The United States Constitution grants the power to declare war to Congress (Article 1: Section 8; clause 11) and given this definition, the United States has not been to war since the Second World War. However, employing an alternative definition (such as that of von Clausewitz) in which war is described as an act of violence by a state intended to compel its opponents to fulfill its will, the United States has been in an almost constant state of warfare since 1945. That both accurately apply to the United States characterizes the nation’s equivocal approach to war in the last half of the twentieth century.

One aspect of the country’s ambivalence was the proliferation of conflicts that stopped short of being full-fledged wars. The overarching framework for the first forty years of the US after the Second World War was the “Cold War,” a term used to designate the prolonged struggle with the Soviet Union and to a lesser degree the People’s Republic of China. Although this “war” shaped and structured American politics, economics, social institutions and, especially military policy the US and the Soviet Union never sent troops against each other and the US and Chinese only fought against each other in the Korean War. There were also a series of “covert” or “surrogate” wars, such as those against the governments of Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s, Cuba in the 1960s and Nicaragua in the 1980s. These were armed conflicts sanctioned by the US and often conducted by US intelligence agencies (CIA). Although not publicly involved, US personnel performed assassinations, mined harbors, engaged in psychological operations, as well as supplying arms, training, logistical support and intelligence to groups engaged in overt hostilities against US enemies. A second feature was the increasing power of the presidents to unilaterally decide whether to engage in a conflict and how exactly that conflict would be conducted. Harry Truman’s decision to lead the country to war in Korea under UN auspices, rather than seek a formal declaration from Congress, provided a blueprint that both George Bush in the Gulf War (1990) and Bill Clinton in Bosnia (1996) and Kosovo (1999) followed. In each case the president chose when to start and when to conclude hostilities and left Congress to cast largely symbolic votes whether to support or denounce the policy Although the Vietnam War was not a UN operation, both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon also followed Truman’s example of ignoring Congress, arguing that the Constitution gave the president war-making powers in his role as commander in chief. There was an attempt to undercut this tactic by passage of the War Powers Act (1973), which held that the president could send troops into battle for sixty days, but then had to seek congressional approval. However, this proved largely ineffectual.

A third effect, related to the second, was the use of euphemisms, like “police action” in Korea (1950–3) and Vietnam (1962–74), “peacekeeping mission” in the Dominican Republic (1965) and Bosnia (1991–3) and “rescue operations” in Grenada (1984) to describe events that were, for all intents and purposes, wars. These often grew out of the Cold War and were situations where the two superpowers would actively involve themselves on opposing sides of a regional conflict, but did not wish to take the final step of declaring war. On the other hand, the government began to increasingly characterize non-military social-policy initiatives in explicitly military terms. From the 1960s to the 1980s there were a number of “wars” declared by the government on such things as poverty drugs, crime, AIDS and cancer.

A fourth feature of this ambivalence was the way it contributed to the rise of what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex; a relationship that grew to include the cooperation of the government, scientific community higher education and organized labor. According to the congressional Budget Office, the Pentagon budget for military spending, if measured in real terms, continued to remain at the same level of the height of the Cold War of the early 1960s. As a result, 10 percent of all US business was derived from military-related production. The argument given in support of such enormous expenditures was that it was only through continued strength and readiness that the US could avoid the horrors of the wars of the first half of the century.

The ambivalence about war was also reflected in other ways in post-Second World War popular culture. While the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and both world wars produced a number of highly popular songs that promoted the cause, this was virtually non-existent for any of the conflicts after 1945. Only Vietnam produced any significant number of songs, directed mostly against the war, and none of them achieved the status of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” or “Over There.” Representations of war on television were relatively scarce with only two successful series using war as their backdrop, Combat (1962–7) and M*A*S*H (1972–83). There was an interesting contrast in the film industry between the popularity of sciencefiction war films versus those about real wars. The most successful reality-based war films tended to present complex and highly critical views of war, while the science-fiction films were marked by a stark contrast between good and evil and glorified war while ignoring its costs. However, despite the large number of movies explicitly about real wars made since the Second World War, only a handful gained any widespread popularity: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); M*A*S*H (1970); Platoon (1986); and Saving Private Ryan (1998). When adjusted for inflation only The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), about the aftermath of war, is in the top sixty most successful films. This is in stark contrast to the immense popularity of fantasy war films such as the Star Wars Anthology (1977; 1980; 1983; 1999) and Independence Day (1996), which are among the thirtytwo most popular films of all time.