Did America fight in any wars in 1931?

Answer 1

The US was not involved in any large wars in 1931. The Great Depression had begun late in 1929 and a large portion of the people were broke and out of work. The Federal government had not yet begun spending more money every year than it takes in - this started a few years later, and has continued every year since, making the dollar worth only a tiny fraction of what it was in 1931. Thus, tax revenues were low, because nobody was working. And the government would not spend money it did not have for military adventuring.

The US Marine Corps occupied and basically ran Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933. This was part of what were called the "Banana Wars", which were US interventions in Central American, South American and Caribbean nations. As part of the occupation of Nicaragua the Marines battled rebels led by Sandino. On leaving, they installed a right wing dictator, Somoza. The Somozistas and Sandinistas battled for control of Nicaragua for decades, with the Sandinistas finally winning in 1979.

Similarly the US occupied Haiti from 1915-34.

The US had acquired the Philippine Islands from Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898. From 1899-1902 the little mentioned, atrocity-filled Philippine-American War went on, simultaneously with the Moro Rebellion, which went on until 1913. The Moros are a Muslim group within the Philippine population. They were never reconciled to US occupation of the Philippines, but do not seem to have had a large-scale insurgency underway in 1931. Communist agents also began working in the Philippines in the early 1930s. Muslim separatists rebels remain a problem in the Islands.