67 Countries the U.S. Is Obliged to Go to War For

Pakistan?! A bilateral defense agreement with Pakistan made in 1959. They have a border with China, so that "bilateral" thing could be useful at some point. But since they have major beefs with India and vice versa, if the Indians were to go to war with Pakistan or, worse yet, nuke them, we'd be obliged by treaty to get involved? Apparently:

"In 1971, the US came very close to declaring war against India, in the backdrop of the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. US dispatched an entire carrier battle group against the Indian navy, which ironically, was what pushed Delhi into the Soviet arms. Mutual defense treaty was hurriedly signed, after which the Soviets dispatched their naval assets, after which the US de-escalated, wanting to prevent further hostilities."

Well, at least our pact with New Zealand has expired. Whew! That was close.

https://mentalfloss.com/article/65816/67-countries-us-obliged-go-war

I always thought you guys would go to war if any attack was made by a third party on anything in South America - I seem to recall reading that goes back a long way but cant be bothered to look it up on Wiki.

JUst the same as British foreign policy was always to stop any single power controlling Europe. We worry more an=bout the French than the Russians. We have fough the French for most of our history - the Russians are relative newcomers in terms of Anglo-European conflict

Right now- every soldier I know in Afganistan, Kuwait and South Korea wants to go defend the Bahamas...

fyrwrxz said:

Right now- every soldier I know in Afganistan, Kuwait and South Korea wants to go defend the Bahamas...

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As a Soldier, I would support this interdiction. Either that or the Virgin Island would be acceptable.

BigRiJoe said:

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/us-israel-treaty-peace-middle-east-91358.html

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The author's reason given in the full report for including Israel even though there's no formal agreement:

I make two additions to this list. First, I extend the dates of the U.S.-Taiwan alliance from 1954 to the present because the Taiwan Relations Act arguably constitutes “the functional equivalent” of a defense pact.70 Second, I count Israel as a “de facto” ally because U.S. leaders, beginning with President John F. Kennedy in 1962, have pledged to defend Israel from attack.71

Astro-Baby said:

I always thought you guys would go to war if any attack was made by a third party on anything in South America - I seem to recall reading that goes back a long way but cant be bothered to look it up on Wiki.

JUst the same as British foreign policy was always to stop any single power controlling Europe.

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Besides the major "sphere of influence" concerns for the same reasons as the British, the United Fruit Company's interests was one of the primary reasons for early 20th century US military aid and involvement and, later, "covert" CIA aid and CIA inspired coups of democratically elected leaders in the south and central Americas to counter socialist inroads there.

Covert United States foreign regime change actions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

United States Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history having won two Medals of Honor can speak to the United Fruit era:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

I really wish we could take better care of us before we go off trying to save everyone else.
I lived in Ramadi, Iraq and the surrounding areas for a year and look at it now.
Detriot could use some help, and I hear that crime and violence is pretty bad in places like Chicago.

Well there is one huge inaccuracy with this map. OAS (Organization of American States,) does NOT bind us to mutual defense. That job goes to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (AKA: Rio Pact.) It used to cover all the same countries as OAS did, but as of 2012, 5 members have bowed out. Mexico did so in 2002 over the at the time anticipated Iraq war, and the 4 members of the ALBA block of countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela) did in 2012-2014. Of those five, only Ecuador is still obligated to honor it (As it officially takes 2 years to pull out and they denounced the treaty in Feb of 2014.)

We are really good at getting into conflicts, but horrible at getting out of them. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan--will we EVER get out of the Middle East? I think the only places where military force was used since WWII that we are no longer occupying is Bosnia/Kosovo, Panama and Grenada. The USAF has flown combat missions CONTINUOUSLY since 1991 (Op DESERT STORM). Now with our ISIS response where it is, I expect we will be dropping bombs in anger & endangering SOF forces in that region for many years to come.

We are almost constantly a nation at war, or a nation with warfighters constantly at war and a society largely ignorant of the sacrifices made on their behalf. Is this really what our military needs to be doing in the best interest of our nation/world? Seems our historical use of military force just creates more enemies than solving anything.

We will always be "at war" there until we accept that we cannot change their way of life to match what we find acceptable. Personally I think if we pulled out of most of these places they would kill each other off and then the winners would likely be someone we could do business wit. That is what it really is all about - business (oil).

or

We take the position of screw world opinion and stomp them into the ground. I mean (to paraphrase the impersonation of Walter Cronkite by Don Imus) "And the hell with these high tech battlefield love taps, let's wheel out the big guns. The ones that smoke the needles on seismographs in Antarctica when they go off. That will get their attention. If not, we can drill through glass.

Sadly, too many of our best and brightest are fighting and dying to support a nonsensical political theory that we can win these peoples hearts and souls. I don't think we can.

I agree with Al 100%. When I was in 5th grade (yes, dinosaurs still roamed the earth) I had an extended talk with my Geography/History teacher about the Middle East. Sadly we both agreed the fighting of 2000 years (remember-Israel was created in 1948) would most likely continue, if not for religious reasons, then for water rights. Almost 6 decades later there has been no improvement. Bring our boys home and let them fight it out amongst themselves. We won't be happy with any outcome anyway.
("smoke the needles...drill thru glass" indeed-LMAO! Thanks Al!)