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The United States’ First International Battle (1805)
It did not take long for the United States to start intervening internationally
The Barbary Wars were the first international conflicts that were fought by the United States. Facing increasing peril at sea, the Americans strode to bolster their maritime presence and prestige. American merchant ships were constantly harassed by British ships in the Atlantic and Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean. If the United States could not trade as a free and sovereign nation, was it truly free or sovereign? Those were the questions that were being bandied about the halls of Congress back in North America.
In order to solve one of the two problems, the United States decided to take the fight to the pirates of North Africa by deploying armed raiders to dissuade piracy and bombard undefended pirate havens along the Barbary Coast.
These actions began in 1801 and cumulated in America’s first international battle in 1805. In the spring of 1805, the United States deployed military officers abroad for the first time with the express purpose of capturing hostile cities.
It only took the United States twenty-two years to go from a brand new nation to an international police officer (1783–1805).
