U.S.A. Global Military Presence Poses Grave Security Threat To The Wide World War 3 ?

The U.S. has about 776 overseas military bases in more than 80 countries (See Links Below Last Page) around the world, and is continuing to build them as part of a years-long Pentagon buildup in the Asia-Pacific region meant to counter Chinese influence. You can't talk about how many bases the United States has without talking about what those bases actually represent — U.S. imperialism. With about 750 bases overseas, in 80 countries and colonies, the U.S. has more foreign military bases than any empire, people or country in world history.

U.S. MILITARY BASES OVERSEAS THE FACTS NUMBERS
750 military base sites estimated in around 80+ foreign countries and colonies/territories.
75-85% of the world’s foreign military bases; UK=145; Russia = 12-36; China = 8 (plus Tibet).[1]

GEOGRAPHY
119 base sites in Germany; 119 in Japan; 73 in South Korea; 44 in Italy.
Others in Aruba, Bahrain, Cuba, Djibouti, Estonia, Greece, Honduras, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Marshall Islands, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Spain, Tunisia, UK, US Virgins, Wake Island.
Pentagon figure of 625 base sites omits bases in Iraq, Syria, Niger, and many other well-known (e.g., Kuwait, Kosovo) and secretive bases (Israel, Saudi Arabia).
8 countries (minimum) where the US military has or recently had troops in combat.[2]

COSTS
$10,000-$40,000 avg. additional costs per person per year to station military overseas vs. domestic.
$55 billion/year (est.) to build and maintain overseas bases.
$80+ billion/year (est.) in total spending on bases and personnel abroad.
Alternatively, moving half the $55 billion spent on bases would mean more than 200 million covid tests, 200 million N95 masks, 250,000 infrastructure jobs, and 400,000 vets with VA health care.[3]

WARS
At least 25 times US bases have been used to launch wars of choice or military interventions in 15 countries in the greater Middle East alone since 1980.
Al Qaeda recruitment has been correlated with a US base, troop presence in the Middle East.
Bases have become targets for militants, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia.[4]

HARMS
Military personnel separated from family members during unaccompanied deployments; when family can accompany, spouses and children face disruptions to careers, schooling, relationships.
38 undemocratic host countries with authoritarian or other less-than-democratic regimes (e.g., Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Niger, Honduras, and 11 colonies controlled by U.S. or allies).
Environmental damage caused by the disposal, dumping, and use of hazardous, toxic materials, facilitated by base agreements that often exempt the US from responsibility for damage, while the US asserts its own environmental laws do not apply.
Crimes and accidents—including rape, murder, and other crimes and military accidents—anger local communities, incite protest as in Okinawa, and damage the international reputation of the US.
Exploitative prostitution and sex trafficking linked to bases in places such as South Korea.
Reckless foreign leaders can be emboldened by a U.S. base presence to take dangerously aggressive stances against, for example, Russia or China, believing the U.S. military will back them up.
18 indigenous and other peoples displaced by base construction or expansion abroad since WWII.[5]

CLOSURES
More than 1,000 overseas bases closed in Europe, Asia by both Bush presidents and Bill Clinton.
No BRAC process needed to close bases abroad.
Local movements worldwide are demanding base closures or a reduced US military presence.
19% estimated domestic base excess capacity available to returning troops, families.
Rapid deployment from domestic bases means most US forces can deploy virtually anywhere on earth as fast or nearly as fast as from a base abroad in case of emergency deployment.[6]

POLITICS
Global Base Posture Review announced by Biden administration in 2021.
BRAC does not apply to overseas bases, meaning the Pentagon can close overseas bases without the political challenges of closing domestic bases and the Base Realignment and Closure process.
Transpartisan: Across the political spectrum, experts and politicians are questioning overseas bases.
Local economies would benefit from returning personnel, families.
Congressmembers have few, if any, constituents living in communities around overseas bases.[7]

ALTERNATIVES TO OVERSEAS BASES
“Draw Down, Build Up”: Close bases, boost U.S. diplomatic presence globally to rebuild alliances.
Maintain a streamlined, powerful, defensive military defending U.S. territory.
Rapid reaction forces deploying from domestic bases to defend allies in legitimate emergencies.
Increased commitment to diplomacy, international institutions, economic and cultural engagement, with the use of military force as a true last resort.
Multinational operations through multinational organizations if the use of force is necessary.

