America’s Long Wars: Generational Wars and Epochal Wars
What ARE America's Generational or Epochal Wars?
History is full of wars and conflicts that last a very long time. Not always in a continuous way, sometimes with actual periods of peace, or at least periods of not-combat interspersed between long periods of fighting. Some historians refer to these long wars as “Epochal Wars.”
Here we seek to define and identify those wars and military conflicts that are epochal in nature and that can be connected to each other in a logical, unified whole. One feature of this is to identify those conflicts that are generational, meaning that the war or wars span many years, perhaps even decades, so that, for instance, a soldier involved at the start of the conflict could conceivably see his grandchildren or even great-grandchildren also fighting in the same, epochal or generational conflict.
To be included within these epochal (epoch=a period of time in history typically marked by notable events or particular characteristics), conflicts, wars need to be directly linked not just by who the participants are (example: England vs. France), but by the reasons for these linked or related conflicts (example: England vs. France to determine who will sit on the French throne). The second example, a specific goal or reason for conflict aside from just a mutual dislike between the two enemies, forms the connective tissue that binds a series of four or five otherwise separate wars together into a whole. In this example, we see a series of English vs. French wars fought over how rulership of France will be decided. England and France fought many, many wars over the span of nearly 800 years, but the four or five wars in this example, fought between 1337 and 1453 were specifically to decide whether an English or French dynasty wore the French crown. Historians later (in the 1860s) lumped these conflicts together under the title of The Hundred Years’ War.
Sometimes it takes historians time to be able to look back and see the connections, and to apply a name, like The Hundred Years’ War, on an epochal conflict. With this in mind, we now turn to American history, and the question is: what conflicts in American history can be considered to be epochal or generational?
There appear to be several American conflicts that fit this definition:
The American Indian Wars or the American Frontier Wars
The wars between the English settlers in the Colonial era against the Native Americans, combined with the wars of an independent U.S. against the Indian nations, can collectively be called the American Indian Wars or the American Frontier Wars. These can be divided into two very large continuous conflicts:
1607-1775: American Indian Colonial Frontier Wars
The Colonial era wars ran from the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (founded in 1607) to the start of the American Revolution (1775). Pretty much any colonist living within 50 to 100 miles of the “frontier” could conceivably end up engaged in combat against Natives, either as part of an offensive force or as a defender against an Indian attack. So, from 1607 to 1775, all along the American east coast to the Appalachian region and beyond, it is conceivable that both settlers and Natives would experience generational war, from parent to child to grandchild and beyond.
The connective tissue: The participants continuously included Native Americans of various nations or tribes, vs English troops and English settlers over the question of who would control and live on the land.
1775-1890: American Indian Frontier Wars
American Frontier Wars include the wars of the American Revolution, in which various Native nations aligned with either the British or the Americans in a vicious war that lasted from 1775-1783. Soon thereafter, more wars emerged as the U.S. expanded westward, and more and more settlers moved the frontier forward. Again, as generational conflicts go, this type of fighting spanned multiple generations, and included large numbers of American troops, armed civilian settlers, and Native Americans of all ages and genders.
The connective tissue: The participants continuously included Native Americans of various nations or tribes, vs American troops and American settlers over who would control and live on the land.
1945-1991: The Cold War
From the American perspective, this could also be called “Wars Against Communism,” and would include major combat for Americans in Korea (1950-1953), and Vietnam/Indochina (1964-1975), but that in itself can be misleading.
From the Occupation of Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea at the end of World War Two, American and other Western forces faced off against Soviet and other Communist forces. Add to this, the active military, economic, diplomatic events, as well as the overt and covert military actions in support of non-communist forces around the world for almost 50 years, and you have a generational conflict.
The connective tissue: The U.S. faced off in both hot wars, cold wars, and proxy wars, against the Soviets, Chinese, and other communist forces around the world. In addition, the civilian population of all nations thus involved had to deal with the threat of nuclear war, the stress of conscription (called The Draft in America), and the huge economic cost of maintaining the Cold War military power necessary to face off against each other. As someone born into, and raised during the Cold War, I can attest that war and the threat of war (especially nuclear) was a very real concern. Especially if you lived, as I did, in an area that we know was on the Soviet target list.
1979-Present: America’s Middle East Wars (Conflict with Iran/Jihadists and the Global War on Terror)
This extended conflict does not have a catchy name yet that sticks. Variously called the Long War, the Global War on Terror, or, one of my favorites, the Forever War.
For now, we will refer to it by a geographic descriptor, America’s Middle East Wars, which is accurate to a point. Starting with the U.S.-Iran Hostage crisis, which began the ongoing U.S.-Iran Conflict, we can list quite a few wars that have several things in common: Most involve wars in which America (often, but not always, with allies) fights against Jihadists or Islamic Fundamentalists, and most take place in the Greater Middle East region. Most, but not all of America’s opponents fit this theocratic descriptor though.
Saddam’s Iraq, Khadaffi’s Libya, and Assad’s Syria were all run as secular states opposed to actual Jihadism (which could challenge the dictators’ power), while giving lip service to Islam and fundamentalism when it helped prop up the regime or exhort the masses against a foe.
The conflicts within this American War in the Middle East, in this Epochal or Generational conflict include:
Iran-U.S. Conflict:
Hostage Crisis (1979-1981)
The Tanker War (1987-1988)
Iranian Support of anti-Western Terrorism (1980s-Present)
Iranian Support for Shiite Militias in Iraq and Syria vs. the U.S. (2003-Present)
2020 Iran-U.S. Missile Attacks
Iraq: Four wars against or in Iraq
Gulf War (1990-1991)
No-Fly Zone Conflict (1991-2003)
Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2003-2011)
NOTE: The Occupation of Iraq, following the fall of Saddam, primarily combat with multiple insurgent groups from both Shiite and Sunni Jihadist sides of Islam.
War Against ISIS in Iraq (2014-Present)
Lebanon:
U.S. Intervention and Marine Barracks Bombing (1982-1984)
--Including combat with Syria, Hezbollah, and other Iran-backed Shiite militias
Libya:
U.S. Air strikes and air combat against Libya (1981, 1986, and 1989)
Intervention in the First Libyan Civil War (2011)
Benghazi Attacks on U.S. by Ansar al-Sharia (2012)
ISIS War in Libya (2015-2019)
Afghanistan/Al-Qaida War:
Al-Qaida attacks on American targets overseas and the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. (1998-2001)
U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan (2001-2021)
U.S. Operations against al-Qaida (2001-Present)
--Including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, N. Africa, etc.
Houthi Conflict:
U.S. Operations against the Houthi in Yemen (2023-Present)
ISIS War:
U.S. Operations against the Islamic State/ISIS/Daesh in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, North Africa and elsewhere (2014-Present)
Summary
This latest American generational or Epochal war in the Middle East, which began in 1979 with the start of the U.S.-Iran Conflict, extended and morphed into a multi-faceted ongoing conflict against a variety of Middle Eastern and Jihadist foes. As of 2025, this is an ongoing conflict.
Conceivably, an American serving in the military in 1980, at the start of all this, could have had a child old enough (assuming birth in the early 1980s), to serve in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003. If that serviceman or woman had a child at that time, that adult child could be serving today in Syria, Iraq, or in the air and naval war against the Houthi in 2025. In this example, three generations (at least) could have seen conflict in the same set of epochal wars. That is, by definition, a generational war. Keep in mind, that this conflict has no apparent end in sight.