Perpetual Wars has been the posture of the US government since the thirteen colonies were established. In fact, that is how it all began; implementing a goal of total genocide of the Indian tribes in their way of colonization. It was called Western Expansion lasting into the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. At the time there also was the Spanish Empire who possessed most of the lands to the south and west of the newly founded United States of America. Methodically, as the Spanish Empire was declining, the US took Florida and parts of the current south. They also took 35 million acres of land from Indian tribes in what was called the Yazoo Land Fraud of the 1790’s. This stolen land became the northern part of Alabama and the state of Mississippi. The fraud became a scandal which was finally settled by the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS)in Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch.) 87 (1810). Besides settling the case, SCOTUS also took the bold step in ruling that a state law could be found unconstitutional by them.  But the more important case on this matter of the Yazoo land fraud and scandal was Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.)543 (1823) which held that private citizens could not purchase Indian lands. The most important legal point was taking the ancient rule called the “Doctrine of Discovery” and incorporating its principles into US law.

Briefly, the Doctrine of Discovery evolved from a series of Papal Bulls, as the edicts by Catholic Popes are termed. These Papal Bulls authorized the European powers, namely Portugal and Spain, to conquer and take possession of lands in the hands of non-Christians. The first such Bullia Dum Diversas,  was issued by Pope Nicholas V to Portugal’s King Afonso V. King Afonso was also known as the King of Africa since his military had conquered and taken large parts of northern Africa during his reign. This Bullia  gave Portugal the right to subjugate the heathens found in foreign lands, convert them to Catholicism, impose perpetual servitude on them, take their belongings and lands, and use them for the conqueror’s gain and that of his successors and the King of Portugal. This Papal Bull also began the Atlantic slave trade. In 1493, came a series of Bullia under Pope Alexander VI. The first one, Inter Caetera divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. The second and third Bullia were Eximiae devotionis and Dudum siquidem. All was settled by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. This division of the New World between these two European powers was also endorsed by Pope Julius II in 1506 with his own Bullia Ea quae pro bono pacis. The only Portuguese colony in the America became Brazil. The Catholic Popes have been most complicit in the colonization of the Americas and slavery but are seldom blamed as much as the Spanish are. But that is another story. 

Needless to write, these dicta from the Catholic Papacy meant nothing to the Protestant European powers. Leading to confrontations with those in the American colonies and Indians as well. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson, as US Secretary of State, declared the Doctrine of Discovery to be international law applicable to the US government. George Washington, as President, had sent military forces to the Northwest Territory two years earlier to engage Indians over those lands. And, two years later in 1794, US General Anthony Wayne took US troops known as the Legion of the United States forced the Indians into the Treaty of Greenville (1795). This treaty made many Indian tribes sign on to cedeing their lands all the way to the Mississippi River, present day Chicago, present day Ohio, and the Great Lakes.  Then, came the US move into the South and the beginning of the Yazoo Land Fraud. Finally, as noted above, the matter was settled by the McIntosh case wherein SCOTUS made the Doctrine of Discovery applicable to US law.

Still hungry for more land and expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the US turned to France with an offer to buy the lands the French claimed in the US, basically the Midwest of the US today. Earlier in Europe France had been taken over by Napoleon Bonapart III. Spain who owned the Midwest at the time had refused to sell to the US sought help from Napoleon III for protection against the English. Napoleon III acquiesced and sent troops and removed the Spanish King Ferdinand VII. Eventually his older brother, Joseph Bonaparte, became the new King of Spain in 1804. The year before, Napoleon III had sold these lands to the US which became known as the Louisiana Purchase. For the sum of $15 million dollars paid to France, the US took possession of half a billion acres of lands, 530,000,000 acres spread over 828,000 sq. miles. More importantly, the US now controlled the mighty Mississippi River on both of its sides down to New Orleans, Louisiana.  

