The question of what is the longest ongoing war does not have a single, simple answer, as it depends heavily on how one defines "war." Should one look at continuous, open combat between state actors, or does a low-intensity conflict with periods of relative calm count? Does a formal declaration of war matter, or does the sustained violence and political objective fulfill the definition? These nuances are central to understanding why answers range from centuries-old colonial struggles to conflicts that began just decades ago.
Defining the Criteria for Longevity
To identify the longest ongoing war, one must first establish the metrics. Historians and analysts often debate whether a conflict qualifies based on uninterrupted combat operations or if intermittent peace treaties and periods of low-intensity violence should be considered part of a single, continuous war. Another critical factor is the recognition of belligerents; a war involving non-state actors or insurgent groups challenging a state presents a different challenge than conventional nation-to-nation warfare. Without a universal standard, the answer becomes a spectrum of conflicts, each with a valid claim depending on the specific rules applied to its history.
The Case for the Apache Wars
One of the most frequently cited candidates for the longest ongoing war is the Apache Wars, a series of conflicts between the United States and various Apache bands that began in the 1840s and are often marked as concluding in 1924 with the surrender of the last holdouts. This timeline spans roughly 84 years, making it a formidable record of sustained violence. The conflict was characterized by raids, counter-raids, and brutal skirmishes across the American Southwest, driven by the expansion of settlers and the U.S. government's desire to control indigenous lands and resources.
Geronimo's Surrender as a Symbolic End
The popular endpoint for the Apache Wars is the surrender of the Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo in 1886, an event that was widely publicized and signaled the effective end of major military resistance in the field. However, the formal conclusion is recognized as 1924, when the last remaining Chiricahua prisoners of war were finally released from internment. This distinction highlights the complexity of the conflict's duration, as active, organized combat largely ceased decades before the legal and administrative closure of the war.
Other Contenders and Historical Context
While the Apache Wars represent a clear case of a defined conflict spanning multiple generations, other wars lay claim to the title depending on interpretation. The intermittent conflict between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Berber tribes of the Rif Mountains, often identified as the Rif War, stretches back to the 17th century and continues in a low-intensity form to this day. Similarly, the long-standing tensions and periodic violence involving the Spanish Reconquista against Muslim principalities in the Iberian Peninsula, which concluded in 1492, are sometimes framed as a centuries-long struggle.
Modern Conflicts and the Fog of War
In the modern era, defining the longest war becomes even more complicated due to the nature of asymmetric warfare and non-state actors. The conflict in Afghanistan, which saw continuous U.S. military involvement from 2001 to 2021, is frequently mentioned, but the underlying civil war between various Afghan factions predates the international intervention by decades. Furthermore, the broader Afghan conflict, involving the Durrani Empire and the Sikh Empire in the early 19th century, suggests a longer history of violence in the region that is hard to quantify as a single, formal war.
