There have been a number of military “incidents” since World War II, obviously, but has any nation actually declared war on another since then? Is there anything to be gained (or lost) by actually doing so (or by not doing so)?
I would hazard that the Falkland Islands war between Britain and Argentina was a declared war.
I would hazard the same for the Six-Day war.
The Korean War isn’t even over yet. They’re just in a state of armistice for the past forty-something years.
Iran and Iraq probably considered their little spat back in the eighties to be a real war.
That said, I wouldn’t know where to look up the actual documents declaring that a state of war existed.
The Britannica calls the Falkland Islands War a “brief, undeclared war”.
Hmm…I know the Six-Day War was famous for beginning with a “pre-emptive strike”–was that followed by a formal “declaration of war” by anyone? I think the official position of the Arab states was that they didn’t recognize Israel as a legitimate state at all, so I don’t know that they would have “declared war” on it.
True in a sense, but the Korean War was, from an American point of view, the first of the post-WWII “undeclared” wars. And I don’t think either side locally “declared war” for the same reason Lincoln didn’t “declare war” on the Confederacy–both the North and the South claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all Korea, and did not recognize the other government’s legal existence.
Well, sure–they’ve all been real wars. (And the Geneva Conventions are careful not to make any distinction between “real” and “undeclared” wars: “…the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.”) The question is, have they been declared wars? Admittedly not anything you’d care much about if you were dying in one.
These two threads have discussed this issue
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=5117
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=69616
The consensus seemed to be that the last formal declaration of war was the one that the Soviet Union issued against Japan in 1945.
Well. Thanks, BobT, for pointing out the two previous threads. My apologies for asking this a third time (I guess searching is a good thing, eh?).
If I remember correctly I’ve heard that the U.S. had problems with the peace treaty to end WWI and never signed it, so TECHNICALLY we’re still at war with Germany. Could be an urban myth though.