In 1565, the Spanish had established St. Agustine, Florida as their possession.  The Seminole Indians had begun to offer refuge to fleeing African slaves coming across the new US border with Spanish Forida along the 31^st parallel.  In 1812, the US waged war against the United Kingdom when it sought to retake the American colonies now states. This became known as the War of 1812. The US won over the British for the second time.  General George Mathews invaded Florida to “protect American interests.” In 1819, US General Andrew Jackson invaded Florida once again. Spain and the US reached a settlement over this land in the Adams-Onis Treaty. It gave the US rights to the Oregon territory (Article 3) and Florida (Article 2) and Spanish rights to Texas and the Mid and Southwest (Article 3). Despite these agreed upon terms, the US encouraged migration into Texas to claim available lands which they did resulting in their successful insurrection against newly formed Mexico in 1835. A decade later, the US invaded Mexico in 1846 taking the Southwest under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of February 2, 1848. The US now had expanded to its continental size from ocean to ocean. All was not well within the elite factions in control of the US economy and government. The issue was slavery south of the Mason-Dixon line (the Confederacy) and industrialization in the northern states (the Union). The US engaged in a war with each other known as the Civil War from April 12, 1861 to May 26, 1865. Texas refused to abide by the Emancipation Proclamation. US General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, Texas a month later and threatened to take over the state and make it comply. This became Juneteenth Day as of June 19, 1865 and has since become a national holiday.   Still not satisfied, the US together again declared war on decrepit Spain on April 21, 1898. The war was over by August 13^th of that same year. Spain under the Treaty of Paris, gave up Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the US. The US was now a world power with reach across both oceans and the rest of the Americas.

The 1900s saw much US military action across the globe. World War I against Germany and Austria-Hungary, World War II (WWII) against Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania). After WWII,  the US waged war on Korea, known as the beginning of the Cold War, then Vietnam and the Gulf War. After September 11, 2001 the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, the US initiated the War on Terror (WT). This new war led to direct US military involvement against Afghanistan, Iraq twice, and Syria. This was followed up a second War on Terror in Somalia, Syria once more, and Yemen. Despite claims of victory by the US, it is doubtful that any such victory occurred. Simultaneously, there have been two other non-military wars fought by the US, the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. Neither has been won by the US. IN 2025, we are knee deep in supporting militarily the war in Russo-Ukrainian War, the Israeli War on Gaza which is tantamount to genocide by Israel with much complicity by the US. The US has contributed more than $21.1 billion in arms to Israel to exterminate the Palestinian people.

The answer to the question of why has the US not won these many wars is simple. It does not seek to win but to make money off the sale of arms, drugs and intelligence to any country, our ally or not. The Defense Industry, as President Eisenhower warned about, is the giant military complex dependent on Department of Defense (DOD) contracts to earn billions in profits. Part of those profits is return via campaign contributions or political action committee donations to benefit the Congressional leaders who annually inflate the DOD budget. The current budget pending Congress re-opening for 2026 business for the DOD is $1.01 trillion; a 13.4% increase over 2025. Regrettably, 17 Democrats this October 2025 voted in favor of a $925 billion DOD budget, less than it was in 2024, it remains a huge amount of money to continue Perpetual Wars forever. Also note the monies for  other militarized law enforcement agencies like ICE and Border Patrol are in other budgets, not DOD.

The DOD budget is larger than that of any other country in the world. Compare this for 2024: US DOD budget was $997 billion; China’s was $314 billion; Russia was $149 billion; Germany was $88.5 billion; India was  $86.1 billion; the United Kingdom was $81.8 billion; Saudi Arabia was $80.3 billion; France and Ukraine were both at $ 64.7 billion each; Japan was at $ 55.3 billion  and South Korea was at $47.6 billion.  

The US does not actively wage war on domestic traffickers of drugs or banks who launder drug money, or drug consumers. It would rather wage war on cartels, real or imagined, in other countries not to our liking such as the invasion of Cuba with the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the 1960s or Panama in December 1989 or Columbia or Venezuela today. In 2025, the US military without any authorization by Congress or any declaration of war has blasted three small boats moving along international waters off the coast of Venezuela and one from Colombia. In the case of Fentanyl, which kills thousands’ of US persons annually, mainly comes from China; that is ignored. Since 2013 to 2025, synthetic opioids have killed over 3 million persons in the US.   

The Everywhere War is now the Forever War meant to keep lining the pockets of DOD contractors, DOD and other US government officials, mainly the lobbyists and politicians.