U.S. global military presence poses grave security threat to the world war 3 ?
As critical symbols of American power, U.S. military bases have sprawled all across the world. With large concentrations of facilities in the Middle East, East Asia, parts of Europe, and Africa, the bases are three times as many as all other countries combined, costing U.S. taxpayers an estimated 55 billion dollars annually.

* For decades, the hundreds of military bases have been used by Washington to export ideology-driven wars, subvert governments, and instigate violence and crimes. Since its founding in 1776, the United States has been at war for 93 percent of its existence.

* As Washington becomes increasingly unscrupulous in exporting war and creating scenes of misery and tragedy in other countries, politicians who fan the flames of conflict and embolden the military-industrial complex are the ultimate beneficiaries.

Despite our unorthodox presidential election, America’s overseas military bases are largely taken for granted in today’s foreign policy debates. The U.S. maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world—about 800 of them in more than 70 countries. Many view our bases as a symbol of our status as the dominant world power. But America’s forward-deployed military posture incurs substantial costs and disadvantages, exposing the U.S. to vulnerabilities and unintended consequences.

Our overseas bases simply do not pay enough dividends when it comes to core national interests. Here are seven reasons why it’s time to close them.

1. They don’t protect the homeland from direct attack.

U.S. leaders often argue that bases are the centerpiece of a liberal, rules-based world order. They claim that bases in Europe protect European allies from Russia, bases in the Middle East ensure the free flow of oil and contain Iranian influence, and bases in Asia defend our Asian allies from a rising China and an unstable North Korea. But stationing 80,000 troops at 350 installations in Europe is not directly related to securing Americans’ physical safety. The same goes for the more than 154,000 active-duty personnel based throughout Asia. And the argument that maintaining a forward-deployed military posture in the Middle East protects the free flow of oil is supported by pitifully sparse empirical evidence.

If we brought our troops home, we wouldn’t be much more or less safe than we are now. That’s mostly because we are already the strongest nation economically and militarily by far and probably the most secure great power in history, isolated from other powerful states by two great oceans and protected with an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. On top of that, the world is a safer place these days. Interstate conflict has declined dramatically in recent decades and may even be on a path to obsolescence for reasons that have little to do with all these military bases.

2. Their deterrence effect is overrated.

The deterrence value of bases is frequently exaggerated. Even during the Cold War, as Robert Johnson has argued, the Soviet threat was subject to “undue alarmism,” and “even without American forces deployed in Western Europe, a Soviet attack was extremely unlikely.” According to international relations scholar Robert Jervis, “The Soviet archives have yet to reveal any serious plans for unprovoked aggression against Western Europe, not to mention a first strike on the United States.”

Deterrence can also sometimes have the opposite of the intended effect. For example, many see the U.S. military presence in Europe as deterring Russian military aggression, but Russia’s interventions in places like Georgia and Ukraine derive more from Russian insecurities about the expansion of U.S.-led Western economic and military institutions than from signs of American weakness or insufficient military presence in Eastern Europe. Post-Cold War NATO expansion, in particular, is the source of profound anxiety and lingering resentment in Moscow that arguably makes things less stable, not more.

