It seems like Trumps mind is basically some sort of madlibs gone wrong or perhaps a tiny homunculus in front of a large piece of paper subdivided into partitions with various words scrawled onto it where he throws darts at it to see what sticks and this forms an incoherent but emergent sentence
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Vietnam was not technically a war, but historians call it a war… because it was. Are all those historians wrong? By that I mean, literally almost all my cold war colleagues that study vietnam?
Also, they are literally called the banana wars BY historians. Lester Langley’s work called them a war, a historian of Latin American policy. Again, is he wrong?
so maybe some whig historians would not call them war out of some misguided attempt to be “accurate” (and other historians will acknowledge the language of the time, while pointing out the reasons to call these actions a war), but many historians since the 1960s would indeed call them wars, because people who study American imperialism recognize that the language used at the time are often doing so in order to soft-peddle mass slaughter. War can put things into a context that recognizes the unspoken reality of an event, like Vietnam, like the Indian Wars, like the Banana wars, that the US employed military force to impose it’s will on weaker powers.
Being a historian isn’t just about establishing facts, it’s about making arguments about the past in order to make better sense of it.
So this idea that no reputable historian would call these words is not correct. Some of a more conservative bent might not, but plenty historians would.
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A historian might call the Banana Wars a war, but my point is in regards to the entire list, which describes everything from the Yellowstone Expedition to the navy protecting trade routes from pirates to non-military skirmishes in pre-annexation Texas as “the US being at war.”
Vietnam was absolutely a war, just not a de jure one. The same goes for the Korean “police action” and the Quasi-War with France. My distinction isn’t legalistic. A de facto war is still a war.
Considering the Banana Wars as a war is a useful perspective, and I’d agree that much of what occurred during that period does constitute war. The term encompasses a variety of military/foreign/trade policies over half a continent. The sole purpose of the list is to state exactly how many years the US has been at war. Describing the entire 30+ year period as “the US being at war” is misleading without more context.
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Or in some sort of violent conflict that from a modern perspective might be considered a war.
War, like any other term, has a history itself. The meaning of the term changes over time, and somethings NOT considered wars (because they were waged against people not considered to be a historical people) then might be so considered today.
And as for the article, well, it’s not a thesis or dissertation. It’s meant to highlight the violent nature of American imperialism in an understandable way for a lay audience. While ever single action noted might not be considered a “war” by some arbitrary definition that will likely change over time, the violent nature of American empire needs to be highlighted and laid bare for everyone. If this helps people look at our history, and maybe being to question if “we’ve been the baddies” then maybe it’s helpful. I’m far less interested in nailing some technical accuracy when discussing things far more nebulous than war such as American Empire, which a large percentage of Americans still deny. Pointing out the nature of American empire with a language that’s approachable helps in that regards, I’d argue.
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Ok, but while the meaning of words may change, words still have meaning. There’s no current or past definition of war that would include the Yellowstone Expedition, and the word would have to be stretched to near uselessness to describe anti-piracy measures as “being at war.”
Ok, but click-baity hyperbole that is more concerned with being persuasive than being accurate is the wrong way to do it. Broadening the definition of a word beyond its common, technical, or historical usage (without explicitly saying so) is not only dishonest, but not even necessary given that you can get to the same place with the truth.
Also, this is being shared in a context (the BB BBS) where most people (including myself) will agree with the underlying point. While it may be useful in getting people who have never considered the effects and methods of American imperialism to ask “are we the baddies,” when preaching to the choir it will just end up being misleading.
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Perhaps not, but it would most certainly qualify as being under the larger umbrella of the Indian Wars, which pretty much lasted from the colonial period to the 1920s. It’s a military action designed to secure a military outpost out west. It’s easy to see the various movements of the US military as well as active wars as discrete, disconnected conflicts but the reality is that the Indian wars were very much interconnected, as one was often based on the conclusion of a previous conflict.
But this seems to be the list he’s using and the Yellowstone expedition isn’t listed? Nor did I see it listed in the article itself? 
As for the rest of this list, from what I understand of wikipedia’s processes regarding historical events, they like to have at least a couple of reputable secondary sources (academic sources, I think). So, the author of the article is depending upon that list to create his list of years we’ve been at war. if you have a quibble, then it’s with wikipedia, not necessarily the author, who I assume is counting on wikipedia to have an accurate list.
Well, first the author is not a historian, but a prof in actuarial science. Hence he’s not looking at a secondary source itself to define war, but rather a curated list based on a variety of secondary sources. But some of his view is likely a case of him having a hammer and everything being a nail. That’s how he processes the world, via his field of study, and so things that are more complex get simplified in a way that makes sense through that. I agree that can be problematic, but then again, such number crunching via digital means is kind of fashionable right now in history.
Is it, though? I suspect that even people informed of American history to some extent probably haven’t thought about the breadth and depth of the conflicts we’ve been involved. Nor does much of a lay audience view the conquest of the west as that, a violent, imperial conquest. Putting the Indian Wars especially into a “war time” context very much highlights the imperial context and is a far more accurate representation of what did happen, IMHO (note that I’m not a historian of the west or the 19th century and much of my 19th century US history training is focused on the east and immigration more so than western history, so take that as you will). Maybe the point isn’t to preach to us, but to make a point about the violence and brutality of the American system to those who aren’t in our choir, as it were.
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Couple of notes on this… the wikipedia itself is up for dispute, some of which seems to debate the issue of the meaning of war, by noting a specific (and disputed) argument about what we mean by war…
For whatever that is worth.
Here is another discussion from Ask a Historian subreddit:
[ETA] A second thread on that!
More talk here:
So… hotly disputed, with more conservative estimates not wishing to include anything that is not an official declared war (which privileges nation-states in the narrative) to those who want to include basic military logistics as a war time action, as they are an aggressive expression of US imperial power.
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Don’t worry, the media is smart enough to ignore politicians’ lies and instead publish only information that the scientific community at large agrees on, even if it means fewer eyeballs and less ad revenue. Right?
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We are in a country that has named policy “war on the poor” (oh sorry poverty), “war on drugs”, and war on illegal immigrants.
Are those to be counted … or are those merely words with no meaning ?
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He’s already caused one documented death. By the end, it will be a safe presumption that a percentage of deaths is on Donnie personally. He crippled our ability to respond because Obama and then sat on doing anything because he was afraid of looking bad. Anyone who thinks those are good acts or acceptable reasons for Donnie’s acts, well, they’re too stupid for a response.
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