United States: World Police?
FOREIGN EXCURSIONS OF U.S. MILITARY
by
Florian Zandt,
Aug 16, 2022
On August 15, 2021, Taliban troops took control of Afghanistan's capital Kabul after months of skirmishes and attacks, effectively ending the U.S.-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani. It also ended the United States' involvement in the country, with the last of its troops departing Afghanistan on August 30. As our chart shows, open military interventions by United States troops since the end of the Cold War mainly concentrated on North Africa and Western Asia.
Apart from its decades-long history with Afghanistan, one of the most high-profile examples of military intervention by the U.S. is its involvement in Iraq, from the 1991 Gulf War to air strikes and naval blockades over the following ten years and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The latter, in particular, has been widely criticized due to the questionable reasoning for the invasion. With no signs of the Iraqi government stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, even Republican presidential nominee John McCain called the operation a "mistake" in 2008. A more recent example in the area is the United States' activities during the Syrian Civil War. After years of indirect support, U.S. aircraft attacked Shayrat Airbase in April 2017. This became the first direct military operation aimed at the Syrian government by the North American country.
Concerning the African continent, the earliest direct military activity by the U.S. after the dissolution of the USSR took place in 1993 during UNOSOM II in Somalia, a humanitarian intervention turning into full-scale combat culminating in the Battle of Mogadishu. Other countries on the African continent where U.S. troops took part in open military warfare include Liberia, Sudan, Libya and Niger.
ttps://www.statista.com/chart/27992/countries-experiencing-direct-military-intervention-with-participation-of-us-troops-since-the-end-of-the-cold-war/
