United States: The nation that has bombed the world more than any other

From Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the wars of the 21st century, the United States has built a military record that the article describes as unmatched in modern history. It says Washington has bombed more than 30 countries since World War II and intervened militarily in between 70 and 84 nations through landings, airstrikes, troop deployments and covert efforts to overthrow governments.

The article cites Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock's book America Invades, which says the United States has invaded 84 of the 194 countries recognized by the United Nations and has had military involvement in 191. Only Andorra, Bhutan and Liechtenstein, according to the book's tally, escaped such involvement. The article says the count grows when covert operations, targeted bombing, support for coups and troop deployments described as restoring order are included.

It also cites a DW report that counted 72 U.S. attempts during the Cold War to shift the balance of power in its favor, including 64 covert operations. Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs puts the number of regime-change operations, overt and covert, at nearly 100 since 1947. “If it is not a record, it is a good average,” the article quotes him as saying.

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If it is not a record, it is a good average.

The article returns to Aug. 6, 1945, when the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, followed three days later by Fat Man on Nagasaki. It says at least 100,000 people died immediately and another 100,000 died in the following months and years from radiation-related illnesses. The United States remains, it says, the only country to have used nuclear weapons against a civilian population.

The list of later targets includes China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran. The article points to Laos as the most heavily bombed country per capita, with more than 2 million tons of explosives dropped during the Vietnam War, and describes the consequences in Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan as devastating. It also cites former President Jimmy Carter's statement that the United States had been at peace for only 16 of its 243 years.

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The United States has been at peace only 16 of its 243 years of existence.