Perpetual war?

(Click to enlarge image)

Using somewhat subjective definitions of "at war" -- Korea counts but Kosovo doesn't in our analysis, for example -- we endeavored to figure out how much of each person's life has been spent with America at war. We used whole years for both the age and the war, so the brief Gulf War is given a full year, and World War II includes 1941. These are estimates.

But the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in (late) 2001 means that anyone born in the past 13 years has never known an America that isn't at war. Anyone born after 1984 has likely seen America at war for at least half of his or her life.

Orwell's 1984 had Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia in a state of "perpetual war."

Some people... have inferred, insinuated, or suggested that entering a state of perpetual war becomes progressively easier in a modern democratic republic, such as the United States, due to the development of a relationship network between people who wield political and economic power also owning capital in companies that financially profit from war, lobby for war, and influence public opinion of war through influence of mass media outlets that control the presentation for the causes of war, the effects of war, and the censorship of war...