Draft talk:List of attacks on the United States

Merge proposal

I propose merging List of foreign military attacks on United States territory and Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities into List of attacks on the United States: A double TNT / blank-and-redirect to combine the two poorly-sourced articles together into a single "Attacks on the United States"-style article. To note, this was originally done to both articles, however, the bold blank-and-redirect for both articles was challenged by another editor [1][2].

1. Starting with List of foreign military attacks on United States territory...we have a 1-source article which has absolutely no information besides Wikilinks. It is basically a disambiguation page. I have no idea why the bold merge was challenged for this article.
2. Now onto Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities. If you link in the edit history of List of attacks on the United States, you will notice several edit summary attributions (ex: [3]) to the attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities articles, as the entire article was added into this article. Attribution was key so the edit history was not lost in the blank-and-redirect merge.

This article is basically to combine two poorly sourced articles into an article with a larger scope: "attacks on the U.S.", rather than splitting it into "foreign attacks on U.S. soil" & "attacks on U.S. diplomats". So, in my opinion, I have seen no valid or policy reasonings as to why these two articles should not be merged into the larger-scoped "attacks on the U.S." article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 03:34, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Happy to join in the discussion here as the aforementioned editor who opposed the bold BLAR: I'm not against an eventual merge but I do think there were granularities that existed in the prior two articles that ought to be kept.

I agree that sourcing was sparse in the prior two and that, if merged, it may be easier to maintain better article quality in one. With that said, sourcing in this article does leave a lot to be desired and I don't think presently that sourcing alone is a good reason for a merge.

Secondly, I think the list, if combined here, should be separated into different headers or tables. I think there will be columns that may benefit "military attacks on United States territory" that would not be needed in a table for "Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities" and vice-versa. Bobby Cohn (talk) 16:06, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that the lists should be split up by category. I believe that would make it too confusing to see the timeline of attacks against the US and complete chronological order allows that. However, as a compromise, I would not be opposed to having a “Target” column added, which could have items like “Territory”, “Diplomatic facility”, “Military base”, ect… Would you be opposed to that Bobby Cohn? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:38, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Except it isn't really been created as a timeline, and including, say multiple terrorist attacks on embassies (some without {{main}} linked articles or references) in the same list with major military actions isn't helpful to our readers when given without context. And then how is listing multiple entries of the American Civil War beneficial? Why have the entry "April 12–13, 1861 Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, Artillery bombardment" through "August 29–December 2, 1864 Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Indian Territory, Texas, Military offensive", all of which part of the same main battle? And then what are the inclusion criteria for the article? You have naval fatalities, is every US sinking going to be included? This has turned into a bit of a mess. Bobby Cohn (talk) 14:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Bobby Cohn (talk) 14:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

For reference, the American Civil War is not an attack against the United States by itself, same as World War II is not an attack against the U.S. The wars involved various attacks and/or campaigns against the U.S, but the entire war is not against the U.S. For example, during the entire Mexican–American War, Mexico launched a single military offensive into the United States, the Texas Campaign, which is subsequently listed on the article. Mexico had the intention of occupying and holding territory belonging to the United States, which is an attack on the U.S. Likewise, one would not say the Conquest of California was an attack against the U.S., when the U.S. was physically invading Mexican territory. Wars involve attacks on each other, which is why the Civil War has 11 different events / campaigns listed as the United States (Union) was physically attacked/invaded by the Confederates 11 times during the war.

Anyway, I see a little what you mean why it may not be helpful to readers. I have another format I'll be working on in my sandbox. Like you can see though, one central article will be much better for sourcing (given this article is now 3x more sourced already than the other 2 articles combined). It just needs some fleshing out to be good. A merge would obviously still be the best thing though. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:22, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Wait, quick question Bobby Cohn: what do you mean by "isn't really been created as a timeline"? The only sections are literally organized by years. Would you not say the Burning of Washington, September 11 attacks, and 2012 Benghazi attack are not all attacks on the U.S.? One was during a military invasion and the others were terrorist attacks. A terrorist attack is an "attack". So yeah, why would having split sections specifically for "diplomatic attacks" and "foreign invasions", for example, be any different than a sortable column with "diplomatic attacks" and "foreign invasions"? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess that becomes a semantics issue then, whereas I would think a timeline would provide more detail than a simple chronographically organised list (cf. Timeline of the National Hockey League and National Hockey League § List of teams).

