Which countries will the United States be at war with by the end of 2025? Can add answers. Closes January 1st 2026
Update 2025-10-28 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Formal declaration of war is not required. The market will count conflicts that meet common-sense definitions of war, even if officially termed differently (e.g., "special military operations" or "police actions"). The creator will use discernment and reject state propaganda that contradicts common sense when determining what constitutes a war.
Update 2025-11-29 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Criteria for determining if conflicts constitute "war":
Real wars require real military objectives (e.g., strikes on fishing boats alone do not constitute war)
Venezuela: Current boat strikes do not qualify as war due to lack of real objectives
Houthis/Yemen: To determine if this qualifies as war, the creator will consider:
Whether the conflict has harmed the Yemeni people in economic or lethal terms matching our understanding of war
Whether the broader Yemeni people are logistically integrated in the Houthi war effort
Note: "They're not a government" alone is not sufficient to disqualify something as war
Update 2025-11-29 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): USA does not count as an answer. The creator considers internal conflicts within the USA to be occupation rather than war. The USA being at war with itself would not resolve positively unless a case can be made that occupation and war are not mutually exclusive categories in this specific context.
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@AlvaLindqvist I think even being heterodox in definitions, that would be occupation and not war. If you can make the case for those not being fully mutually exclusive categories, both in general and in this specific case, I will absolutely consider that. I think that would give me an opportunity to define the furthest extreme at which my own categorization scheme ceases to reject consensus
@CornCasting In the case of the United States and large regional powers that is the normal way to prosecute a war. So I think yes. Obviously discernment is still necessary, but I don't feel the need to argue against Russia's reasoning for 'special military operation", or against the definition of Vietnam as a "police action". Conversely, North Korea's understanding of the Korean war as continuous over 70 years is also not worthy of respect, even though it matches the letter of international war law. State's logic will be observed but rejected whenever it violates common sense for blatant propagandistic purposes
@JessicaEvans What countries are we currently at war with in your opinion?
We’ve currently carried out 21 boat strikes on Venezuela against their wishes
We’ve also carried out strikes on the Houthis’ Yemen (de-facto government but an unrecognized state)
@KJW_01294 The persistence and stated reasoning for the strikes against Venezuelan boats match a war, but obviously no war has been declared. It is extremely confusing. This is not a robust algorithm for distinguishing edge cases but my feelings are basically, if it were a real war, there would be real objectives. Fishing boats are not a real objective, therefore it is not a real war. Additionally, the nobel peace prize being war agitprop implies that if there were a real war, we would be hearing constant praise for it. Very limited reasoning but that's my reasoning for no.
With the Houthis, my position somewhat hypocritically is "they're not a government". But this can't be an iron refutation of something being a war for obvious reasons, so I will put forward " has the conflict holistically harmed the Yemeni people in economic or lethal terms that match our understanding of war" and "are the broader yemeni people logistically integrated in the houthi conflict effort" as the edge case determining factors, and request evidence and comment from manifold on those points
Recap of the situation in Yemen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_civil_war_(2014%E2%80%93present)
@Gabrielle No. Really mean it in the practical sense of shooting war. Although if the United states goes to war with any of these countries and "finishes" before the end of 2025 that is still intended to count.
@JessicaEvans Some countries are in a state of civil war. Does the US intervening in favor of one faction count?
@mariopasquato No, although I can't offer reasoning beyond that not being intended. The intent was a shooting war against an officially recognized government. Salami tactics and proxy wars complicate things by definition so I think there's an element of judgement no matter what unfortunately.
@JessicaEvans So how you resolve for Yemen will depend on whether you consider the Houthis just a (winning) faction in a civil war in Yemen or the de facto government of Yemen.
@mariopasquato I'm leaning no, simply because it's contested, though I could be swayed, particularly by evidence of diplomatic recognition. Right now the Houthis are only engaged with by Iran, right? Sovereignty is not owned by the west, but I'd have to see engagement with them politically by other Iran friendly sovereigns basically: Russia, China, etc.
@JessicaEvans They don’t seem to have international recognition at this point. Also territorial control is not complete.