War in More Countries Than You Even Thought

President Obama has sent 39 letters to Congress “consistent with” the War Powers Resolution requirements. The letters are a fascinating read and provide a 30,000-foot view of the Administration’s use of military force abroad.

[...]

In 2009, the consolidated reports explicitly reference operations and deployments in only four countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, and Kosovo) and in the “Horn of Africa region.” However, the President also reported – as he has in every biannual report since – that the United States “has deployed various combat-equipped forces to a number of locations in the Central, Pacific, European, Southern, and Africa Command areas of operation in support of [Afghanistan] operations and other overseas operations.”

[...]

The most recent report, from December 2015, explicitly refers to ongoing operations of variable intensity in 14 countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Somalia, Yemen, Djibouti, Libya, Cuba, Niger, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, and Kosovo. The report also references activities in “various countries in the central African region” related to efforts to defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Earlier reports on the LRA indicated deployments to Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic, but, the letter says these details are now relegated to a classified annex.

It is impossible to say with certainty how broad the battlefield is, because (1) the nature and scope of deployments “in support of” operations in Afghanistan and “other overseas operations” remain obscure, and (2) we do not have access to the contents of the classified annexes that begin in 2010.

  Lawfare Blog

We. Rule. The WORLD!

Furthermore, the language of the reports has changed over time from operations "consistent with the law of war," to operations "consistent with principles of the law of war,” to the 2013 verbiage “as informed by the law of war.”

We rule the world according to our own definitions.

Oh, and one more thing...

The letters since 2010 reference classified annexes and entire classified reports. Detailing what? Details of operations, or perhaps even more countries on the list?

The individual reports are linked in this article, should you care to read them.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.