To your first point, I would say that supports my suggestion that these ought to be separated. Group all the domestic incursions from invasions and war into one section where the columns can demonstrate the invasion it was a part of, locations of the invasions, etc. It would likely be aided in the style of using multiple spanned rows of grouped incursions. This allows for the list to fully separate out each of the battles as it has been done in some parts and it can continue to be separated, for example July 4, 1776 – September 3, 1783, Eastern North America, North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Rebellion / Revolution, Main article: American Revolutionary War can continue to be broken up and the ones that aren't relevant can be removed.

And then this allows a curated list of the diplomatic attacks separately. I think combining them just to have domestic vs foreign ends up leading to too much tableification and doesn't leave much room for the actual context. Bobby Cohn (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually, looking at your sandbox, I think this gets closer to the idea of a timeline. Maybe a mixed list ought to be better in that case. I like the sections with the individual incursions of domestic territory given full == Level two == headings and prose (see my timeline comment earlier) but attacks on diplomatic and foreign missions could more easily be summarised in a table. I think that gets closer to a more elegant solution @WeatherWriter. Bobby Cohn (talk) 17:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I still don't think every diplomatic attack should be in a table together, but rather listed as part of whatever larger event header it is apart of. For example, the 2013 attack on U.S. consulate in Herat is part of the larger War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), which also involved direct attacks on U.S. troops. My sandbox new idea would have a header for "War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)", with every attack on the U.S. under it, including that diplomatic attack. Very rarely are attacks hosted on diplomatic facilities that are not connected to some larger war and/or event. In cases of true non-U.S. war-related stand-alone events, like the 1964 United States Embassy in Libreville bombings, it would be listed under that heading. But a lot of diplomatic attacks are still related to some larger event, including things like the 1984 US embassy bombing in Beirut, which are connected to the U.S. involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. Once the new format/layout is completed (in my sandbox and then copied/pasted over to this article), would that suffice to complete the WP:BLAR merges Bobby Cohn? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:41, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I think with the way the sandbox is trending and given the prose, I would no longer oppose the merge and BLARs and think this could occupy the base name as requested previously at RMTR. Though given the formal merge request and the fact that I've notified the wikiproject, I think it would be best to wait the week and see if there are other opinions that might want to be heard. Bobby Cohn (talk) 20:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I think every header for all the attacks is in at User:WeatherWriter/sandbox. A ton are currently just “Embassy at X bombing” or “Attack on the Embassy at X”, solely because of how poor Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities is/was. The chart was basically copy/pasted into this article for that WP:BLAR. For most of the embassy attacks, especially those that had no info or were entirely unsourced on that Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities article, I haven’t had a chance to find more sources and information about them. So, for now, they are not listed under any other conflict headers, which most will be under. The US has been involved in 114 wars just since 1776, so most of those are probably under some conflict which just hasn’t been added/linked to by another editor in the past.

