Congressional Research Report on Uses of Armed Forces

I have recently been perusing the Congressional Research Report on Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2019, updated July 17, 2019. It is here: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42738.pdf

I do have some real heartburn with this report. For example, for the period from 1950-1959 they report six incidents of the use of U.S. armed forces. They are Korean War (1950-53), Formosa (1950-55), China (1954-55), Egypt (1956), Lebanon (1958) and The Caribbean (1959-1960). No Vietnam.

On 23 October 1954 President Eisenhower offered military aid to Vietnamese tin-pot dictator Prime Minister Diem. From 1957 through 1959 the United States had around 700 troops deployed to Vietnam. In 1957 we suffered our first casualties in 1959 lost our first two soldiers in Vietnam. Yet their first listing for Vietnam starts in 1964.

It does appears that the report uses very different standards over reporting for instances from decade to decade. For example, from 1950-1959 they report six uses of U.S. armed forces abroad, while in 2000-2019 they report 108. Many of the type of instances they report later in their list do not appear to be reported in the previous decades.

For example, the last instance listed on page 45 is the signature of a “defense-cooperation agreement” with Lithuania for 2019. Yet, the list does not record the United States joining NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), which eventually grew to 29 members (including Lithuania). It is clear that we have signed dozens of these types of agreements from 1945-1979, and yet they are not listed back then, but are now being listed in 2019.

In another extreme example, they only have three instance reports for Vietnam, one covering 1964-1973 and two reports for 1975. Yet they have 32 instances for Bosnia from 1993-2006.

It is clear that different standards and levels of research are being used for events in the last few decades on that list than are used for events in the first few decades.

It appears that the list over time has been updated with considerable detail over the last couple of decades without a corresponding backdating to make sure that the listing is reporting the same type of events in the same detail from 1945-1979. Therefore, one cannot directly compare the number of instances from previous decades to the more recent decades because they are based upon a different standard and detail of reporting.

Around 2000, the report also appears to start listing the instances in more detail, and in 2014, they start footnoting the source for each of their listings. So the report is clearly expanding in scope and improving in detail, but this means that it cannot and should not be used for comparisons over time. Still, the absence of major events like the involvement of the United States armed forces in Vietnam before 1964 is a major shortfall. It is clear that this report needs to be properly updated for past events.

As this is the tax payer funded, government supervised Congressional Research Service report, I really do expect better from them.