The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases

ANGLO AMERICA, MILITARISM, 25 Feb 2013

Jules Dufour – Global Research

The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel

The Worldwide control of humanity’s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultimately consist in a process of global subordination.

Where is the Threat?

The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined “the State of the World” by focussing on so-called  “level of threats” which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.

Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualised the greatest fraud in US history, namely “the Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext  constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the “free market” has unfolded.

Major elements of the conquest and world domination strategy by the US refer to:

1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,

2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy).The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.

Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases

The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of  an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.

Known and documented from information in the public domaine including Annual Reports of the US Congress, we have a fairly good understanding of the strucuture of US military expenditure, the network of US military bases and  the shape of this US military-strategic configuration in different regions of the World.

The objective of this article is to build a summary profile of the World network of military bases, which are under the jurisdiction and/or control  of the US. The spatial distribution of these military bases will be examined together with an analysis of the multibillion dollar annual cost of their activities.

In a second section of this article, Worldwide popular resistance movements directed against US military bases and their various projects will be outlined. In a further article we plan to analyze the military networks of other major nuclear superpowers including  the United Kingdom, France and Russia.

I. The Military Bases

Military bases are conceived for training purposes, preparation and stockage of military equipment, used by national armies throughout the World. They are not very well known in view of the fact that they are not open to the public at large. Even though they take on different shapes, according to the military function for which they were established; they can broadly be classified under four main categories :

a) Air Force Bases (see photos 1 and 2);

b) Army or Land Bases;

c) Navy Bases and

d) Communication and Spy Bases.

II. More than 1000 US Bases and/or Military Installations

The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.

In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.

The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.

In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.

These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

Map 2. The American Military Bases around the World (2001-2003)

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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 25 Feb 2013.

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