<\/p>\n
The United States<\/span> made war on three continents over three days earlier this month, conducting attacks in Africa, Asia, and South America. During that span, the U.S. also struck a civilian boat in the Pacific Ocean. The globe-spanning scope of the attacks represents one of the few instances since World War II that the United States has been simultaneously involved in armed conflicts with such a wide geographic sweep.<\/p>\n The attacks in Ecuador, Iran, Somalia, and the Eastern Pacific from March 6 through March 8 are part of President Donald Trump\u2019s escalating world war against variously defined<\/a> \u201cterrorists.\u201d They highlight the administration\u2019s increasing willingness to use the U.S. military as a solution to almost any perceived geopolitical problem.<\/p>\n \u201cAll war. All the time. Everywhere,\u201d said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, of the wide-ranging attacks over just a few days. \u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented given the absence of any fresh congressional authorization.\u201d<\/p>\n This month, Trump has repeatedly referenced<\/a> his relentless war-making<\/a> and even lamented it on occasion. \u201cI built the military and rebuilt it in my first term, and we\u2019re using it more than I\u2019d like to use it to be honest with you,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The region that has seen the most profound increases in this \u201cuse\u201d of military power is the Western Hemisphere as part of what Trump and others have called the \u201cDonroe Doctrine<\/a>.\u201d This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine \u2014 a unilaterally claimed license to militarily meddle in America\u2019s backyard \u2014 has led to attacks on civilian boats<\/a> in the waters surrounding Latin America and an attack on Venezuela<\/a>. The most recent location of U.S. attacks in the region, Ecuador, is also the site of the first strike in Trump\u2019s recent three-day, three-war spree.<\/p>\n \u201cYes \u2014 as @POTUS has said \u2014 we are bombing Narco Terrorists on land as well,\u201d self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote<\/a> on X on March 6, announcing a new strike in\u00a0Ecuador<\/a>. Days later, in a war powers report<\/a> announcing the introduction of U.S. armed forces into \u201chostilities\u201d in that country, the White House informed Congress of \u201cmilitary action taken on March 6, 2026, against the facilities of narco-terrorists affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day, Trump announced an escalation of his latest war of choice in the Middle East. \u201cToday Iran will be hit very hard!\u201d he posted<\/a>, writing, \u201cUnder serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran\u2019s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.\u201d That same day, U.S. Central Command posted footage of the U.S. striking unspecified Iranian targets beneath a threat by Hegseth<\/a> to hunt and kill those that \u201cthreaten Americans anywhere on earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A day later, the U.S. conducted an attack as part of its war-on-terror-holdover conflict<\/a> in Somalia. \u201cIn coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) conducted an airstrike targeting ISIS-Somalia on March 8, 2026,\u201d reads an AFRICOM press release.<\/a> \u201cThe airstrike occurred in the vicinity of the Golis Mountains.\u201d\u00a0(This frequently attacked region was the site, last year, of what a top Navy admiral called the \u201clargest airstrike in the history of the world<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n On the same day as the recent AFRICOM strike, U.S. Southern Command announced the latest attack in its campaign<\/a> targeting so-called drug boats<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that have killed<\/a> almost 160 people in 45 strikes since September. \u201cSix male narco-terrorists were killed during this action,\u201d reads the SOUTHCOM announcement<\/a>, which was accompanied on X by video footage of a boat exploding into a fireball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During World War II, the U.S. fought a global war conducting combat operations simultaneously in Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as limited fighting in North America against Japanese forces in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in 1942 and 1943. The fight against the Axis powers was, however, a declared war \u2014 America\u2019s last \u2014 and one discrete conflict. By contrast, Trump\u2019s sprawling collection of undeclared wars include a remnant of the war on terror and several new unconstitutional wars begun by Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is why the U.S. Constitution requires congressional authorization before using military force in this manner,\u201d said Finucane. \u201cIt\u2019s so the American public and their elected representatives can debate and deliberate whether the costs of a war are justified by the supposed benefits of this military operation. And whether the use of military force is the appropriate tool to solve the problem. And whether it\u2019s even a problem that needs to be solved at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. has rarely, if ever, conducted attacks \u2014 such as the airstrikes in Ecuador, Iran, and Somalia \u2014 on three continents over a 72-hour period since World War II.\u00a0During the Cold War<\/a>, the U.S. frequently<\/a> conducted clandestine<\/a> and covert operations<\/a>, armed interventions<\/a>, and wars<\/a> across multiple continents<\/a>, but not often analogous attacks. On August 21, 1998, in an early attack on Al Qaeda, the U.S. simultaneously attacked targets in Afghanistan and Sudan with cruise missiles. During the war on terror, the U.S. frequently was involved in simultaneous conflicts and interventions in numerous countries across the Middle East and Africa \u2014 and sometimes farther afield<\/a>. In 2017, for example, a small number of Special Operations forces assisted troops in the Philippines in relieving a siege of the town of Marawi<\/a> by ISIS-linked militants. U.S. forces were also attacking people<\/a> in the Middle East<\/a> and Africa<\/a> that year, bringing combat to two continents.<\/p>\n The Office of the Secretary of War did not reply to questions concerning the concentration of attacks over such a short period of time and how often this has occurred since World War II.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n