See subject.
I’d say: Great Britain.
If I were guessing I’d say Persia/Iran. They’ve been a coherent nation for a long period of time and they’re located in an area where a lot of fighting and invading occurs.
Rome.
As John Keegan put it, every campaign season for hundreds of years, the Romans issued forth to wreak massive violence on their neighbors, in a way that, in retrospect, almost pathological.
Roman politicians, leaders, and eventually emperors often needed a conquest for domestic political purposes, and they did not shrink from drumming one up under the flimsiest pretenses.
Rome as a civilization lasted over 900 years as traditionally reckoned, and over most of that time fought wars for expansion as well as wars simply for political glory.
Here’s the wikipedia list for wars involving Rome. I count 75.
The list for Great Britian has about 100, but that includes a lot of border skirmishes and frankly non-military disputes (like the three Cod Wars for example).
Wiki has 113 for the Byzantine Empire but some of those could probably be argued.
How about: under a single ruler or Prince or Potentate (as they say). A triumvirate or similar would be OK.
I count about 37 wars by the UK during the reign of Victoria (1837-1901). There were about 33 during the reign of George III (1760-1820), although during the last 10 years of his life the country was under the regency of his son. I think these would be tough to beat.
My favorite from that list is the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which is the shortest war in history, clocking in at 40 minutes. Another good one is the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and the Cod Wars get an honorable mention.
The list for Rome is no where near complete. The Crisis of the Third Century is totally skipped, for example. That five years of Aurelian’s reign alone had at least four wars (and that’s grouping a couple related conquests togeather) that aren’t included.
Does Rome count as one nation? Two? Three? Or more?
There’s so much ambiguity in the question it’s utterly impossible to answer.
I also want to say Rome - as Sailboat points out, the Roman state didn’t just thrive on conquest, it was actively dependent on it, in no small part because if you didn’t give the Army something to do (and pay them to do it), they had a distressing tendency to depose whoever was in power. This was also long enough ago that ‘because they have stuff and we want it’ was a perfectly viable public justification for invading and conquering someone.
As for ‘silly wars missing from the lists’, I have to take this chance to give a shout-out to the Pig War of 1859.
OP here. Feel free to narrow the question. Everybody. That’s why they call it drift.
I would’ve said Rome. Rome was a continuous state that was fighting wars, usually on multiple fronts, for at least 800 years; arguably over 1000 years.
Regions like Persia and Palestine/Israel probably saw conflict for that length of time, but I doubt they meet the ‘continuous state’ part the way Rome did.
Why is it impossible to answer? There’s some subjectivity in what counts as a single ‘nation’ or ‘continuous state’ but nothing wrong with that.
I would say Rome counts as a continuous state from the founding of the Republic around 500 BC through to the end of the Western Empire around 400 AD, which is the best part of a millennium of near-constant wars on multiple fronts.
Interesting about Victoria. In my ignorance I think if that period as “Pax Brittanica”…but any empire has to fight to keep many if its colonies, for starters.
I’ll see your Pig War and raise you a Dog Tax War.