Anyway, the headers themselves are “done”, for now. The research and fleshing out part is a fix it later when I have the time to problem. Once the week discussion is over, as long as no other editor is strongly opposed to the merge of those two poorly sourced/written articles, we can centralize the content under a “Attacks on the United States” article, with those new headers, and then work on fleshing the content out (WP:FIXIT / WP:WIP). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

• @Bobby Cohn: The format has been completely overhauled now as we discussed above. Yes, there is several empty sections right now. Most of that is because all my free-time to edit this article involved having to redo the formatting, so I couldn't actually work to add new info. The sections will be filled eventually. But, given this discussion has been open for 6 days, you notified WP Military history 3 days ago, and it is just me and you here, do you have any opposition to me completing the BLAR merges so I can get back to filling in the missing information? P.S., don't worry about how many sections there are. Timeline articles often have an absolute unit-load of sections (example: Timeline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (1 August 2024 – present)). Eventually, I expect the 2000–Present section to be split into a stand-alone article, but that would be done only once all the sections are filled in to see how long byte count/word count the article actually is. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Since it has been a week since this discussion was opened, no new comments after replies and a ping, under the presumption of silent consensus, along with the only other editing involved in the discussion saying "I would no longer oppose the merge and BLARs and think this could occupy the base name as requested previously at RMTR", I have completed the BLAR/TNT merges. Merge discussion is now done. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Well done @WeatherWriter. Sorry about the silence but you were correct in that it was a silent consensus. I did have my eye, it's just other things were also pulling at my attention. Cheers, good job on the merge. Best, Bobby Cohn (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Definitions

Now that I’ve had a chance to digest this list, I have concerns/recommendations about clarifying its purpose. A war should not be listed as an attack. Something like the unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor started a war, but the attack was singular. The attack by Hezbollah on the US peacekeeping marine barracks in Beirut was another singular attack. Again, a war does not meet the definition of an attack. Much of this list contains wars as opposed to attacks. Just my thoughts. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 17:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Attacks are part of wars, which are what is listed. The wars are the overall parent category to the attacks. For instance, the Maryland campaign was an invasion of the United States. The second sentence of the Maryland campaign article itself even states that. If you notice, the War of 1812 is listed, which itself is a war. However, if you read the summary, it is specifically referencing the Chesapeake campaign, an invasion of the U.S. by the British. That campaign consisted of smaller attacks, such as the Burning of Washington, but the campaign itself was an offensive attack against the U.S. Read Offensive (military): "An offensive is a military operation that seeks through an aggressive projection of armed forces to occupy or recapture territory, gain an objective or achieve some larger strategic, operational, or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is "invasion", or the more general "attack"." So wars themselves are not listed (exception is the Revolutionary War & Quasi-War, which are unique instances), but rather they are listed as the parent category for attacks that occurred during the war.

For example, the Attack on Pearl Harbor's infobox directly states, "Part of the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of World War II". Undeniably, that attack is part of WW2. So, for organizational purposes, it is under the "World War II" header, along with the other Japanese attacks and invasions of U.S. territory, like the Bombardment of Ellwood. So I agree, a war is not an "attack", but a war can involve multiple attacks, so they are listed as a parent/organizational-based category. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:25, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@TadgStirkland401: If you do have a specific "war" you question being on the list, I encourage you to ask about it specifically. But, hopefully my explanation above explained why there are headers for "wars", but that it isn't the "war" being listed, but rather the various invasions/attacks/campaigns during that war. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

My concern is really about organization. This article began as a List type of article, but now is a Timeline. I think the problem is with the limitations of Wikicode. At ==LEVEL 2==, you have the word Timeline. That's great, but, adding Wars and non-war events at ==LEVEL 3==, followed by other events at even lower levels, there is little or no difference between the heading fonts. That leads to Battles appearing to be on the same level as Wars or Campaigns to the reader, even though in Wikicode, they are on different levels. As an example, there is no difference in appearance for the headers of the American Civil War, John Brown's Raid, Battle of Fort Sumter, and New Mexico Campaign. Which one is a part of the other?

