USA is 249 Years Old and Only 16 Years of No Conflict or War

Picture someone handing you a history book and telling you to flip to any page and find a year where the United States wasn't fighting somebody, somewhere. Chances are, you would struggle.

Out of 249 years since a group of tired, idealistic men signed their names to a declaration in Philadelphia, America has known a few years of what you could honestly call peace. Some historians argue 5 years and some political scientists say possibly scattered throughout two and half centuries and counting months maybe up to 16 years. That's less than seven percent of the whole American story.

Think about that for a second.

You might think that kind of wound would slow a country down. Make it cautious. Humble, a country and it's politicians. It didn't, wars and conflict made it part of it's historical government and educational mindset, its culture of who they are.

USA has been at war or conflict directly or indirectly or via proxy war within the following periods:

• The Founding Era (1776–1800)
• The Early Republic (1800–1815)
• Expansion Era (1815–1860)
• Civil War & Reconstruction (1860–1877)
• Imperial Expansion Era (1870–1900)
• Early 20th Century (1900–1941)
• Cold War Era (1945–1991)
• Post–Cold War & War on Terror (1991–Present)

The following years are the only periods that USA was in somewhat peace:

• 1793
• 1807
• 1858
• 1871
• 1935
• 1936

There are different ways to feel about all of this, and honestly, all of them are understandable.

Some people look at this history and see a nation that was built on hunger for land, for influence, for dominance, and never really learned to stop such hunger.

A country at war for 93 percent of its existence isn't accidentally ending up in conflicts. Something structural is at work, the nature of a great power, or the influence of industrial military complex that profit from war, or a national identity from revolution, and never fully made peace with stillness and calm.

The American story is scrappy, enormous ideals, real moments of courage, generosity and reinvention. But, through all of it is the sound of gunfire. So constant, so unbroken, that most people stopped hearing it as anything unusual at all. Throughout USA, gun violence is problematic everywhere, in all 50 states. USA is a dangerous society.

The American mindset of guns and violence.

That might be the most striking part of the whole story. Not that it happened, but how ordinary conflicts, proxy wars, and direct wars came to feel normal for America.