Boer-American War (Napoleon's World)

The Boer-American War was a 26-day conflict in the fall of 1950 in which the United States launched an all-out invasion of the Boer Republic following the seizure of US-corporate owned factories, mines and combine farms by the Boer Republican Army and the subsequent expulsion of foreigners from the country in the ensuing standoff.

The conflict, lasting from November 8 to December 4, was a unilateral and sweeping success for the United States, whose invasion plans were far grander than the Boers anticipated and were initiated from the air, as opposed to the sea landing at Port Natal that the Boers had prepared for. The war resulted in the United States establishing a permanent economic presence in southern Africa, made even more prevalent by the tactics of the CIA in neighboring South Africa throughout the 1960's and 70's, and the forced entry of the Boer Republic into the American geopolitical bloc over time.

The war has often been criticized as an enormous overreaction to the Boers' nationalization of their resources and as a disproportionate response to the executions of four American dissenters by the Boer government. Human rights organizations also have criticized the United States government for staging a massive and destructive invasion of the sovereign nation in 1950 over the expulsion of American-owned companies from Port Natal and Bloemfontein, but not for the near-genocidal relocation of native African peoples from the Republic's northern territory into Zululand in the mid-to-late 1950's, which occurred while American troops were stationed in nearby South Africa.

Many historians also cite the documented appraisals of the conflict as a "test-run" of American military capabilities executed by the Bush administration in case of a potential military confrontation with France, suggesting that the conflict could have possibly been pursued as an illegal war.