3. They don’t always effectively prevent nuclear proliferation.

Another core argument is that the U.S.’s forward presence prevents arms races, particularly nuclear proliferation, by reassuring allies. The record on that score is mixed. While U.S. security guarantees to countries like Japan and South Korea have likely dissuaded them from developing nuclear weapons, those same guarantees can provoke nuclear proliferation in other regional actors, like North Korea. Prior to the recent nuclear deal, Iran built up its nuclear program in large part as a deterrent to threatening nearby U.S. bases. And allied countries, like Britain, France, and Israel, acquired nukes despite the protection of in-country or nearby U.S. bases.

4. They can encourage resentment.

Local resentment over the presence of foreign military bases can linger for generations, as was the case when in 1991 the Philippine Senate “assailed [the U.S. military presence] as a vestige of colonialism and an affront to Philippine sovereignty,” and President Corazon C. Aquino ordered full withdrawal. And this past June in Japan, 65,000 Okinawans protested in the streets against the U.S. presence there.

Sometimes such resentment can be extreme. According to Chicago University’s Robert Pape, “the principal cause of suicide terrorism is resistance to foreign occupation.” Indeed, the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia was one of the most prominent grievances cited by al-Qaeda pre-9/11 in order to rally Muslims against America. And since the surge in U.S. military presence in the region post-9/11, terrorist attacks on troops and bases in the Middle East have dramatically increased.

5. They can cause the U.S. to support brutal dictatorships.

In Uzbekistan, the recently deceased dictator Islam Karimov was famous for massacres and widespread torture, yet nevertheless received U.S. backing in exchange for basing rights. During the Arab Spring in Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is stationed, the regime cracked down on peaceful dissent with gross human rights violations. But Washington kept largely silent (and willing to continue sending money and arms to the regime) because the base is considered so geopolitically important.

6. They risk entangling us in unnecessary wars.

U.S. bases often cause officials to urge American intervention wherever conflict might break out. But this risks entangling us in foreign wars that are none of our business. If conflict breaks out over maritime or territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, the U.S. may be obligated to intervene against China to fulfill its security guarantee to Taiwan, Japan, or the Philippines. Getting into a war with China over some uninhabited rocks of no strategic importance to us is not in our interests.

Before the nuclear deal with Iran, there was apparently a real risk Israel would preventively strike one of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Because of American promises to fight for Israel, U.S. bases in Bahrain would have been a priority target in Iranian retaliatory strikes.That would have brought us into another desperate quagmire in the Middle East, which is frankly the last thing we need.

7. Technology has largely made them obsolete.

Some argue that bases allow rapid military response. That’s certainly true to some extent. But modern military technology has significantly reduced the problems of travel times over long distances. According to a recent RAND Corporation report, “lighter ground forces can deploy by air from the United States almost as quickly as they can from within a region.” Long-range bombers can fly missions up to 9,000 miles, and after that they can be refueled in the air, reducing the need to have in-place forces abroad.

The bottom line is that troops can deploy to virtually any region fast enough to be based right here in America.

But even this misses the point. We shouldn’t be intervening militarily all over the world unless there is a clear and present danger to U.S. security. Despite the habitual threat inflation in our politics and punditry, the world is increasingly peaceful, and the U.S. is exceptionally insulated from foreign dangers. Our remarkable level of security simply doesn’t call for such an activist foreign policy.

BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- "Come on! Who is making the most trouble in the world?" U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh asked in a recent media interview.

"Do you know how many (overseas military bases) America has? 800!" the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist exclaimed, revealing that the U.S. government has spent "an unbelievable amount of money" planting and maintaining these bases.

With flowery prose, Washington depicts itself as a champion of world peace and stability. But it is worth asking why such a self-claimed peace lover is so obsessed with projecting its military might and what its 800 overseas military bases -- a startling number -- mean for the world.

OUTPOSTS OF U.S. EMPIRE

As critical symbols of American power, U.S. military bases have sprawled all across the world, American writer Mark L. Gillem described in his book America Town: Building the Outposts of Empire, bluntly calling the military bases outposts of the American empire.

Gillem is not exaggerating. In 2017, a U.S. GPS tracking company published a heat map showing where people have used fitness tracking devices. In remote areas and conflict zones in countries like Iraq and Syria, where the heat map became almost entirely dark, there were quite a lot of unusual small lights.

News reports state that zooming in on the spots brings into focus the locations and outlines of known U.S. military bases and other unknown and potentially secret sites, with U.S. military personnel using the fitness devices.

What the heat map exposed is just the tip of a horrific iceberg. In a report published in 2021, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a U.S. think tank, said that the United States maintains around 750 military bases abroad in 80 foreign countries and regions, nearly three times as many as U.S. embassies, consulates and missions worldwide.

According to the report, with large concentrations of facilities in the Middle East, East Asia, parts of Europe, and Africa, the overseas U.S. bases are three times as many as all other countries combined, costing U.S. taxpayers an estimated 55 billion dollars annually.

Data released from the U.S. military indicates that there are 119 base sites in Germany and another 119 in Japan. In South Korea, there are 73. "Other U.S. bases dot the planet from Aruba to Australia, Kenya to Qatar, Romania to Singapore, and beyond," said the report.

As U.S. scholar David Vine demonstrated in his book Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, more than two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States still stations its troops in military bases encircling the globe, raising geopolitical tensions and provoking widespread antipathy towards the country.

SOURCE OF WARS, CRIME

For decades, the hundreds of military bases have been used by Washington to export ideology-driven wars, subvert governments, and instigate violence and crimes.

Since its founding in 1776, the United States has been at war for 93 percent of its existence. As U.S. historian Paul Atwood has revealed in his book War and Empire: The American Way of Life, U.S. history is one of constant wars of aggression and imperial expansion, which is the "American way of life."

In a special report in 2019, Smithsonian Magazine found that under the name of anti-terrorism, the United States engaged in military operations in 80 nations on six continents, "more than 40 percent of the world's countries."

In these military operations, overseas military bases were taken as the bridgeheads for the United States to exercise deterrence and direct military intervention.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, the United States launched the war in Afghanistan, bombing the country for over two months. During the war, the Prince Sultan Air Base operating in Saudi Arabia was the command center for the U.S. military's joint air operations.

Wherever there are military conflicts, U.S. military bases are involved. The New York Times reported that the U.S. military has provided tactical and technical support to the Ukrainian air force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany in the ongoing Ukraine crisis. In June, U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to build a permanent military base in Poland, further raising regional tensions.

For the ordinary people who live in the host countries, the U.S. military bases have long been the scourge of instability and crime.

In Japan's Okinawa Prefecture, which hosts about 70 percent of U.S. military bases in the country, the U.S. presence has long been a thorn in the flesh of residents through intolerable aircraft noise and criminal acts by military personnel.

According to statistics from the prefecture, from 1972 to 2019, U.S. troops and their families stationed in Japan committed about 6,000 crimes in Okinawa, including robbery, rape and murder.

In 2021, a South Korean civic group sued the Fort Detrick base and U.S. Forces Korea over smuggled toxic substances into U.S. military bases in the Asian country.

According to the complaint by the Korea Fire Safety Education Culture Association, U.S. Forces Korea and the Fort Detrick bio lab violated South Korean law and imported toxic substances into the country three times between 2017 and 2019.

Vine once surveyed what the United States has achieved with its military bases. He concluded that the bases breed sexual violence, destroy the environment and damage local economies.

BENEFICIARIES BEHIND SCENES

As Washington becomes increasingly unscrupulous in exporting war and creating scenes of misery and tragedy in other countries, politicians who fan the flames of conflict and embolden the military-industrial complex are the ultimate beneficiaries.

It's no secret that U.S. politicians have been playing footsie with the military-industrial complex to make war a lucrative business.

In an opinion piece on the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the New York Times admitted that during the 20-year-long Afghan war, "instead of a nation, what we really built were more than 500 military bases -- and the personal fortunes of the people who supplied them."

Official data revealed that only 12 percent of U.S. reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021 went to the Afghan government. Much of the rest went to companies like the Louis Berger Group, a U.S.-based company.

A study by the Center for Public Integrity found that after donating over half a million dollars to the presidential campaigns of former U.S. President George W. Bush, more than 70 American companies and individuals won up to 8 billion dollars worth of contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They are very happy with their profits," Alfred de Zayas, a former United Nations independent expert on promoting a democratic and equitable international order, said when talking about the reasons behind Washington's war mania.

"With every war we unleash, they bring benefits to them and misery to millions and millions of people," de Zayas lamented. Enditem

How Many US Military Bases Are There in the World?
The United States is one of the top 5 countries with the largest and most equipped armed forces in the world. So, it is not too much of a surprise that there are many U.S overseas military bases. But, exactly how many U.S military bases are there in the world? Today’s article on how many U.S military bases are there in the world will set out to explore the U.S military bases around the world. Do you want to join us? Let’s go!

There are roughly 750 US foreign military bases; they are spread across 80 nations! After the U.S is the UK, but they only have 145 bases. Russia has about 3 dozen bases, and China just five. This implies that the U.S has three times as many bases as all other countries combined. Quite astonishing if you ask us.

For your reference, our globe has a total of 195 countries.

The U.S has 11 combatant commands (under the Pentagon headquarters):

Africa Command
Central Command
Cyber Command
European Command
Indo-Pacific Command
Northern Command
Southern Command
Space Command
Special Operations Command
Strategic Command
Transportation Command
The first combatant command (Africa Command) protects and defends the nation’s interests in African nations; the Central Command focuses on the Middle East; the European Command on Europe, Eurasia, and parts of the Middle East; and finally, Indo-Pacific Command, Southern and Northern Command on the territories specified in their names.

The Central Command is estimated to have 45,000 to 65,000 troops across the Gulf
The European Command is estimated to have about 33,000 troops in Germany
The Indo-Pacific Command is estimated to have 50,000 to 55,000 troops in Japan
And some 26,000 troops in South Korea
However, the specific number of troops deployed overseas are not publicly disclosed.

Some Countries With U.S Military Bases
Here is a detailed list of the countries with U.S bases (as updated until 2017 on Wikipedia):

U.S Army
Belgium
Bosnia – Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Cameroon
Germany
Israel
Italy
Iraq
Japan
Kuwait
South Korea
U.S Air Force
Aruba
British Indian Ocean Territory
Curacao
Estonia
Germany
Honduras
Italy
Japan
Kenya
Kuwait
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
South Korea
Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri & Dhekelia
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
U.S Marine Corps
Germany
Japan
South Korea
U.S Navy
Bahamas
Bahrain
British Indian Ocean Territory
Cuba
Djibouti
Greece
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Oman
Peru
South Korea
Spain
The United Arab Emirates
The United Kingdom
U.S Coast Guard
Bahrain
Japan
The Netherlands
Singapore
U.S Space Force
Greenland
So, as you can see from the list that we have curated, the U.S Air Force has the most number of bases outside of the U.S, followed by the U.S Navy, and the U.S Army bases around the world.

Names of U.S Military Bases
And here’s a list of the names of bases we were able to gather:

U.S Army
Europe

USAG Benelux Brussels (Belgium)
U.S Army Garrison Benelux (Benelux, Belgium)
U.S Bavaria Hohenfels (Hohenfels, Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Ansbach (Ansbach, Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Stuttgart (Stuttgart, Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Bamberg (Bamberg, Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Garmisch (Garmisch, Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden, Germany)
USAG Bavaria Grafenwoehr (Grafenwoehr, Germany)
USAG Rheinland-Pfalz Kaiserslautern (Kaiserslautern, Germany)
USAG Rheinland-Pfalx, Baulholder (Aulenbacher Str. Baumholder Germany)
U.S Army Garrison Livorno (Tirrenia, Italy)
U.S Army Garrison Vicenza (Vicenza, Italy)
U.S Army Garrison Schinnen (Schinnen, Netherlands)
Camp Bondsteel (Kosovo)
Asia

U.S Army Garrison Humphreys (Republic of Korea)
U.S Army Garrison Casey (Republic of Korea)
USAG Red Cloud/Casey (Republic of Korea)
USAG Yongsan (Republic of Korea)
K-16 Air Base (Republic of Korea)
USAG Daegu (Republic of Korea)
Torii Station (Japan)
Camp Zama (Japan)
U.S Air Force
Europe

Ankara (Turkey)
Incirlik Air Base (Turkey)
Izmir Air Station (Turkey)
Aviano Air Base (Aviano, Italy)
Kleine Brogel Air Base (Belgium)
Ramstein AB (Ramstein, Germany)
Spangdahlem AB (Spangdahlem, Germany)
Geilenkirchen Nato Air Base (Neuteveren, Germany)
Moron Ab (Moron de la Frontera, Spain)
Raf Fairford (UK)
Raf Alconbury (UK)
Raf Mildenhall (UK)
Raf Croughton (UK)
Raf Lakenheath (UK)
Raf Menwith Hill (Harrogate, UK)
Asia

Misawa (Japan)
Yokota Air Base (Japan)
Kadena Air Base (Okinawa City, Japan)
Kunsan Air Base (Republic of Korea)
Osan Air Base (Republic of Korea)
Oceania

Canberra (Yarralumla, Australia)
U.S Marine Corps
Asia

Camp Fuji (Japan)
Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni (Japan)
Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler (Japan)
U.S Navy
Europe

Naval Support Activity Souda Bay (Greece)
Naval Air Station Sigonella (Sigonella, Italy)
Naval Support Activity Naples (Gricignano di Aversa, Italy)
Naval Support Activity Naples Department Geta (Gaeta, Italy)
Naval Station Rota (Rota, Spain)
Naval Support Activity (Bahrain)
Naval Support Facility (Diego Garcia)
Asia

Commander Fleet Activities Sasebo (Japan)
Fleet Activities Okinawa (Japan)
Fleet Activities Yokosuka (Japan)
Navy Region Singapore (Singapore)
Fleet Activities Chinhae (Republic of Korea)
U.S Coast Guard
Far East Activity (Japan)
That being said, you may wonder why the U.S military has so many bases overseas. The section below will attempt to answer this.

Why Does the U.S Have So Many Military Bases?
Each base has its own purpose. Usually, they are for a specific security goal or regional stability overall. Some are also to support allies in the event of a conflict. The primary bases can be traced back to stabilization efforts right after the Second World War. On the whole. These U.S foreign bases contribute to nations’ relationships. The host countries typically receive support in terms of financial and/or relationship (mostly a combination of both).

Remember, U.S military bases in foreign soil can only be set up by mutual agreement

Are There Foreign Bases in the United States?
While there are many (countless!) U.S bases in other nations, there are no full-scale foreign bases on American soil. There aren’t any “published” reasons as to why. But most people believe that it is because the U.S (1) does not need help defending itself and (2) is not a strategic chokepoint.

Before you leave, check out this interactive map of U.S military bases around the world that you can navigate by yourself for more detailed information.

https://public.opendatasoft.com/explore/dataset/military-bases/table/

https://www.ranker.com/list/how-america-has-military-bases-all-around-the-world/stephanroget

https://public.opendatasoft.com/explore/embed/dataset/military-bases/table/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_military_installations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_drone_bases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases#United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments

Conclusion
And that’s the end of our article on “How many U.S military bases are there in the world?” You should now have all the information you need on this topic. Hopefully, you enjoyed reading this. Please share your thoughts in the comments below! If you have any other questions, leave them in the comments as well. Also, we would really appreciate it if you would forward this article to other readers, such as your friends and family!