As of this afternoon the US is actively at war* with both Assad’s regime and ISIS. At the same time the US launching missiles at Syrian government airbases it is also engaged in a ground and air campaign against ISIS outside of Raqqa. The same airbase that was captured by ISIS a few years ago from the Syrian government.
Has there been another time in US history when American armed forces (rather than proxies, trained or armed by the US) were actively at war with opposing sides in the same conflict?
Yes, technically the US has not declared war but that doesn’t make it less of a war
Because until recently, war was between two or more countries. Sides were only in a civil war. Then, the Korean war was officially a Police Action, the Vietnam was not officially declared, but War on Nouns (Drugs, terrorism) was declared.
Really ? Lots of terrorist/patriot groups attack and murder drug-dealers.
Usually for ‘purification’. However, like the republican and loyalist groups in Ulster, sometimes they move into the game themselves.
Officially though they echo state propaganda and denounce drug use.
The US never officially declared war on Finland. (But who cares about official declarations anymore?) Despite Finland being at war with the USSR and allied with Germany.
The US broke off diplomatic relations with Finland in June, 1944. The US also seems to have attacked the nickel mines in Petsamo by air.
Things changed in Sept. 1944 when Finland switched sides under USSR pressure and started fighting the Germans in the Lapland War. Despite this, the US still considered Finland something of a hostile state and didn’t restore diplomatic relations until later. The situation wasn’t completely cleared up until the 1947 Paris treaty. In that, Finland was assigned some blame for the war and had to pay reparations to the USSR.
The status of Hungary late in the war might have been similar.
I don’t know of a case of direct combat between US and Finnish forces. The British definitely struck at Petsamo, and USAAF transports carried Norwegian forces to the area (far north Norway next door) after Finland switched sides. Specific incident in mind, and were Finnish forces actually involved as opposed to the Germans?
The USAAF definitely engaged in combat with Romanian AF a/c though on a number of occasions striking targets in Romania, not only Luftwaffe a/c. And then Romania also switched sides in same general time frame as Finland and unlike Finland the Romanians actively participated in the war against Germany outside their own borders (Finnish forces’ clashes with the Germans were in kicking them out of Finland). The Romanian Army was the fourth biggest Allied army on VE Day. The US did formally declare war on Romania, but we’re saying formal declaration is secondary.
But anyway that was Finland and Romania being on both sides, not the US being on both sides.
The US was on different ‘sides’ during the Mexican Revolution. There was the invasion at Vera Cruz in 1914 against the Huerta govt, but then later the raid into Mexico in 1916 against Pancho Villa, who had been part of the resistance to the Huerta govt though he was more of a bandit and less of a political force by then.
I’m sure other examples can be found, but would tend to be the result of applying ‘it’s a war no matter what you call it’ to any and all foreign military interventions whether against fully formed governments or not. Korea and Vietnam were wars because of the scale. Firing some missiles, or the numerous US boots-on-ground interventions in Latin America were not all necessarily wars in the same sense. IOW while indeed it’s arbitrary to say ‘war’ just depends on whether there was a declaration, it can get kind of arbitrary also to call all military actions/interventions/occupations of any scale ‘wars’, especially against factions not unified governments.
As far as I know the US didn’t actively get involve in any civil wars in Africa during the Cold War. But on a few occasions in Africa (as well as in Cambodia) there were cases of pro-Western, pro-Chinese, and pro-Soviet forces all fighting each other.
Unlike other groups with terrorist tendencies, IS controls territory. I’d say that while one might not be able to go to war with groups that don’t control territory, once a group does then the term is definitely on the table, whatever the group’s official country status.
When the United States invaded Northern Mexico in the Mexican Expedition during the Mexican Revolution to capture Pancho Villa in retaliation of his invasion of US soil the United States found itself opposed both by Pancho Villa’s rebel army but also by the actual Mexican government (who themselves had been fighting Pancho Villa’s rebel army a well) Since the Mexican territory invaded was held by Pancho Villa’s forces the US assumed the Mexican government would have no qualms with the US rooting out the rebels but instead the Mexican Government sent out troops deliberately to intercept the US Army.
After a month of skirmishes with both Pancho Villa’s rebels and the Mexican government troops and fearing an all-out war between the United States and Mexico the United States decided to retreat to the Mexican border but still in Mexican territory to hold positions there. They still engaged in skirmishes with both Mexican rebel and government troops but since they weren’t actively moving further inland into Mexico the Mexican government decided negotiations instead of armed force were the best way to get the Americans out of Mexico which eventually happened.
That is the closest example, but it wasn’t simultaneous. The Veracruz invasion had been over for a couple of years before the Pacho Villa Expedition, when Pershing crossed the border no US troops or ships were still engaged with the Mexican government troops.
I also thought of that, but were US troops in Russia ever simultaneous engaged against two different factions that were at the time also fighting each other?
My other thought was, how universally observed was the Brest-Litovsk peace? During the time of the Allied intervention in Russia (prior to the armistice) did the Bolsheviks or their allies ever attack the Germans? (who were of course at the war with the Allies on the Western front).
I think you go too far in saying that the US is, as of now, at war in Syria on two sides. That’s not true, at least from the US point of view. A punitive strike doesn’t equal war.
We have been bombing and attacking Syrians in Syria for a long time now, including having some US forces on the ground in support roles. Nominally this has all been against ISIS, however, since it has been US policy to oppose Assad through now three American Presidents at least, calling this action a change requires a subtle judgement.
And remember that in Syria and many other US military activities in other nations, the people who we have arranged to have on our “side” have often not been true friends, they have instead been convenient mutual enemies to our enemies.
The old (idiotic) adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” has NEVER been true, and is recognized as a political subterfuge, even by those in power who have pretended that it is.
We nominally sided with many groups which evolved into Al Qaeda, back in the 1980’s , because they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. As someone else pointed out, the fledgling US often played one “Indian” tribe against another during our many wars on American soil. The mess in Syria has long been closer to those events, than to anything which we have called an actual “war.”
BTW, has anyone come up with an informative digraph or Venn diagram for the multi-faction Syrian conflict? I don’t think the U.S. is the only faction which is fighting its enemy’s enemy.
The U.S. was strongly, but secretly, allied with Afghanistan drug dealers in the 1980’s during the War against Drugs. The Taliban outlawed opium production in 2000 and barely a year later, the U.S. attacked the Taliban, with the effect of regaining the country for the drug-dealing warlords.
It was an significant attack by the armed forces of one country on the armed forces of another country, on that countries soil. Regardless of how it might be spun, that is an act of war. Calling it a “punitive strike” or a “police action” (or the fact that Syria is not a in a position to retaliate in kind right now) does not make it less an act of war.