I'd assume from other campaigns listed that any battles for the New Mexico Campaign would appear in table format. But that means some battles are in tables (part of a war or campaign) and some are not (e.g. Battle of Fort Sumter). Inconsistency for the reader. Working within the limitations of Wikicode when creating a list or a timeline article of this magnitude is a huge challenge. Maybe if you make each time period a ==LEVEL 2== instead of just the header "Timeline", that would allow for lower level appearances to work better. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 08:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Done! That was an easy fix! I completely agree that having “Timeline” as the level 2 header just made all the headers really weird. The new level 2 headers are the year ranges (like 1900–1945), but there is still a major difference between Level 3 (like Civil War) and Level 4 headers (Various attacks in the war). That also helps the table of contents organize itself a lot better. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Type of attack

There seem to be several inconsistent / redundant types of attack listed in various tables. Maybe some of these can be combined, like Ballistic missle strike and Missile strikes, or Artillery strikes and Naval artillery bombardment, or Naval artillery bombardment and Naval warfare. Also, the use of plurals is unnecesary, e.g. Airstrike and Airstrikes. Lastly, the word Attack as a Type of attack is pretty redundant and useless. Here is a list of all the types I found.

• Airstrike
• Airstrikes
• Artillery strikes
• Assassination attempt
• Attack
• Ballistic missile strike
• Bombing
• Drone strike
• Friendly fire
• Invasion
• Military offensive
• Military strike
• Missle strikes
• Mob attack
• Naval Warfare
• Naval artillery bombardment
• Sabotage, State-sponsored terrorism
• Suicide attack
• Terrorism

Can we combine some of these as common, same or redundant. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 09:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, my intention was to combine them. This article was a WP:TNT’ed product of two other articles, which were so poorly sourced/written, that both articles combined had 20 sources. That is why so much stuff 1900-2024 range is blank and/or unsourced right now. Most of that entire section was purely copy/pasted from the other two articles as is. I’ve been going through the summaries oldest to newest, so when I start getting lower, there won’t be a “attack type” in a table. All the attacks will be their own level 4 sub header. The tables were copy/pasted. So unintentionally, they will be “combined” together…in a completely deleted fashion. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like the goal is to make the entire article prose instead of tables. Great! Honestly, that makes the size of the article pretty tremendous. Editing will require a lot of effort, but in the end it’ll be worth it. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 17:10, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm expecting the 2000–Present section will be split eventually into a stand-alone article due to the size of the article. However, I'm waiting until we hit about 10,000-15,000 words before I actually do that (per WP:SPLITSIZE). Right now, the article is just over 3,000 words, and a ton is still blank. So, no doubt it will be split eventually, just not quiet yet. But yeah, the tables will all be eventually done and replaced with article proses instead. The tables are just left-overs from the copy/pastes. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Assassinations

The article lists a couple of assassinations or attempts as "Attacks on the United States", but does not list assassinations and attempts on Presidents (or other high government officials). Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy come immediately to mind, but there are/were several others. Should these be added to the timeline? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 09:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I would say so. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

In order to add to this timeline, we should use as a source this List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 21:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I see you added Lincoln and Kennedy. But we shouldn’t forget Garfield and McKinley, as well as the attempt on Reagan. I don’t see those yet in the article. Do you intend to add them? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 04:26, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

TOC

The current TOC is horizontal and limited to 3 levels. That makes the TOC pretty unusable. I've experimented with other TOC formats here, and none of them really looks good to me. Anyone have any suggestions? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 19:16, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh dear God. (....internal screaming....). I was using the 2022 visual version. After you mentioned this, I switched to the old 2010 version and I really did not realize how bad I screwed it up. WHOOPS. In the 2022 version, the TOC looks neat, but the 2010 version is God Awful. I'll work to fix that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok, that fixed it. On the 2022 version, 2 leveled TOC and 3 leveled TOC looks exactly the same (now that the "Timeline" header is gone). The now TOC on the 2010 version looks exactly the same now as the 2022 version. I am so glad you mentioned the TOC being horrible, since on the 2022 version, it was fine, but not on the 2010 version. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Move Proposal

Most timeline articles within the categories at the bottom of this article have titles that begin with the word Timeline. What do you think of moving this article's title to "Timeline of attacks on the United States"? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 23:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

