There are only nineteen years since 1798 when the U.S. did not have armed forces engaged in military operations abroad, according to an updated tally from the Congressional Research Service. See Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2019, updated July 17, 2019.
The most recent year in which U.S. military forces were not used in a foreign conflict was 1979, according to the CRS. The CRS account does not reflect covert action, disaster relief, or training activities involving U.S. forces abroad.
Though there have only been 11 formal declarations of war, there have been hundreds of military actions including “extended military engagements that might be considered undeclared wars.”
“These cases vary greatly in size of operation, legal authorization, and significance,” CRS said. “Some actions were of short duration, and some lasted a number of years. In some examples, a military officer acted without authorization; some actions were conducted solely under the President’s powers as Chief Executive or Commander in Chief; other instances were authorized by Congress in some fashion.”
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Other noteworthy new publications from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
Critical Infrastructure: Emerging Trends and Policy Considerations for Congress, July 8, 2019
DOD’s Cloud Strategy and the JEDI Cloud Procurement, CRS In Focus, updated July 16, 2019
U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: An Overview, CRS In Focus, updated July 17, 2019
Immigration: Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Programs, July 8, 2019
Beneficial Ownership Transparency in Corporate Formation, Shell Companies, Real Estate, and Financial Transactions, July 8, 2019
Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress, July 11, 2019
The bootcamp brought more than two dozen next-generation open-source practitioners from across the United States to Washington DC, where they participated in interactive modules, group discussions, and hands-on sleuthing.
Fourteen teams from ten U.S. states have been selected as the Stage 2 awardees in the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC), a national competition that helps communities turn emerging research into ready-to-implement solutions.
The Fix Our Forests Act provides an opportunity to speed up the planning and implementation of wildfire risk reduction projects on federal lands while expanding collaborative tools to bring more partners into this vital work.
Public health insurance programs, especially Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), are more likely to cover populations at increased risk from extreme heat, including low-income individuals, people with chronic illnesses, older adults, disabled adults, and children.