Military is one way we exercise national power, and both Dem and Repub administrations have used the **** out of it. Praying Mantis vs Iran in '80 and El Dorado Canyon vs Libya in '86 are two more not on your list. Additionally we have had small scale military peresence/activities, predominately non-kinetic, going on in central and south ameirca, the phillippines and other places1950-1953 Korea (continuous presence today)
1958-1958 Lebanon
1961 Cuba
1964-1973 Vietnam
1964-1973 Laos
1965-1966 Dominican Republic
1970-1970 Cambodia
1982-1984 Lebanon
1983 Grenada
1989 Panama
1990-1991 Kuwait/Iraq
1992-1995 Somalia
1994-1995 Haiti
1995 Bosnia
1999 Serbia/Kosovo
2001-2021 Afghanistan
2003-2011 Iraq
2011 Libya
2014-2021 Iraq
2014-Present Syria
This doesn’t include the ongoing Shadow-war in Africa or Venezuela
I personally think that there are good/legit reasons for using military force It's not always a bad thing from a selfish US perspective so the fact that we can produce a list isn't a negative in my mind in and of itself.
Reasonable people can look at this list and say "good" or "bad" or "in our national interest enough to use miltary force" or "not in our national interest enough" and disagree on it... and then disagree on if we did a "good job" or a "bad job" when we did.
Last edited: