During the 20th and nascent 21st centauries, the United States has engaged in seven major wars, two of which are currently ongoing. Since only a portion of one war, World War II, was actually fought on United States soil in the Hawaiian Island and the Southern Pacific Islands, including Guam and the Solomon Island, this country has not suffered large damage to its infrastructure.
Although fighting currently continues in Iraq, there is increasing debate over how to end the conflict together with demands from political factions in the United States and Great Britain to Phase the war out and allow the troops to return to civilian life. It is getting more difficult to justify the costs of continued hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Rules of War
War is a devastating event that is focused on the goal of killing or incapacitating the enemy. Yet there exists etiquette of sorts; rules of conduct that apply to nearly every eventuality of war that every combatant is supposed to respect and obey. These guidelines were drafted into the Geneva Convention of 1949, and strive to impart humanity into the ultimate adversarial situation.
The provisions of the Geneva Convention state that the conventions apply to all forms of declared war. It also applies in situations wherein foreign country, with or without active resistance, has occupied another country.
Throughout military history, many short-term conflicts have been recorded but, by all accounts, the Anglo-Zanzibar War was the shortest war in the history of the World. The origin of the conflict was a territorial dispute during the late 1800’s that focused upon the trade interests of Germany and Great Britain in Eastern Africa and specifically the small island of Zanzibar, which is located off of the eastern coast of Africa.
Many people maintain that countries such as Holland, Sweden, Switzerland and Liechtenstein that remained neural during World War II actually served the purposes of the Third Reich by their neutrality. Many contend that there is no neutrality during war. This may be the case, since it is well documented that in all of these countries, people fleeing the Nazis were harboured, often at the significant risk.