More about definitions

To me, an attack is a purposefully done act. Yet, this article includes accidental incidents like friendly fire occurrences. By definition, an accident really can’t be an attack, per se. I’d recommend they be removed. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 03:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

They were done purposefully though and only discovered to be accidental later. Some like the Friendly fire incident at Sangin was done with the whole hearted intention of firing on a specific location, which was unknown to the gunner to actually be controlled by his own side at the time. So I would actually argue they should be included. If it was a 100% accident and sources confirm there was no intention of attacking anything, then it shouldn’t be included. But most friendly fire instances occur with intention of attacking but lack of knowledge that the location has their own forces, like the Sangin incident above. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 04:08, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. But I’d love to hear opinions of others. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 04:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I also disagree. Overall, this article has a very loose inclusion criteria and appears quite unfocused. I have removed several unnotable and/or unsourced events from this article, but by the looks of it there is probably more. Also, a lot of thee entries have prose unsourced, but then others are blank with lingering sources, such as the JFK assassination section. The cohesion and grammar is also quite questionable in some places. TheBritinator (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

TheBritinator I recommend undoing any of the unsourced events that were notable. Keep in mind, this article was the combination result of two poorly sourced articles, which basically got copy/pasted in here. By your large deletion, you did remove several attacks on U.S. embassies, which were listed in the attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities article. Please remember Wikipedia is a work in progress and you can always fix it yourself. If not, I shall be opening probably several discussions to challenge several of your deleted events individually when it comes time to. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

It is hard to tell from the lede what should be considered notable here. A rocket attack where the rocket did not explode and did no damage is not Wikipedia:Notable, and so should not be included. However, depending on how the lede is worded, it could then be considered notable. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 17:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, it is in draftspace now. Until it actually is basically 100% filled out, it will not be in mainspace. I’ll flush out the lead a lot (probably to 3-4 paragraphs) and I’ll edit all sections. As such, I shall go ahead and revert/restore all the deleted sections since draftspace doesn’t care that they are unsourced. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:35, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

For reference see this old version of the Attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities (now a redirect to this article). All of the events you removed were on that article and were uncited in that article. If you feel they are not notable, you should not revert and I will probably open a discussion on each one individually later in life. However, if you removed from for being uncited, bluntly, I say revert that back and fix the problem, which has existed on Wikipedia for years. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Just because they were on the article in that state beforehand does not mean they are any more notable and should be merged onto this one, and especially doesn't make it any more relevant. The entries I removed were unsourced one-line statements, thus had no evidence of WP:SIGCOV to be included. You can't just disregard basic policies because a now non-existent article did it before. TheBritinator (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I know, but also part of the policy is WP:FIXIT. In here, you mentioned you removed non-notable/unsourced events. From that, a general editor would presume you took the effort to check the events out (most do have several sources if you literally type the name & year into Google) and then removed them as being unsourced & unnotable. That is why I made the comment about WP:FIXIT. Unsourced does not always mean it should be removed. Since a previous article had it unsourced, it has presumed notability. Hopefully that explains why I was trying to figure out what you removed that was “unnotable” vs just “unsourced”. From what you just said though, you removed them for being unsourced, which in my opinion, was a wrong removal and should have just been a citation need tag and/or fix it by Googling a source. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Boldly moving to draftspace

After discussion on-Wiki and off-Wiki (via official Wikipedia Discord server), it appears this article is not ready for mainspace yet. As such, I am boldly moving it to draftspace until it is much more complete. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:31, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

This is a great idea and could attract far more editors to help! Excellent move! — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 17:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Doubtful. The reason it was moved into mainspace to begin with was to attract more editors and despite being nearly 110,000 bytes in size and like 8,000 words, it was still incomplete and seems that people didn’t think it was ready for mainspace yet. Well anyway, I’ll keep working on it. Slowly but surly. Maybe by mid-2025 this article might be ready for mainspace. Maybe. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I believe this is a good move for editors to work on the article further before moving it to mainspace. TheBritinator (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)