Then & Now Force and War in U.S. Diplomacy

The United States has engaged in over 500 international military interventions since 1776, according to the Tufts Military Intervention Project. Sixty percent of those engagements took place in the second half of the 20th century, while a third of those missions happened in the first two decades of the 21st century.

For more than a century, the United States has used an increasing amount of military power, particularly after the Cold War ended. In the early 1900s, the Tufts Military Intervention Project recorded 15 instances where the U.S. used force as a form of diplomacy. By the early 2000s, that number more than doubled to 35 displays of force internationally.

In many ways, traditional diplomacy has given way to kinetic diplomacy. This describes the use of military force in place of diplomatic relations. One-third of all countries worldwide house U.S. ambassadors, while special operation forces are in 75 percent of all nations, a testament to how U.S. international relations lead with force.