North Dakota State political science professor Thomas Ambrosio made an astute observation the other day. Depressing, for sure, but astute nonetheless.

It started with a question.

“How old is your daughter?” he asked me.

“She was born in 2001. She’s 13,” I said.

“Hmm,” Ambrosio mused. “So she’s never known a world when we haven’t been at war?”

It was a startling revelation, and one I’d never thought about. Indeed, Emma was born in February 2001. Seven month later came the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We were at war. And have been ever since.

Not that Emma thinks about it. She’s too busy being a kid, which is the way it should be. Thirteen-year-olds shouldn’t be lying awake at night thinking about war.

But Ambrosio’s point is well made. Since the planes took down the Twin Towers, the United States has been in a perpetual state of war. The never-ending War on Terror. Land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Involvement in Libya. Syria. Iraq again.

This is not necessarily new. Since Dec. 7, 1941, the United States has been knee-deep in world affairs. There have been stretches of peace, but not many. And from the end of World War II until 1991, there was the omnipresent Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The difference between then and now, I think, is that we used to believe there could be peace. We vanquished Germany, accepted its surrender and the boys came home. We did the same with Japan. Even with Korea and Vietnam, even if there weren’t victories, the United States pulled out and washed our hands of those messes the best we could.

But we always believed there could be peace. That is a key distinction, I think. If there was a rogue nation or despotic leader, the United States believed we could straighten out the problem. We could “fix” it, the way the U.S. fixed international situations. And we believed there could be a time when we weren’t at war. That was the goal.

It’s not that way any more. Our enemies are no longer organized nations and governments with a single leader we can turn into a hated figure (think Germany-Hitler, Soviet Union-Stalin, Iraq-Saddam). Our enemies are shadowy organizations that don’t necessarily reside within a single nation’s borders. Their followers may be residents of Syria or France or the Phillipines or Great

Britian. They don’t occupy states with an organized government and defined geographical borders.

That’s what makes this so hard. Even when we think we defeat one of our enemies, there is another bigger, badder one to deal with the next day. Just look at al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. After 9/11, these were our enemies. They were America’s Most Wanted. It took 10 long years, but a Navy Seal team eventually took out bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan. Americans celebrated that night like we’d ended the war on terror. We won!

Truth is, the threats never ended and in the time it took to dispatch bin Laden two dozen more terror groups popped up. And now we’re learning our newest new enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIL), is bigger, meaner and far better organized than al-Qaeda ever was. ISIL makes al-Qaeda look like a junior-varsity team.

This has President Obama and whatever allies he can round up vowing to do whatever it takes to stop ISIL. The United States has already conducted hundreds of airstrikes against ISIL in Syria and northern Iraq. The biggest question is whether the U.S. will commit ground troops to fight ISIL. There are experts, like my political science friend Ambrosio, who believe American troops will be on the ground again in Iraq sooner rather than later. Perhaps within six months.

No matter what happens, this is America’s new reality. Perpetual war. It’s not war in the traditional sense for us. We won’t invade, conquer, celebrate and help rebuild. We’ll fight here and there, maybe send in ground forces, hope for a “victory” against terrorists (however that is defined) and pray like heck we don’t have a major terrorist attack on our soil. There’ll be no chance of declarations of war or victories parades, but we’ll be at war.

Emma hasn’t known peace in her 13 years on this planet. Sadly and depressingly, it’s unlikely she ever will.

(Mike McFeely is a talk-show host on 790 KFGO-AM in Fargo-Moorhead. His show can be heard weekdays from 2-5 p.m. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMcFeelyKFGO.)