US Military Interventions Since 1945

Methodology

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Data Sources

Events compiled from William Blum (Killing Hope, 2003), Lindsey O'Rourke (Covert Regime Change, 2018), Costs of War Project (Brown University), Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Airwars, Church Committee Reports (1975), and declassified CIA records.

Death Toll Estimates

All death tolls are shown as ranges (low estimate - high estimate), reflecting genuine uncertainty in conflict mortality data.

Low estimates typically come from documented/confirmed deaths (e.g., Iraq Body Count). High estimates include indirect deaths from infrastructure destruction, displacement, and disease. The Costs of War project estimates indirect deaths outnumber direct deaths ~4:1 in post-9/11 war zones.

Estimates flagged as contested indicate either the death toll is disputed among scholars or the degree of US responsibility is debated.

Presidential Attribution

Intervention count is attributed to the president who initiated it. Death toll is distributed evenly across the years of the identified killing period, then attributed to the sitting president each year.

Why even distribution? Year-by-year casualty data rarely exists. Even distribution is the least subjective approach. Readers should treat presidential figures as approximate, not precise.

A president who continues a war started by a predecessor is attributed deaths that occur during their term.

Scope

Direct US military action, CIA covert operations, proxy wars, bombing campaigns, drone campaigns, invasions, coups, and assassinations since 1945. Excludes sanctions (separate map) and passive support for authoritarian allies (separate map).

Limitations

• Death tolls are inherently uncertain. Numbers represent orders of magnitude, not precise counts.
• Attribution is complex. "US responsibility" ranges from direct (bombing) to indirect (enabling a proxy war).
• This dataset aims for exhaustiveness but some events are inevitably missing.
• A brief event card cannot capture the full context of a decades-long conflict.