It began on October 7, 2001, and will soon reach its 15th "anniversary." Think of it as the stepchild of America's first Afghan War (against the Soviets), a largely CIA affair which lasted from 1979 to 1989. Considered a major victory, leading as it did to the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, it also devastated Afghanistan and created close to the full cast of characters for America's second Afghan War. In reality, you could say that Washington has conducted a quarter-century-plus of warfare there (with a decade off). And in the Pentagon, they're already talking about that war's possible extension well into the 2020s.

And then, of course, there's Iraq. Where even to begin to count? You could start perhaps with the military aid and assistance that Washington gave Saddam Hussein in the eight-year war that followed his invasion of Iran in 1980, including crucial information that the Iraqis could use to target Iranian troops with their chemical weapons. Or you could start with that victory of all victories, the first Gulf War of 1991, in which the U.S. military crushed Saddam's troops in Kuwait, showed off the snazzy techno-abilities of the mightiest force on the planet… and er, um… somehow didn't unseat the Iraqi ruler, leading to years of no-fly-zone air war until that second, ultimate victory, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which led to… er, um… a disastrous occupation, various insurgencies, and finally the withdrawal of American forces in 2011 before… er, um… the Islamic State emerged triumphantly to smash the American-trained Iraqi army, taking over major cities, and establishing its "caliphate."