desperate souls clinging to helicopter skids, trying to escape Communist rule. The war left Vietnam with many mines yet to be disarmed and many parts of the jungle destroyed by napalm and many civilians died with casualties in the millions and 800,000 dead for the NVN/Viet Cong. Even though the US is said to have won every major battle and killed up to thirteen times as many enemy combatants, many consider the war a defeat for America.

Even today, "Vietnam" is a politically divisive subject in the U.S. Some Americans view the Second Indochina War as a noble, if flawed, cause which limited and delayed communist expansion and conquest of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Others see the conflict as a quagmire; a waste of American blood and treasure in a conflict that did not concern US interests. Military service during Vietnam is still an issue in U.S. presidential campaigns, more than 30 years after US troops left the country, and fears of another "quagmire" have been major factors in U.S. military planning since 1975.

The attack on the US Marine barracks resulted in the single largest loss of life for the USMC since World War II.[citation needed]

In 2003, a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Islamic Republic of Iran was responsible for the attack.

Before the war, many observers believed the US and its allies could win but might suffer substantial casualties (certainly more than any conflict since Vietnam), and that the tank battles across the harsh desert might rival those of North Africa during World War II. After nearly 50 years of proxy wars, and constant fears of another war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, some thought the Gulf War might finally answer the question of which military philosophy would have reigned supreme. Iraqi forces were battle-hardened after 8 years of war with Iran, and they were well-equipped with late model Soviet tanks and jet fighters, but the anti-aircraft weapons were crippled; in comparison, the US had no large-scale combat experience since its withdrawal from Vietnam nearly 20 years earlier, and major changes in US doctrine, equipment and technology since then had never been tested under fire.

However, the battle was one-sided almost from the beginning. The reasons for this are the subject of continuing study by military strategists and academics. There is general agreement that US technological superiority was a crucial factor but the speed and scale of the Iraqi collapse has also been attributed to poor strategic and tactical leadership and low morale among Iraqi troops, which resulted from a history of incompetent leadership. After devastating initial strikes against Iraqi air defenses and command and control facilities on 17 January 1991, coalition forces achieved total air superiority almost immediately. The Iraqi air force was destroyed within a few days, with some planes fleeing to Iran where they were interned for the duration of the conflict. The overwhelming technological advantages of the US, such as stealth aircraft and infrared sights, quickly turned the air war into a "turkey shoot". The heat signature of any tank which started its engine made an easy target. Air defense radars were quickly destroyed by radar-seeking missiles fired from wild weasel aircraft. Grainy video clips, shot from the nose cameras of missiles as they zeroed in on impossibly small targets, were a staple of US news coverage and revealed to the world a new kind of war, compared by some to a video game. Over 6 weeks of relentless pounding by planes and helicopters, the Iraqi army was almost completely beaten but did not retreat, under orders from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and by the time the ground forces invaded on 24 February, many Iraqi troops quickly surrendered to forces much smaller than their own; in one instance, Iraqi forces attempted to surrender to a television camera crew that was advancing with coalition forces.

After just 100 hours of ground combat, and with all of Kuwait and much of southern Iraq under coalition control, US President George H. W. Bush ordered a cease-fire and negotiations began resulting in an agreement for cessation of hostilities. Some US politicians were disappointed by this move, believing Bush should have pressed on to Baghdad and removed Hussein from power; there is little doubt that coalition forces could have accomplished this if they had desired. Still, the political ramifications of removing Hussein would have broadened the scope of the conflict greatly, and many coalition nations refused to participate in such an action, believing it would create a power vacuum and destabilize the region.

Following the Gulf War, to protect minority populations, the US, Britain, and France declared and maintained no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, which the Iraqi military frequently tested. The no-fly zones persisted until the 2003 invasion of Iraq, although France withdrew from participation in patrolling the no-fly zones in 1996, citing a lack of humanitarian purpose for the operation.

Additionally, following the discovery of an aborted assassination plot aimed at former President George H.W. Bush, Navy ships bombed Iraqi intelligence facilities with cruise missiles in June 1993. BACK TO THE TOP

[Source: Wikipedia]