llmarinen,
"United States..... with more war-activities than anyone else??
Interesting question. I gave this some of thought.
If you mean all military interventions, big and small, you may be correct. The US has been involved in literally dozens of small/temporary military interventions such as Panama, Somalia, Lebanon, etc. A border line case might be Bosnia-Herzegovina which was viewed as largely a humanitarian effort and was NATO led.
If we are talking about major wars, that is, wars that involving the en-masse movement of men and materials then it depends on how far you want to go back into history. I admit I did not attempt to make a definitive study of this, but if we include wars that go back into the 18th century my gut feeling tells me that the British have probably fought more major wars than anybody else. Imperial Britain was almost everywhere in the world at one time or another and fought battles ranging from America, France, China, Sudan, India, Egypt, South Africa....well, you get the idea.
It is worth noting that through much of it's history the USA was isolationist.
If we are going to include modern times since let's say Vietnam the US has fought three major wars. The other two being the Gulf War and the Iraq War. The British fought in the last two as well and also the Falkland War which ties the Americans. However, if you include North Ireland as a war Britain takes the lead.
Curiously, Vietnam has been in three wars. They fought the Americans, China (1979) & Cambodia (1993) the last being responsible for removing the Khmer Rouge government of Pol Pot.
However, the only country to be unambiguously in four major wars is.....IRAQ! Iran, Kuwait, Gulf War and the Iraq War.
India and Pakistan have been in two major wars, 1965 & 1971, (and apparently came close to a third). And Israel has also been in two major Wars (1967 & Yom Kippur Wars), but then so have Syria, Jordan and Egypt. If you include the Egypt-Libya War then Egypt has been in three.
I did a pretty quick skim of the internet for this information. It's possible I've inadvertently omitted some conflicts. If some good samaritan wishes to add to the list they are more than welcome. |
